The good thing about Monday night's game against the Giants? 713. Despite his team's offensive explosion, Barry Bonds had to settle for just an RBI double. Taylor Buchholz was hit hard early and often as the Astros fell to the Giants 10-1 at Minute Maid.
There isn't much good to recap. Randy Winn led off the game with a bomb to right, and everything went downhill from there. After another run scored in the 1st, a Mike Matheny sac fly in the 2nd made it 3-0. The 3rd inning proved to be Buchholz's undoing when, after Bonds' double to make it 4-0, Mike Sweeney was intentionally walked with one out to load the bases. Scraps and Buchholz got burned in the worst possible way with the move, as Pedro Feliz went yard to left field for a grand slam. Down 8-0 after three innings, Buchholz was done, his ERA climbing from 2.16 to 5.31 in one night. Maybe we all saw Taylor's hot streak coming to end at some point, but nobody probably expected it to be this bad.
The only (rather inconsequential) run the Astros scored was a 5th-inning Mike Lamb RBI double, scoring Willy Taveras from first.
Dave Borkowski gave up a couple of runs you care nothing about. Mike Gallo, Russ Springer, and Brad Lidge each pitched 3-up 3-down innings in the 7th, 8th, and 9th. In a game where "the guys were looking to have some fun" (Jim Deshaies, speculating on how the players feel in games like this), Andy Pettitte pinch-hit and Brad Ausmus played second base. Awesome.
Wandy Rodriguez and Jamey Wright match up on Tuesday night at 7:05pm CDT.
