Thursday/Friday, July 1/2, 2010

Astros 6
Padres 3

W: Sampson | L: Gregerson | S: Lindstrom

Astros.com
Gamezone

I thought I’d post a picture of myself during the game last night, to sort of give you an idea of how much I appreciate west coast games. You know, I’m still relatively young and I enjoy watching the Astros, even this season, but damn if I can’t get past 10:30 on a work night when I’m sitting in front of a TV/computer. This one was over at 1:41 AM my time and evidently, it was a good one.

As they have been apt to do, the Astros went up early. In the 2nd, a solo shot by Michaels followed shortly after by a Kepp 2-run single gave Moehler a 3-0 lead. He made it stand up over 5+ innings, giving up just 1 Padre run in the 5th.

The lead lasted until the 7th when Wilton Lopez found the sleeping bats of Capistrano. A lead-off triple by Hundley was followed by a fantastic play by Berkman, a diving snag of a liner off the bat of one of the Hairstons that kept Hundley at 3rd. A sac fly got the Padres within 1 with 2 out but back-to-back singles by Gwynn and fuckingeckstein knotted the game right before that greedy little fuck was gunned down at 2nd on a great throw by Q.

I read that it went to extras and in the top of the 10th, the Good Guys took control. After Greg Gregerson got 2 quick outs, Q walked, then Navarro singled to set up Mr. Bourn with 1st and 2nd. He took the 3rd straight limpy slider and smacked it to the gap in RCF, scoring both runners and leaving him standing at 3rd. More weak-ass shit tossed to Kepp got Bourn home and the Astros had a 3-run cushion that Lindstrom saved.

See if the the hot streak continues tonight/tomorrow as Oswalt faces Latos @ 10:10 EDT.

Check out Limey’s “Whale Vagina”.

Astros 55, Brewers 1
W: Wandy Rodriguez, L: Dave Bush

Astros Recap
Game Zone

With 7 innings of 1 run baseball, a suicide squeeze, and a walk made for good results and made Wandy the man of the day.

There were other Astros that contributed on the day, such as Geoff Blum 2 for 2 with 3 runs and Chris Johnson was 4 for 4. Bourn made a leaping catch at the wall.

This was also the 10th win out of 13 games on Wednesday. Too bad they can’t play only on Wednesdays.

Other news:

All the reasons being posted in the Talk Zone about why Paraguay should win or just reasons to attend the games made me think of the real reasons you should enjoy the world cup.

Such as:

England's Midfielder Frank Lampard

A strong Pole playing for the Germans Lukas Podolski

Carlos Bocanegra USA!USA! USA!

Retired Swedish Player Freddie Ljungberg

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Milwaukee 7 | Houston 5 |
Michael Bourn 1 | Jim Edmonds 0

Astros.com Recap
Gamezone

Often you hear about the game within the game. It was never more evident when the irony of irony happened early in the battle between the Brewers and the Astros. With the score at goose-eggs for both sides, up steps Jim Edmonds, one time considered *THE* premiere centerfielder in the MLB. Taking a page from days of yore when he was a feared hitter, Edmonds took a Brett Myers fastball offering and smashed it to dead center. Cue today’s premiere centerfielder, Houston’s own Michael Bourn. Running with his back to the infield, trying to track the flight of the ball as he ran, Bourn made one final adjustment and at the last minute extended the glove out and made what can only be described as a spectacular over the shoulder catch.

All that was left is for Bourn to smile, nay laugh out loud (Yes, the proverbial LOL personified), as he ran back to his normal position. It’s great when you see Bourn amuse himself with his exploits, but it’s just that much more enjoyable when it is done against a player who often times had the penchant to make the spectacular out of the routine to frustrate opponents. That laugh is going to be a highlight of this miserable season just because it is so much fun to replay over and over again.

Now for the game itself. What can be said other than if you allow four flyballs to get out of the park, then you don’t give Bourn and his outfield friends to help you. Brett Myers had a horrible start in this game, allowing five runs early all to score on Brewer round-trippers. One of them against his opposing pitcher too. It is to the credit of the Astros that they did not mail it in after those five went on the scoreboard. It is as if both Milwaukee and Houston decided to play AL ball, no pitching, all offense. The final score says that the Astros were too little too late to pull out a win, but in the end, you can take Myer’s opinion and shake your head in agreement:

“My job, when we score runs, is to go out there and not let them score,” he said. “I wasn’t able to do that tonight. Everything felt fine and everything looked fine coming out, but you make bad pitches and good pitches and they were hitting them. They had a good approach tonight.”

Thank you Mr. Myers, how refreshing to read someone take accountability for their own performance. Day game today to see who take the rubber game of the series.

Astros at Brewers, 6/28/2010
Astros 9, Brewers 5
W: Chacin (1-0) L: Coffey (2-2)
HR: Bourn (1) dropping it upper tank; Braun (11)

Well, this followed a familiar pattern. The good guys dropped an early score on a defensive breakdown, as Bud showed his aversion to Miller by throwing away a pickoff throw, leading to a cheap RBI single for Braun. The Brewers continued to press the advantage, using a fluke double from their pitcher (off Johnson’s glove) and a nice cross from Hart to go up by an insurmountable 4-0 in the first half.

Sorry… too much World Cup.

The Beautiful Game

Milwaukee. Not Beautiful.

Anyways, the Good Guys started the comeback when Bourn hulked up to smash a home run, his first in about fifty kajillion at bats. This, and his 4-6 night, would soothe the pain of later being rung up for a third strike after attempting to call time and step out of the box.

Bud settled down, only giving up Braun’s solo HR to make it 5 runs thru 5 innings, and the bullpen took care of the rest, with Chacin, Byrdak, Lyon, and Fulchino taking care of business.

Amazingly, the Astros got big offensive contributions from Feliz and Lee in the later innings, chipping in a couple runs apiece, to make this a 9-5 win for your non-last-place Houston Astros!

Check back again tonight as Houston’s ace takes the hill.