Rain Delayed Loss

Posted on May 2, 2009 by BudGirl in Game Recaps

Astros 2, Brave 7

Astros did not do much on the night. They scored two runs. I give the Astros player of the game to Michael Bourn who was 2-5 on the night, with a triple, single, and a run scored. He also made some great catches in centerfield.

There were hits by other Astros, but you can check out the recap and the box score for more details.

While watching the 7 innings that I had recorded, I think it should only be a matter of time before Kazuo Matsui and Michael Bourn get switched in the batting order.

Bench Tidbits:

There was no GameZone for the night. Seems like a night to be out.

Morgan Ensberg has a job. Good luck to him.

There is a Polish festival in Houston today.

Check out Mark’s Series Preview for information about the Braves/Astros series.

Astros at Braves – Chipper, Jair, and Jo-Jo. Is This A Baseball Team or a Girlscout Troop?

Posted on May 1, 2009 by MRaup in Series Previews

~~The Edifice of Greed~~ Turner Field

After taking 2 out of 3 from the goddamn Reds, the Good Guys are off to WhiteTrashville (population 3,000,000 toothless inbred yokels, and that just covers the Chipper Jones Fan Club).

I hate a lot of teams, but there’s a special place in my cold black heart just for the Braves. I can’t see that stupid logo without thinking of “strikes” 3 inches off the outside corner, The Mongoliod Hitting Machine (Seriously, what grown man wants to be called Chipper?!), or years and years of playoff domination before the Astros finally broke through.* Fuck, I hate the Braves.

Friday, May 1, 6:30 p.m. CDT – FSN
Saturday, May 2, 2:30 p.m. CDT – FOX
Sunday, May 3, 12:30 p.m. CDT – My20

Projected Matchups from Astros.com

Friday
Mike Hampton (1-1, 3.86) v Derek Lowe (2-1, 3.10)

Hampton checked in with a pretty blah outing against the Brew Crew his last time through the rotation, giving up 4 earnies through six innings. He struck out 4, walked 3, and was cruising in the 6th when he gave up a big fly to Bill Hall that tied the game. The bullpen went on to completely shit the bed, as Valverde inexplicably threw Prince Fielder an 0-2 fastball up that Big Tubby promptly deposited in right field. Fast Forward a few innings, and the Good Guys lost. Thanks Gerry.

Hampton has only seen a few of the Braves at all. Chipper Jones (19-50, 18 singles and one home run) and Garrett Anderson (3-4, all singles) are the only guys that have had any success against him. David Ross (1-6) and Omar Infante (0-3) are the only other people that have ever faced Hampy, and clearly they suck.

Lowe is off to a pretty good start this year. He’s had one bad outing, giving up 4 runs over 5 innings against the Fish. Other than that, he’s been business as usual, getting more groundouts than flyouts (49/37) and keeping his team in the game. His last start was a doozy, 8 innings and only gave up 2 hits.

The Good Guys knock Derek around pretty good, posting a team batting average of .302 against him. Miggy (10-33) and Kabong (30-11) both have taken him deep twice, Erstad (9-24) has hit 4 doubles off him, Geoff (8-25) and Twinkie (6-20) both have taken him deep as well, and Kaz (5-11) sports a gaudy .455 average. Jason Smith (0-8) sucks against him and Pudge (5-22) has scuffled some. Everyone else has miniscule numbers of at bats against him (see Bourn and Pence, both 1 for 3).

Saturday
Roy Oswalt (0-2, 3.94) v. Jair Jurrjens (2-2, 1.72)

Roy continues to make Astros fans throw shit at their TVs, Oswalt Inninging away any lead that the offense stakes him to. He had a great outing against the Reds, giving up one run in seven innings of work. He only struck out 2, but the dominant Oswalt at least peeked his head out of the hole he’s been hiding in.

Apparently the Braves roster has mostly cycled over, as only 3 of their guys have ever faced RoyO. Chipper Jones (3-13, 3 K), David Ross (1-4), and Greg Norton (0-1) all have faced him, and all have sucked.

Jair Jurrjens parents must have hated him. What a horrible name. He sounds like something a teenage boy’s mother wouldn’t be thrilled to find on her son’s bedstand next to a wadded up Kleenex. And, judging by this picture, Jair is that teenage boy. What, too much? Anyway, Jair has somehow managed to lose two of his starts despite giving up less than 2 runs a game, a 3-0 shutout at the hands of the Pirates and a 3-2 thriller against the Redbirds in his last start.

Current Astros are a whopping 1 for 2 against him. Jason Smith has the only hit. We’re doomed. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!

Sunday
Wandy Rodriguez (2-2, 1.69) v. Jo-Jo Reyes (0-1, 4.26)

Wandy has been nothing short of awesome so far this year. When his curve is on, he’s a strikeout machine. When his curve isn’t sharp, he’s still finding ways to get outs. Against the Reds in his last start, Wandy was nothing short of brilliant, giving up just 1 earned run over 7 innings of work while striking 5 and walking only 2.

And now the bad news… Current Braves (21-64 for a .328 average with a .983 OPS)rip Wandy like the Talk Zone rips Bizidy and his extended pinky. I won’t get in to the details because this needs to be done before the game starts, and writing out 3/4 of the Braves roster will take for-damn-ever. Slacker Jones (4-7, 2 dongs), Yunel Escobar (3-6), and Brian Barton (2-3) are the ones that I’d be watching out for the most though.

Fuck Jo-Jo Reyes. A grown man named Jo-Jo gets NO love from me. Attention Jo-Jo, Joseph and Albert are BOTH acceptable names for adults. Jo-Jo is your kid sister’s name, not yours.

Current Astros crush Joseph Albert in small samplings. Carlos Lee (3-7), Miguel Tejada (1-2), and Jeff Keppinger (4-7) all knock him around good, again in small sample size. Fat Elvis (1-8), PENCE!!! (1-5), and Towles (0-2) all suck against him, say it with me now, in a small sample size.

Notable giveaways this series…

Sunday is “Bark in the Park” day, whatever the fuck that means. Kids run the bases too. Yee-fuckin-haw. That’s it. Nothing at all being given away this weekend. And people think Drayton is cheap…

Injury Report

Combined Injury Reports

So, in case you didn’t notice, MLB.com went to a new format for their injury report. The injury link takes you to a page with every team’s report on it. Pretty snazzy, until one notices that it says “Fantasy Baseball” at the top of it. Fuckers. (repeated from last week because, hey, its true.

HOU –
Aaron Boone is still on the DL with a broken heart, and probably won’t be playing at any point this season/ever again.
Brandon Backe is rehabbing in AAA right now with the Express.
Brian Moehler got shelled in Midland starting for the Hooks the other night in a rehab start.
Q is on the 15 day DL after an intense makeout session with Mike Cameron near home plate ended in disaster when he developed a sore shoulder.
El Papa Grande is on the DL with an exploded calf muscle. He can come off the DL on May 12th, but I’m not holding my breath on that after hearing they drained 15 gallons of fluid from his calf the other day. Gross.

ATL –
Garrett Anderson is on the 15 day DL with a strained quad following a ballroom dancing incident gone horribly wrong. He is scheduled to be back around May 5th.
Jorge Campillo is on the 15 day DL with tendonitis in his right shoulder, and… wait. Who the fuck is Jorge Campillo?
Tom “Snivelling Woman #2” Glavine is on the 15 day DL with an inflamed rotator cuff after throwing his arms up in frustration after not getting a strike-call on a pitch 2 feet off the outside corner.
Tim Hudson is on the 60 day DL after not using enough Jair Jurrjens while flogging the dolphin and tearing a ligament in his elbow. He’s not due back any time soon.
Brian McCann is on the 15 day DL after being too close to Hudson during the above described incident and being hit by the “splashback” in his left eye. They expect the infection to heal up in the next week or two, and Brian has said repeatedly that he’ll always wear protection from here on out while “catching” for Glavine.

Our Interesting Things To Look For

Can the starting pitching hold up?

Will Berkman be forced to retire if he can’t find the right snack to slumpbust with?

Will Michael Bourn’s head explode after Coop suggests he should learn to pitch so Coop can bat him lower in the order?

Will Jason Smith find a way to get his batting average in to negative numbers?

All this and more on this weekend’s… SERIES PREVIEW!

Discuss today’s game in the GameZone.

*You thought I was going to talk about Walt Weiss, didn’t you? Well, I won’t. Except for right now… Fuck.

Location, Boos in Atl?, Astros get one right

Posted on May 1, 2009 by pravata in News You Can Use

“I have to thank the Braves for everything that they did for me,” Hampton said. “They did everything right and I really enjoyed being around all of the guys in that clubhouse. But I wanted to be closer to my family.” That’s why he signed with Houston.

SnS Fark Contest – V1

Posted on May 1, 2009 by Noe in Austin in SNS

Never has the exploits of one player on the Houston Astros made us all stand up and notice, bringing to the forefront of our memory banks the immortal words of Jack Buck: “I can’t believe what I just saw!” Well okay, we can’t leave out the days of Mitch Melusky dressing up for the Houston nine, but let’s just leave sleeping profanity barking dogs lie, okay. Any way, Hunter Pence, the multi-talent baseball playing happy go lucky right fielder-slash-gripit’nripit-batsman is good for perhaps one, two, three hundred or so reactions from the faithful SnS crowd. He makes people very happy and very sad usually at different times in a game or series. Sometimes the cheers are aplenty for a sustained amount of time and then the boos are just as consistent for about the same amount of time, all in spurts and all just about what everyone now expects from our hero. But there is one occasion this year when the young man managed to reach new heights of making himself really stand out around here… boy howdy, did he!

So in honor of managing to make the SnS have to come up with new creative ways to voice displeasure (“your killin me Pence, killin me!”) and excitement (“Atta boy ThunderPants!”), we bring you the first ever SnS Freaking Fark contest. We intend to dedicate this contest to all Houston Astros players for some awe inspiring on field play and no doubt with such characters as Lance Berkman running the bases, Valverde taking baseballs off the noggin and Carlos Lee bulldozing teammates, we will. But there is just something special about HunterPence that just begs us to consider renaming this contest the “ThunderPants-no-he-didn’t” contest. Just saying.

So here we go, our first ever Fark contest. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present to you first the play in question with Mr. Pence, as recorded in this here fine site by our very own recap contributor MusicMan:

As far as Astros “hitting” goes, a run was scratched out on singles by Pence and Blum in the second. Berkman and Lee then won the “it’s about time” award by absolutely unloading on Arroyo for back-to-back homeruns, giving the Astros a 3-2 lead in the sixth. Following Lee’s trot, Pence slashed a single into CF. Unfortunately, the Franchise did not realize that he had hit a routine single into CF and blew right past first, resulting in the look on his face at left.

Sorry about that… I meant, the following look on his face:
penceuhoh

We can’t let a classic picture like this just go away this soon, so here we go, the call went out and numerous SnS members answered. The idea was to take the same picture, where Pence is rounding the bases to get easily thrown out by one hundred steps at second base while his teammates look on in horror (none more shocked than first base coach Jose Cruz). Here are the entries

Andyzipp

Pence and Glass Doors

Subnuclear

Pence and Glass Doors, version 2

MikeyBoy

Is that Spiderman in the dugout?

Matt

You know, Pence just maybe was having a panic attack

Lurch

Pitfall Pence

das

Yes. Yes he did!

Noe

Git'er done... git that doggie!

Ty in Tampa

Not sure what changes Ty made to this pic, looks like Pence to me.

Allison

We dare you to figure this one out! We know, but we ain't telling.

Ebby Calvin

Lance fancies himself as a baserunning coach.

Subnucelar

See, someone thinks Lance is just experiencing adult ADD is all.

Trey

Nice reset from a classic 80s movie. Really nice!

Ron Brand

Coach is everywhere!

Allison

"Pence is one cool cat in my book... *meow*"

Ty in Tampa

How do you keep Pence from running? This is one way...

Rueben

... because the typical way doesn't work!

Andyzipp

Baseball IQ? I donn need no steenkin baseball IQ!

Ty in Tampa

This is probably not far off from the real thing uttered by the bench and coach

So there you have it, our nicely done by all our contestants. It will be hard to pick a winner, but a winner we must pick indeed. Tell us what you think and who you want to see win our very first SnS Freaking Fark contest. We’ll consider your opinion ever so slightly in order to make our choice. Until then, take a bow SnS, this was FAN-tastic!

Paulino/Moehler, Ortiz skipped, Sampson over the dead arm, “MINE, dammit!” Cooper tries to explain

Posted on April 30, 2009 by pravata in News You Can Use

“There is a possibility of (Paulino) staying around and pitching out of the bullpen,” manager Cecil Cooper said. “Yes, there is a possibility.” Link

Shut-out sinks Cincy sweep

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Ty in Tampa in Game Recaps

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Astros 0
Reds 3

W: Volquez (3-2) | L: Paulino (0-2) | S: Cordero (7)
HR: Non

Katzowitz?
AP via Yahoo!
Game Zone

The seats were packed at GAB. Not all the seats were filled but the ones that were, boy howdy!

Even I know you don’t sit Berkman in Cincinnati. For some reason, Coop didn’t know this and the packed seats at Great American got to see their Pedro clone toss 8 scoreless and for a brief moment, forget how bad their team gets punked in their own house. The Good Guys could only scrape out 1 hit on the wily righty Volquez and while he didn’t go the distance, it didn’t matter to the Astros lineup. A perfect 9th by Cordero finished them off and they left Cincinnati with a series win but a 3-0 loss.

It’s a shame the bats couldn’t get it together because Felipe Paulino pitched well himself, holding the Reds to 2 runs until running out of steam with 2 outs in the 6th. He was aided early by some fine defensive play in CF as Bourn made a few stellar plays among his 6 put-outs through the first 4 innings. A triple/single in the 5th got the Dicketies on the board, then a single and sac bunt had Reds on 2nd and 3rd with one out but Paulino got a ground ball to Blum who gunned the runner at home and then a strike out to Hairston to clean up the mess.

More mess in the 6th as a Votto routine fly ball to LCF, tracked and called for by Bourn, bounced off of Carlos Lee’s glove in a classic miscommunication play. The error was given to Bourn after Votto cruised into 2nd. A K then a ground out moved Votto over to 3rd for Laynce Nix whose single on the infield to Tejada brought the unearned run home. A 4-pitch walk to the next batter ended Paulino’s night.

Sampson finished the 6th with a K and shared the scoreless 7th with Byrdak. With 2 out in the top of the 8th, pinch hitter Jason Michaels (2-3 career vs. Volquez) worked a walk and Coop finally decided that maybe this Berkman guy could hit. Lance hit a liner but right at the diving Jay Bruce in RF to end the inning.

Brocail entered the 8th to keep the score in reach and gave up a single and 2 walks to promptly load ’em up. A sac fly scored the Reds 3rd run, effectively ending it.

11-game winning streak at GAB snapped and 3 more on the road at Atlanta after an off-day. Vent your Cooper frustrations in the Talk Zone ya’ll!

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