Pirates 5, Astros 4

W: McCutchen (1-0)
L: Abad (1-3)
HR BFJ (4), Doumit (3)

Another May day, another starting pitcher treated as though they were the Ghost of Christy Mathewson. James McDonald, who’s gotten the crap kicked out of him in his last three starts, invoked the presence of Master Of Them All today in Steeltown by limiting the Astros to three hits and lots of badly missed pitches in his six shutout innings.

On the other side of the diamond, J.A. Happ pitched in and out of trouble but kept the light-hitting Pirates to two runs through six.

Provided with a 2-0 lead, the previously reliable Buc bullpen flamethrower Chris Resop gave up a blast by Chris Johnson and a single by Hall. Quintero followed by rapping a double, scoring Bill Hall to tie the game. With no outs and Q on second, Angel Sanchez dumped a bunt down the third base line, charged by Brandon Wood. Quintero, running on the play and rounding third by the time the ball was fielded, took advantage of Wood’s wait for the second baseman to cover first and kept running for home. He beat the throw to give the Astros the lead in one of the more spectacular plays we’ll see this season.

Serve it up, rag arm.

Fulchino held the lead in the seventh and turned it over to the bin Laden of the bullpen for the eighth. Allowing Walker and Pearce to reach, Abad gave up the game-winning three-run jack to Ryan Doumit and the Astros lost. Once again, a difficult situation gave way to excitement and the promise of fulfillment, only to be snatched away in favor of dazed head-scratching and disillusion. I think this will help explain.

Read about it in the GameZone or the Astro recap.

But The Astros Put Up Nary A Fisticuff, And Succumbed Meekly

PIRATES 6, ASTROS 1

Saturday May 7, 2011
PNC Park

PITTSBURGH (SnS) – The Houston Astros wasted a pretty good pitching effort by somewhat erratic starter Bud Norris here Saturday evening, and fell helplessly to the underwhelming Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-1. Read More

It was a pitcher’s duel on this night with Wandy Rodriquez of the Houston Astros squaring off with Pat Maholm of the Pittsburgh nine.  Maholm looked for all the world to be a man destined for an early exit from the game the way things started for him on the night.  In the first, the Astros leadoff hitter and red-hot Jason Bourgeois singled, stole second, advanced to third on Michael Bourn’s single and then scored on Hunter Pence’s long fly ball to right.  The ‘stros promptly continued to put pressure on Maholm, but the “bend but do not break” rule came into play and no more damage was inflicted.

After that, both pitchers threw up zeros at opposing hitters for pretty much the whole game.  Wandy held the Pyroots down until they broke through for the tying run in the fifth.  Maholm, for his part, settled down and baffled the Astros as he is prone to do at PNC park.  The game stayed tied until the 7th when Neil Walker jumped on a low fastball and cleared the fence to give the Buccos the lead, 2-1.  Wandy pitched a dandy of a game, so it would have been lousy had he walked away with a loss to show for it.  Instead, the Astros came back and pushed across a run when Michael Bourn led off the inning with a single and scored on a Pence double to right.  “There are ribeyes out there son!”  Pence then scored the go ahead run on a Carlos Lee single and now Wandy was in line to win a game.

So for their part, the team made the lead stick and newly anointed closer Mark Melanchon closed the deal in the ninth earning his first save of his career.  Here is hoping for many more to come.  Good game and the Astros and Pirates go at it again on Saturday in game two of the series.

Gamezone

Astros.com game report

You’d think with Senor Myers launching la pelota at Los Rojos de Cincinatti, that Los Astros would be looking a good chance of a series win.  Bring in la escoba!  Alas, it was not to be on this dia muy bonito, as Myers and his compadres in the bullpen did a great job of regalando a win to Cincy.

Aye Dios mio!

Los Astros had a chance in this game when it seemed all but improbable.  What is turning out to be the profile for this 2011 version of nueve pelloteros is you cannot count them out.  Down 6-1 in the game and Myers in the showers, el equipo de Houston battled back and had the tying run on second base after scoring two runs and pulling off an aggressive double steal.  The best hitter on the team was at bat, so this looked good.  But el joven Brett Wallace bounced a two hopper to third to end the threat.  After that, Nelson “el launcho” Figuero just totally put the game out of reach by tossing batting practice and allowing Los Rojos to safely add to the lead and put this one away.

Now on to Pittsburgh and mano a mano con los Piratas!

Astros 2, Reds 3
W: Francisco Cordero, L: Brandon Lyon

Recap and Boxscore
Game Zone

The Astros came into this game on a 3-game winning streak. Their longest win streak of the short season. This was a great game to watch. New starting pitcher for the Astros, Aneury Rodriguez , pitched 5 innings of 1-hit (which should have been an E9) and 1-walk baseball. Wilton Lopez, Fernando Abad, Mark Melancon and even Jeff Fulchino combined to pitched 3 innings of scoreless baseball.

The Astros hitter got 2 runs in the third off a JR Towles double, then a sacrifice by Rodriguez, a walk by Bourn, a single by Bourgeious, a single by Pence and a GiDP by Mr. Wallace to leave Bourgeious stranded on the bases.

Not much else happened offensively for the Astros.

The Reds were able to score 3 (because they didn’t need anymore) off of Brandon Lyon. He didn’t have a good outing. You can read the GameZone if you need more reaction.

The make up game from Monday’s rainout is today. You can read about it in Ebby Calvin’s preview or post in the GameZone’s Game Day Thread.

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!!! Have a drink for me.