Astros defeat Mariners 6 -1

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

It was almost the end of magic Wednesday and the clock was ticking down. It was a quarter to midnight and the Astros were trailing the Seattle Mariners by a score of one to nothing. The Astros had lost the previous six games in a row and were looking at a last chance ninth inning to stop the flow of losses.

Jordan Lyles pitched a real nice game, scattering 3 hits and 2 walks across 7 innings while striking out 10 batters. His mound opponent, Jeremy Bonderman was equally up to the task going 8 innings, surrendering 3 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5.

Hector Ambriz faced two batters in the 8th without retiring one, though one reached base on an error to Marwin Gonzalez. Travis Blackley relieved Ambriz and got two outs before giving up a single to Nick Franklin that allowed Endy Chavez to score the Mariners’ only run. Paul Clemens came in and got the last out of the eighth.

Tom Wilhelmsen came in to close the game for Seattle but Jason Castro had another plan as he singled to center. J. D. Martinez liked Castro’s plan and singled to left, moving Castro to second. Carlos Corporan agreed with the plan and sacrificed himself for the plan, moving Castro to third, and Martinez to second.

Wihelmsen was thinking about a change in plans and intentionally walked Carlos Pena to load the bases for Chris Carter, who had plans of his own and doubled to deep left, scoring Castro and Trevor Crowe (who had come in to pinch run for J. D.), and moving Pena to third. Jimmy Paredes came in to pinch run for Carter. Wilhelmsen, realizing his plan wasn’t working, intentionally walked Matt Dominguez and then vacated the mound for Yoervis Medina to take over.

Yoervis Medina first batter was Brandon Barnes who singled to left, scoring Pena and moving Paredes, who should have scored, to third and Dominguez to second. The next batter, Marwin Gonzalez, struck out swinging. Jose Altuve followed with a single that scored Paredes and Dominguez and moved Barnes to third.

Charlie Furbush (love that name) came in to relieve Medina and walked Castro, then walked Crowe, scoring Barnes for the sixth run of the inning. With two out and the bases loaded Furbush got Corporan to strike out and end the Astros half of the ninth. Clemens stayed in for a three-up-three-down ninth and 6-1 victory.

It was about 15 minutes to 12 pm (CST) when the Astros last chance inning started. By the time the clock struck midnight, the Astros had scored six runs. The team found their focus and attacked Seattle’s weaknesses, or the Wednesday magic happened, or Wodan woke up from his nap. Whatever, the team staged a sweet come from behind victory. It was severely needed and stopped the losing streak at six games.

The Astros’ avoided the series sweep and raised their record for Wednesday games to 8 and 3. The Astros have Thursday off and come home to begin a series against the White Sox on Friday.

Mariners 4, Astros 0

Contributed by Reuben

Good God what a pitiful effort by the Houston hitters in this one. I stayed awake until 12:30 in the morning to watch this parade of futility?

I’m just glad JD Martinez was able to manage an infield single to the 6 hole early on, otherwise this game would’ve just been 2+ hours of fear. Fear that the Astros would actually get no-hit by this uncouth gorilla, this – embarrassingly enough – Astro-killer, who is now 14-9 in his career vs. them, making him 94-101 against all other teams. Aaron Harang, who has been in the majors since 2002, and just REFUSES to go away and spare us the sight of him in a baseball uniform.

Bud Norris certainly didn’t deserve to lose this game, but unfortunately for him, Ronny Cedeno was playing shortstop tonight, and the Astro hitters reached what one can only hope is their nadir amidst an awful string of poor hitting. Was it really that bad? Did they not hit any balls hard at all? Well, no. Almost. JD hit a ball very well in the 7th or 8th, for his 2nd single – he was the only Astro to record any base hits. Barnes hit a ball hard that ricocheted off the Seattle SS, Ryan, and was ruled an error. Dominguez hit one or two hard liners that were run down.

But that was pretty much it. Altuve continues to look lost, either pulling off the ball or feebly swinging at junk in the dirt and a foot outside. He looks like the 2011 rookie version of himself, swinging out of his shoes at anything within an 8 foot radius. When Crowe bats, he looks like he’s holding a wet newspaper and trying to defend himself against a gang of muggers. Each Ronny Cedeno plate appearance looks like a caricature of Hunter Pence’s worst at-bat ever. Why anyone would ever throw him a fastball over the plate is beyond me, and yet Harang threw him two right down the middle in the same AB tonight. Cedeno completely missed both of them.

I can only assume ol’ Ronny is THE best clubhouse guy, ever, because, well, he appears to suck quite badly at both the offensive and defensive parts of the game. Surely some other barely-major-league-caliber SS has been DFA’d or waived recently, somewhere? At the very least, he has demonstrated quite conclusively that he does not deserve to start a single game while Marwin Gonzalez is able-bodied and available.

Alright… I see that this has gone on long enough, so I won’t even start on Chris Carter. Time to get some sleep.
[/end harangue]

Kansas City 2, Houston 0

W: Crow (2-1)
L: Ambriz (1-3)

The bright sunlight revealed much more than just a game today. I don’t know if both teams took some extra turns at the bar last night, but this was a sluggish, phoned-in affair from the start. Wild early, Harrell threw 51 pitches in the first two innings before making a correction and shutting down the weak Royals offense through seven.

Across the way, 2011 PCL Pitcher Of The Year Luis Mendoza was far more than the feeble Astro bats could deal with, mustering four hits and a walk in seven innings. Houston did actually get runners on, which is more than the Royals did after the second, but the customary 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position tells you what you need to know about how brutal this team is at the plate.

A casual observer might earmark a special place in Hell for Chris Carter’s ineffectiveness with the bat – a .220 average and 90 strikeouts in 61 games – but there’s oh so much more damnation to go around.

90 strikeouts in 205 at-bats, by the way, extrapolates to 239 whiffs in 544 AB over 162 games. I guess I’m going to have to go back to my sabermetrics library and find out why strikeouts are such a lovable little out or it’s stroke time, baby, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

Harrell had needed only 48 pitches for the last five innings, but Porter declined to send him out for the eighth even though he was clearly cruising. “I wasn’t going to send him back out there and put him in position to get the loss,” Porter said. “You send him back out there, now he’s at 115 or 116 pitches with men on base. Now, you’re going to bring somebody else into the game and he’s in position to get a loss. He did a great job. It’s a positive start for him and we got him out of the game on a good note.”

So now we are coddling the delicate psyches of millionaires, expecting them to fail and spending more effort in making sure they get a little Happy Time every fifth day instead of getting them to do their goddamn job like the rest of us? What the fuck, Porter? Take out a tough gamer in the middle of a great stretch because you expect him to fail in order to bring in someone, anyone from the bullpen who is nearly guaranteed to blow up?

Cue the entrance of The Immolator. Ambriz pops in and throws the flaming rag onto the pile of tinder. Getz singles and easily steals second. With two lefthanders following and Porter unconcerned about Ambriz’ sense of failure, he doesn’t walk Gordon, doesn’t bring in a lefty – no, he lets The Immolator give up another single to center.

Getz then scores the only run necessary for KC on a horrific throw by Crowe, who not only ignores the cutoff man and the trailing runner moving into scoring position but he also flies the throw so far up the 1B line that Salvy Perez’ grandma could’ve chugged home for the winner.

Carter was also responsible for the most glaring example of lackadaisical play, allowing Hosmer to advance from first to third on Perez’ single to left when he failed to hustle or recognize what was happening right in front of him.

This was a frustrating loss, after Harrell had pitched well enough to win. Porter succeeded in keeping Harrell out of the losing column, but taking a position with a lower expectation of success than the status quo in order to let players feel some sense of accomplishment instead of failure is a doomed strategy, at least when it comes to this bullpen. All it tells me is that he doesn’t have the confidence necessary to keep players playing, and that he’s sold out to shuffling the deck, chasing short-term successes in some kind of statistical circle jerk. Maybe Porter is the guy for a team of chumps and kids, but this doesn’t give me any confidence at all that he’ll be the right manager for a team with real talent.

Royals 7 Astros 2

contributed by Mr. Happy

Erik Bedard toed the slab tonight for the Good Guys, and he had two problems that plagued his performance and that collared him with his third loss. Bedard either couldn’t throw a strike, walking three in 4.2 frames, or he caught too much of the plate, where, when he found the plate, the Royals popped three two-baggers off of him. Frankly, I’ve seen enough of Bedard. His value is as a long reliever and place holder until Cosart is ready, which I hope and pray is very soon.

The Royals jumped on the Astros in the bottom of the first inning, scoring two runs, which by themselves were almost enough for the efficient and stingy Ervin Santana, who allowed two runs on five hits in seven innings of work, striking out six and walking none, tossing 96 pitches. In what was a case of too much too little too late, Chris Carter’s home run, his 13th, in the seventh inning off of Santana was the only real Astros offensive highlight. The other good notes on the game included yet another hit for scrappy Brandon Barnes, whose BA is .292, and Brad Peacock tossing 3.1 innings of two hit one run baseball.

The Royals go for the broom tomorrow afternoon against Lucas Harrell.

My first week of work here in Toledo went very well. The campus folks are delightful, and the campus is beautiful. I move into my apartment this week. I’ve been camping out at some upscale student housing. You should see how nice this place is. Granite kitchen tops. Full kitchen, with microwave and dishwasher. Washer and dryer. It’s not anything remotely similar to what I lived in at college. Kids should be beating down the doors to live here. LSU continues its Super-Regional series against Oklahoma, besting the Sooners and Jonathan Gray last night 2-0. Geaux Tigers!!!

contributed by NeilT

Most of you have heard how her mean neighbor, Grocer McLane, wanted to put down Astroleena’s little mascot, Orbit. As she clutched Orbit to her breast and fled the Harris County Domed Stadium, she heard her Auntie Emmet call, “Astroleena, no! Hunker down! The Domed Stadium’s coming down in the next cyclone!” And of course the cyclone came a-twisting and carried Astroleena, little green Orbit, and the Domed Stadium away to a strange, strange place.

As she awoke, Astroleena found herself surrounded by small, wee second basemen. “We’re the Altuves,” they said in unison, “except for that guy over there in the Vandy jersey. You’ve killed her! Or at least your Domed Stadium did!” And sure enough, poking out from beneath the Domed Stadium were two hideously disfigured bird feet wearing a pair of sparkly orange cleats.

“What! No! I haven’t killed anyone.”

Suddenly the hideous bird feet melted away. “Ding dong” sang the Altuves in unison, “the Wicked Witch of the East ain’t dead. You seem to have let her get away with the series. But look! She left her sparkly orange cleats! At least you got something.”

And then Astroleena’s gaze followed the Altuve’s eyes upward as a beautiful woman in a tight besequined gown floated down from heaven.

“Hooray!” cried the Altuves, “it’s the Good Fairy Lola!”

She was a fine-looking woman, though with an oddly husky voice. “You must be a very powerful witch, to have played the Orioles such a good series.”

“I’m not a witch at all, I’m only a little girl, Astroleena from Houston. Where am I?”

“You’re in the marvelous Land of Bud, also known as the American League.”

“But I want to go home to Houston.”

The good fairy pondered. “I can’t help you, but perhaps the great and powerful Wizard of Bud can. You must follow the chalk lines to the Brewery City and ask the great and powerful Wizard. And put on those sparkly orange cleats, I think you’ll find them very stylish.”

As Astroleena laced up the cleats she gazed at her little mascot Orbit. “Orbit,” sighed Astroleena, “I think we’re in Kansas.”

***
Royals 4
Astros 2

Lyles went 7 innings, giving up 6 hits and two earned runs, off a Perez HR in the 4th. It was another excellent performance by a starter, though maybe a bit wild. He threw 100 pitches and only 61 strikes. Only one walk though.

Wright pitched to one batter in the 8th, Hosmer, who singled. Fields came in for Wright and Hosmer scored the go-ahead run on a Butler double. Johnson then scored on a Lough double. It was plenty enough.

The bats were not particularly effective against Shields, who went 7. There was not, as the saying goes, just enough offense. In the 1st, 2nd, and 4th runners were stranded at 3rd. I hate that. Barnes scored on a Crowe triple in the top of the third. Gonzalez scored on a Castro double in the 7th. The next 7 Astros lined up to go down, so to speak.

Today is another day.