I can hardly believe it – for the first time this year, the Astros have won a road series – in fact, this is the ONLY series we have won this May. In fact, we won TWO road games in a row!!!

Andy Pettitte, who missed his last start because of a tight elbow or something like that (ahem) was lights out. Which was a damm good thing because the Astros hitters managed to barely scratch out 2 runs against Chris Capuano, who got Clemensed (yes – it’s my new word for a pitcher who goes for 7 innings and gives up 2 runs or less and still loses or gets a ND).

Of course we had yet ANOTHER lineup tonight – Biggio has a sore hip and Viz had some sort of family leave so we were a little short tonight. Anyway, Taveras, who is 6 for his last 29 with NO walks, GO, then Bruntlett singled, then got his fool self picked off – Lamb homered on the next pitch and instead of it’s 2 – 0, it’s 1-0. I’m GLAD that Lamb seems to be FINALLY breaking out of his 1/27 with 4 BB slump.

So then Andy gives up a leadoff single to Brady Clark, then a double to Spivey (and suddenly I don’t feel real too good) but then he Ks Jenkins and Miller and Lee pops out. Then except for one walk in the third and one single in the sixth, Andy was flat out awesome. 78 pitches over 6 innings – 8 Ks, 1 BB and 3 hits and NO runs and that was all she wrote.

Capuano was decent – 7.1 IP – 5 H, 4 BB (from OUR free swinging team, that’s a miracle) and 4 Ks. He benefitted from dumb things like Bruntlett getting picked off and Ensberg getting CS on a botched hitnrun, (yet ANOTHER one) stranding Ausmus with one out in the third, Everett stranding 2 in the fourth, Lamb stranding Bruntlett at third in the fifth and Biggio then Taveras stranding Ausmus in the 7th.

Wheeler pitched the 7th and 8th, giving up only a solo HR 464′ to Chris Magruder.

Then it’s the 9th and it’s Brad Lidge. A One Run Lead – would he turn into LaTroy Hawkins???!!!

Strike 1 to Spivey, then a single to left.
Strike 2 to Jenkins, then a single up the middle.
- I’m not sure what pitch they hitting, but either they sitting on the slider or it’s lost its movement…
Carlos Lee – 2 balls, 2 strikes and he gets juuuust a little under one and pops it up to Ausmus. Whew.
Then 2 on one out for Damian Miller – and he barely gets one to move out in front of home plate and it’s Ausmus to Ensberg to Lamb for the 2-5-3 GIDP. Talk about luck. The way Brad was throwing, I was thinkin there was NO way Spivey don’t score on even a single.

So tonight, it wasn’t the usual dominating BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDDD
So I guess it was BRADDD – he gets capitals and 3 Ds for getting all 3 outs and the Save. I’ll bet poor Andy’s BP was through the roof. 8 QS for Andy and only 3 W.
So now we are 5 – 22 on the road, and I’d bet they all glad to be back home again…
—-
Oh yeah – by the way, Phil said to reporters that he isn’t ready to give up on Astacio as a starter yet (shudder) and I guess he thinks Astacio’s “stuff” is bettern Wandy Rodriguez’ but it ain’t the stuff, it’s what you do with it and as far as I can tell, Astacio needs to go back down to Round Rock to work a little more with that stuff – ERA almost 11, is ALREADY in the top 10 in the NL for HR given up. At least Duckworth can hit…

And speaking of hits, Jason Lane needs to Do SOMEthing – he’s 8 fer 68 with 5 BB, 3 runs scored and 2 CS in May with only 1 2B and 1 HR. Whatever he’s doing ain’t working…

——
In case yall curious -
team BA – .240
OBP – .300 (may be slightly higher because I didn’t have HBP numbers)
SLG – .378.
OPS – .678
according to Lee Sinins at baseball-encyclopedia.com, we are dead lst in the NL with a team (-)54 RCAA and our team leader Biggio, has 8 RCAA and only 4 guys have a positive RCAA (which sucks)

You know how I been complaining that Phil hasn’t played the hitnrun real too well?
I’m right -
We have a team 35 SB with 16 CS for a 68% success rate – not nearly good enough.
SIGH
18 down, 23 to go…..

Tags: Brewers, Houston Astros, MLB

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 29th, 2005 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Astros baseball, Mike Lamb, Pettitte. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.