It wasn’t entirely the HP ump’s fault – his strike zone was, uh, um, inaccurate and too many strikes were called balls (unless they were “strike” 3 to Corporan) but Bud had trouble with his grip or something and he looked more like the 2010 Bud than this year’s version.
He managed to hold the Rays to only 1 run/inning in the first 3 innings, then had a 1,2,3 out 4th. He also had a 1,2,3 5th because he picked Matt Joyce, who had singled, off base. He gave up 3 walks, 1 intentional on the 4th ball and 6 hits, but no homers.
It wasn’t the best of nights, but he’s had worse.
But what on earth has happened to Brett Wallace? He’s had the June from he!! – he has more walks (16) than hits (15) and his last XBH was 2 weeks ago. Over the past week, he’s had only 2 walks and 3 infield singles. He hasn’t put a good swing on ANY pitch. You talk about slump. Today, with bases loaded, 2 out, and Wade Davis looking tired, he had 2 really good pitches in the meat of the strike zone, but something is wrong with his swing and he was late on both, fouling them off and he eventually grounded out weakly. Was this a result of all the benching against leftys?
Clank, for once, hit a solid double to right center for a RBI double with Pence on first and Pence hit a RBI double off the scoreboard with Kepp on first. Matt Downs, playing SS, made only 1 error, flew out, grounded out, hit into a GIDP with 2 on 2 out and was HBP. He also made a lousy throw on what should have been a 3-6-1 DP. He is worse than Kepp at short, if that’s possible. Chris Johnson hit the ball very well every time up, but Upton made a good catch of one and a great catch of another – reminded me of Edmonds catching Brad Ausmus’ fly ball in the last game of the 04 NLCS. Except it wasn’t what would have been the game winning hit. Reminded Bagwell, broadcasting with Brownie and JD, of The Good Ol Days when the Astros weren’t a laughingstock (although he didn’t quite put it that way…)
Strange to see Kyle Farnsworth, who hasn’t ever been that good, as a close and doing well. He was a 47th round pick of the Cubs back in ’94. He’s not had a good time at the Box, but he got two GIDPs in each of the 2 innings he pitched – Matt Downs to end the 8th and Jason Michaels to end the 9th.
sigh
We still got that death grip on last place.
Tomorrow, it’s J Happ vs Jeff Niemann.
Amazing how well the Rays have done in spite of losing their entire bullpen and their good SS and LF. Must be something about Gerry Hunsicker….
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB, Rays, Tampa Bay Rays
The Astros have:
No pitchers
No hitters
No bull pen.
That’s a recipe for at least a 100 game losing season. WOW……..that’s cold.
…and they’re BORRRRING!
The base running blunder set the tone for the night, I was listening to Milo on 740 and was just jaw dropped. AA ball move, base running 101 by “professional’s”…go figure,,,
wallace is a bust in my mind,, i watched him hard to add to my fantasy club, but the guy has nt hit near what he should to keep his job,,another Wade Bust, or Heck, or Tal Smith,, oh wait, Tal does nt take any credit of ranything around there, so Wallace is nt his fault..whole org is a joke,, buy one adult tix and 2 kids get in free, however we are going to count that against the attendance for the night,,,Drayton should be ashamed of the product that is on the field at Enron…pathetic ball,,,now MLB is going to take longer to approve Captain Hooks proposal to purchase and I believe that its, as you stated, more debt than dough, in his funding of the purchase…100 loses here we come…”Hope springs eternal” a wiseman once said,, well not in Houston…A Doug Radar Astro Buddy, NastyDog
NastyDog…….if you think Drayton McLane is ashamed, you better think twice!
He has N O interest in this club anymore. Not since 2yrs. ago, when he got
serious about selling the Astros. He could care less, that this whole club sucks.
He’s gonna let Ed Wade take the “fall” for the failures we see! Drayton is already
counting his pennies from the impending sale of this team! Jim Crane will be so
broke, he won’t know which way to turn, after (or *IF*) the sale goes through!!!!
Brad Mills? He was handed a sh$t team, and told to make a contender out
of it. If Mills gets fired, (or resigns) that will be the best day of his life. Would YOU
want to take on his task??? NOPE!! I love my Astros……and I can’t stand to see
this team keep going down the tubes…..but, it’s ALL laid right in Drayton and Wade’s lap.
agreed
drayton lost all interest in this team after he destroyed any hope of winning in 08 with his childish petulant insistence on ognoring hurricane Ike and the team went down the tubes. he didn’t have purpura to blame any longer, insisted on keeping a managerHE hired who couldn’t manage and who the entire team disrespected and just quit on us in a fit of sulk.
if crane does get hold of this team (please God, NOOOOOO) we will be sunk for decades like the pirates – won’t matter to crane because he won’t have to pay off any real debt and he’ll get plenty of money from the yankees/red sox/MLBAM and whatever frank mccourt stuff he can pull off
and if we get put in the AL west in the next re-alignment, we’ll have marlins type crowds. well, except for the groups of kids they bring in. crane will blame everything on the fans/yankees and will sit around collecting rev sharing
Becky.I would say Bourn, Keppinger, and Pence are pretty good hitters, but after that you are correct we have none.
Different day, same result. Brad Mills will be the next to go. Man, oh man.