GAME 60 - June 4: Lights Out

Pittsburgh 5, Houston 2

Quote of the Day: "Call this loss uninspired." (Alyson Footer, convincing me not to bother watching this game)

The lights were out for this game, all right, but it wasn't from Roy O's pitching. It was the huge vicious storm that raced through the Washington Metro area around 3 PM, which knocked out the power to a good part of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. My whole neighborhood was dark, as a couple of follow-up squalls dumped more rain on us. I spent the evening on the living room couch, playing Twist It on my computer by candle light, instead of watching the ballgame, since we lost our Internet connection along with everything else. Every few minutes I refreshed the browser screen on my Blackberry to get an update on the game, so I could track the progress as Roy O had another short and unproductive start, and the batting order failed to back him up with any support.

Old friend Chammo did the damage in this game, hitting in 3 of the Pirates' 5 runs. The Astros first run scored on Wiggington's solo homer to lead off the third inning. The second came in the sixth, when Tejada walked, stole second, and scored on Lee's single.

Alyson Footer described the Astros' play in this game as "uninspired," kind of like the very small crowd that came to see it on a night when the hockey finals were being played in town. She used the word "sluggish," too, describing not only the paltry offense, but also sloppy defensive play including a pair of errors by Berkman and Wiggington. Oswalt only lasted 6 innings in his 6th loss of the season, giving up 3 runs on 9 hits, a walk, and 4 strikeouts. Not lights out - like the Washington area - but not terrible. And not unsurmountable either - unless of course, your team cannot score more than 2 runs. And that seems to be the recent rule: In the last week, the Astros have scored 2 runs in 3 of the games, and only 1 run in 4 of them, losing 6 of 7 in the process.

Words like "uninspired" and "sluggish" didn't exactly make me want to run home from work to watch this game on the MLB.tv archive. I'm writing it up from the stats and recaps, and let's just leave it at that.