Fans of the Day Cheer Astros to a Win!

I have met a lot of great fans in the stands at Osceola County Stadium. Some are Houstonians who are here for Spring Training and some are fans-in-exile like me. Today's blog features some big fans in each category, whose enthusiastic cheering at Friday's game helped the Astros to their first win of the month.

We sat in the first row of Section 104 Friday, next to Mitch and Kevin. They are retired and split their time between Albany NY and Florida, where they are Section 104 Season Ticket Holders. Like my colleague RoundRock15, Mitch and Kevin aren't actually from Houston - they just chose to be passionate Astros fans. Kevin had a great time at Astros Spring Training some years back, when he sat in the row behind the Enron contingent, and got to meet a lot of the players. After that, he was hooked and they've been regulars for years. That's given Mitch a lot of time to collect quite an amazing set of autographs on her hat. Her bear's jersey is reserved for a very special autograph, though - Jeff Bagwell's. This girl's got good taste!

After the game, as my sister and I were about to take our own self portrait with the field behind us, Jim, a nice man from Houston, offered to snap the photo for us. His wife Pat asked me, "Aren't you that Washington woman with the website?" Turns out that we had sat near them last year at Spring Training. Pat used to teach journalism at Houston's Westbury High School, several years after I graduated from there. Small world. They are also Astros Spring Training regulars.

Now about baseball... While our enthusiastic cheering contributed to the outcome of Friday's game against the Reds, the bulk of the credit surely belongs to Russ Ortiz. He threw six shutoutl innings, giving up only one hit and striking out two, making a strong argument for his place in the Astros rotation. Chris Sampson followed with a pair of scoreless innings.

Meanwhile, the Astros put some runs on the board, starting in the second inning with catcher Quintero's RBI single. Ortiz, batting for the first time this spring, followed with an RBI single of his own. In the sixth inning, Berkman hit his first homerun of the season, a two-run blast that gave the Astros a 4-0 lead.

The Reds did not threaten this lead until the ninth inning, when Bud Norris gave up 2 runs on a walk and a pair of doubles in a third of an inning. In a normal Spring Training, Cooper might have just left him in to tough it out, risking a loss. But winless since February, Coop didn't chance it. He pulled Norris, and brought in Fulcino who ended the thread without further damage. After the Sabbath ended tonight, I immediately checked Astros.com, and saw that Houston beat the Blue Jays 9-7 today. So the Astros now have a 2-1 record since I got to town. Let's see where it goes from here... Isn't baseball fun?

Coming Up: The Nats. I promised pictures to all my Washington area Nationals fans, so I have to remember to photograph the Other Guys at the game tomorrow. We're sitting behind home base, in Section 112, so I'll be safety net-challenged. Hopefully I can get out of my seat to shoot some pix without attracting too much attention from the old guys who tell you to sit down.