GAME 26: A Dark and Gloomy Night - and Wet Too!

May 4: Nationals 9, Astros 4

Let's start with the good news: I met some nice Astros fans at the cold, rainy opening game of the big (2 games!) series in Washington. While the Jumbotron was featuring the Fan of the Game contest - all Nats fans, oddly enough - I was sitting right behind a youngster who has great taste in favorite players, as shown by his #5 Bagwell hat. Grayson's dad might have season tickets for the Nats, but when the Astros come to town, he knows who to cheer for. Sitting right over the Astros dugout, Grayson was in a great place to score a game ball - and finally at the end of the game, he got it, courtesy of another fan in Astros regalia.

Houston fans Meg and Mary were also at the game, out to cheer for their team despite the icky weather. Now I think that Mary and Grayson would have been great candidates for F-o-t-G, and it's outrageous that they should be overlooked just because they don't cheer for the Nats. Discrimination! However, I can do my little part to rectify the situation by naming them the Astros Fan in Exile Fans of the Game!

Now for the bad news: After waking up with all the symptoms of a bad cold (no, not swine flu!), I almost hoped that the first game of the Astros-Nats series would be called for rain! It rained all day, and I checked the hour-by-hour weather predictions constantly: Rain, showers, rain, showers, rain predicted all day. By late afternoon it was fluctuating between mist and light rain. Since the Nats' game on Sunday was postponed due to the weather, I guessed correctly that barring a hurricane they were going to play through the precipitation on Monday. So I packed up my kleenex and my Dollar Store rain poncho, and headed for the subway, to meet up with my brave soul friend Marlene at the stadium.

It's hard to say what contributed the most to the unfortunate outcome of the game. It was a foregone conclusion that Brian Moehler wasn't going to pitch deep on his first appearance after his stint on the DL. Sure enough, he threw only 5 innings (93 pitches), giving up 2 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks, striking out 5. A credible return to the mound, but a short one. That meant that the Astros would have to put more innings on a tired and injury-depleted bullpen.

I predicted in my last blog entry that Coop's propensity for the sacrifice would go beyond the all those bunts, and that the overuse of the pen in Atlanta was sacrificing the series in Washington. So I wasn't all that surprised when it was a meltdown by the pen that gave the Nats a big lead. The box score shows just 1/3 of the sixth inning each for Wright and Paulino, but the fine print tells the dismal story - 10 batters between them, 5 runs on 3 hits, 4 walks, and a hit batter. Then Fulchino came to pitch for the rest of the game - 46 pitches over 2 1/3 innngs. He gave up another pair of runs, but that was just something to entertain the few die-hard hometown fans who were crazy enough to sit through the whole game in the rain.

The bullpen was our Achilles heel, but the weather didn't help matters: It ranged from misty to drizzly to rainy over the course of the game. In the sixth, when the bulk of the trouble came, it was coming down pretty steadily. I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a factor in the lack of control by the Astros pitchers in that inning. It may have also affected the home plate ump's ability to see the game clearly. My fellow blogger RoundRock15 questioned two of the "balls" on the at-bat that resulted in Paulino's walking in a run in the sixth.

It wasn't all gloom and doom - the Astros got on the scoreboard right away. Matsui led off the game with a bunt single, stole second, and scored easily on Berkman's double. In the fifth, the Astros added three more runs on back-to back singles by Keppinger and Towles, followed by back-to back doubles by Matsui and Bourn. (And, yes, of course there was a sac bunt by Moehler in between!) Bourn, unfortunately was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple - he would have scored easily since Berkman and Lee both singled behind him.

Other offensive numbers: Matsui was 2 for 3, with 2 RBI and 2 runs scored. Lee went 3 for 4 Berkman was 2 for 4 with an RBI - he briefly flirted with a batting average over .200. Is it too early to say that he's coming out of his April slump?

Before leaving this game report, I have to give kudos to my friend Marlene, who is not a baseball fan but who came out in the rain to watch this one with me. We had great seats, a few rows back behind first base, courtesy of my friend Chuck. But sitting near the field meant sitting in the rain. Marlene didn't last quite as long as Moehler, but she did give it a good try - and she provided sandwiches and Israeli chocolates. After she left, I moved across the sparsely populated stadium and spent the rest of the game in the second row over the Astros dugout. That means I have a lot of pretty good photos of a pretty bad game. (Pretty good for a rainy night game, at least.) I'll post more on my Astros Fan in Exile Photo Album as soon as I get a chance to format them.

Another day, another game. Today it's Roy O on the mound for the Astros. Let's hope for a complete game - and his first win of the season!