GAME 27: Stinko de Mayo

May 4: Astros 10, Nationals 10 [11 innings, so far...to be continued in July]

If a soothsayer had told you that on Tuesday the Astros would put double-digits on the scoreboard with the Wizard on the mound, what would you do? I would have jumped with joy. If that combination does not spell "WIN," it's hard to imagine what does. So Roy O was on the mound, and the Astros did indeed get 10 runs... but the Cinco de Mayo game (free t-shirts for the first 10,000) totally stunk. At least the Astros didn't lose... yet.

The last time I glimpsed my guys, they were trudging into the dugout in pouring rain, to wait out their third rain delay in the past 5 games. This was after almost 11 innings of a game that more similarities to ping pong (the scoring) and little league (the playing) than to major league baseball. Of course, I ran undercover to wait out the rain delay - I'm not one of those fans who goes home before the game is finished. An hour later they announced that the game was indefinitely postponed, to be continued... (That is actually an improvement over the bad old days, just a couple of years back, when a tie game would have been played over from scratch.)

The game ended in the bottom of the 11th with a Nats runner on first and one out. I was just as glad to see it called for rain - the Astros bullpen (the subject of much recent commentary here) had been pretty terrible, and I figured that the outcome would be a loss. The ignomy of a sweep - even a two-game one - at the hands of the worst team in baseball was too much.

Roy O had started the game, hours before, with much hype about how he'd eat up a bunch of innings and give the bullpen a much needed rest. Instead, after 5 innings and change, Oswalt was pulled due to a finger injury resulting from a bunting accident. He had a decent start, giving up 4 hits and 2 walks, with a two-run homer in the fourth accounting for the Nat's only score. His teammates helped him out for a change, with a run in the second and a four-run fifth, to give Oswalt a 5-2 lead. In the bottom of the sixth, Guzman led off with a single. Oswalt was in the middle of an at-bat by Nick Johnson when he stopped to have his finger examined. After he walked Johnson, Cooper pulled him and brought in Sampson.

It wasn't raining - yet. I don't know if Sampson's bruised foot played into the story. Whatever the cause, the Stinko de Mayo game quickly started to smell more like gorgonzola than Monterrey Jack. Sampson's first batter singled in one of Oswalt's runners. Four walks later, Oswalt's lead was gone and the Astros were now losing 6-5. That was enough of Sampson. With 2 outs and the bases loaded, Byrdak came in to pitch. The fielders choice should have ended the ending - but Tejada fumbled and another run scored. A hit batter forced in another run, before the 12th at-bat ended the inning with the Nats ahead 8-5.

The Astros came back to tie it up in the seventh, and then the score rickocheted back and forth, leaving the two teams tied at 10-10 at the end of nine. This was a very ugly 20-run game: There were many hits, of course - 14 by the Astros anad 10 by the Nats. But there were also a lot of walks (13 total), errors (3), wild pitches (2), and a hit batsman. In a game that was supposed to give the bullpen a rest, the Astros used 4 relievers: Sampson, Byrdak, Geary, and Hawkins. Three of them were on the mound when runs scored (not necessarily charged to their ERAs), and Hawkins is still on the mound, come July when the game will be resumed in Houston.

I'm going to do something outrageous here and declare myself the Fan of the Game. I went to both cold rainy games, despite a heavy cold, and cheered them all the way, despite the fairly miserable performances. When I got home from the game, I was greeted by a tweet from RoundRock15, inviting me to take a look at his blog. There, I found that my dedication to photographing my favorite team had been caught for posterity in the lens of FSHouston. I stole the picture off RoundRock's blog, and reproduce it here despite my usual rule about using anyone else's pictures - at least it's my image:


Yep, that's me - looking the way I always look during a game, with a camera sticking out of my face. I took a boatload of pictures (nice ones too, since I splurged on a good seat), which will be posted on my website before long. In the meantime, you just get me.