GAME 3: There's Only One Thing to Conclude...

GAME 3 - April 7: Giants 10, Astros 4

The Astros have a PERFECT record: Five days into the season, they are the only team in the whole MLB without a win. How beautiful is that? There is only one possible thing to conclude:

          ***** We are going to win the pennant. *****

I'll have to give some thought to how I can really justify this prediction. Right now it's just a hunch.

I regularly say that there is always something to like in a game, and if I stretch I can probably find something in this miserable loss to clinch the series anti-sweep. How about this: The Astros did not actually spend the whole game behind. There was a brief moment, at the bottom of the seventh inning, when the Astros scored 3 runs and tied up the game 4-4. It's a stretch, but I kind of liked that. I liked Cory Sullivan's pinch-hit 2-RBI triple too. And two more double plays.

What I didn't like could fill up a few pages, starting with the meltdown of the bullpen in the rest of the game. And sadly, it was my current favorite reliever, Sammy Gervacio, who turned up the heat to start the melting. He only threw 9 pitches, but managed to give up 2 runs on 2 hits, made a throwing error, earned the loss, and (by far the worst thing) came out of the game with an injured shoulder. He's diagnosed with a rotator cuff inflammation and on the 15 day DL.

Sampson finished up his inning without any further damage. But Fulchino was tagged for  ER in the ninth (Moehler taking over for him and allowing one of his runners to score). Okay, some days are worse than others, but my favorite thing in the previous losses was how good the bullpen was. Bummer.

Nothing much to say about Brett Myers in his first start as an Astro. He pitched 6 innings, gave up 12 of the Giants' 19 hits, allowed 4 ER. Not quite good enough to get into the range of "quality" start. I'm not really crazy about him to begin with, but I will hold my nose and cheer this season, as long as he's wearing our uni. Like Wandy, he did manage to get a hit - I do like when a pitcher helps himself.

The next thing I don't like in this game - and in this series - is the lack of walks. So far this season, the Astros have accumulated a total of 2 BBs, both by Keppinger in Game 2. I guess that an expert might diagnose this as the batters being aggressive, but given the dismal offensive performance in the series, perhaps it's worth being a little picky about what to swing at. Maybe I'll ask Morgan Ensberg about this in his Baseball IQ blog. (If you haven't seen this blog, RUN-DON'T-WALK to it. It's totally terrific.)

I can't end this blog so dismally, especially as I'm about to shut down my computer for my usual baseball-free Sabbath. So here's one more thing to like: My video of Gervacio pitching at Spring Training is now over 9300 views. Even the video of him picking off the runner is almost to 3000 views. I have no idea who are all these folks watching my baseball videos, but I sure hope they're cheering for the Astros this weekend. We need all the help we can get. It's a long way to that pennant!!!