GAMES 52-54: A Perfect Shame...

GAME 52 - June 1: Astros 8, Nationals 7
GAME 53 - June 2: Astros 5, Nationals 1
GAME 54 - June 3: Astros 6, Nationals 4

The Astros bounced back from a very depressing Memorial Day, winning the rest of the four-game series with the Nats. In all three of these games, the Astros played like a real baseball team - they got clutch hits and scored runs, made some fantastic defensive plays, and pitched well (or well enough). Two of the four games ended up with walk-off hits, after Lindstrom had blown the save. Happily, neither case resulted in an Astros player getting injured, like the Angels player whose leg was broken in the melee at the plate after hitting a walk-off grand slam last weekend.

Before I talk about the games, I want to make an observation about sportsmanship. Monday's Astros game was ugly - not only because of the blowout score, but also because of the bad feelings associated with the aggressive behavior of the plate umpire, Bill Hohn. A day after he ejected Oswalt, who had done nothing more than yell at himself for a bad pitch (not facing the umpire), he was apparently given a "stern" talking to by the powers that be in MLB. Replays of the inning didn't show any behavior on Oswalt's part that warranted being thrown out; Hohn seemed to be on the attack. If he apologized for this, I never heard about it.

Compare this to what happened Wednesday night, when another umpire, Jim Joyce, miscalled what would have been the 27th out of a perfect game for Tigers' pitcher Armando Galarraga. It was clear that the play at first, which he called safe, was actual an out -- it wasn't even really close. The players and the Detroit home-town crowd went berserk. The game ended with a Tigers win when the next batter made what should have been the 28th out. Joyce, admitting afterwards that he'd made a terrible mistake, was humble and clearly horribly upset by it. He apologized to Galarraga. The next night Joyce was scheduled to ump behind the plate -- a clear set up for ump abuse. He could have gotten out of it, but he's a pro, and didn't ask. The Tigers decided to have Galarraga carry the lineup card out to the umpires before the game, to set up the situation for a public face-to-face meeting and handshake between him and a visibly emotional Joyce.

So what happened here? The ump who should be unanimously reviled for a dreadful mistake ended up getting a lot of public sympathy for his tearful remorse, and the cheated pitcher was seen as exhibiting tremendous sportsmanship. It's times like this that one can gripe about the way that baseball handles umping errors, but still feel that they've seen the true grace of sportsmanship. That's baseball at its best - how can anyone not love this game? Meanwhile, back in Houston, a much lesser ump mistake (booting Oswalt for no good reason) ended up with just bad feelings all around. The bad guy in the perfect shame story might actually be Commissioner Bud Selig, who has the authority -- should he choose to use it -- to overturn the call and award the perfect game. Apparently, he's chosen not to use it.

One other interesting note from the near-perfect game: I heard a lot of comments about the erroneous call being "tragic." It was extremely unfortunate. It was a damn shame. But it wasn't a tragedy. It would have been tragic if that fateful pitch had resulted in a liner that hit a player (or ump) in the head and killed them. This was a game, played by professionals, not life and death.

Meanwhile, back to the Nats games. One could be snide about it and say that it was "just the Nationals." However, when you're as far down as the Astros, playing a Nationals team that's got a .500 record, a little respect is warranted. The Nationals are doing much better than anyone expected this season, and with super-prospect Stephen Strasburg coming up for his debut next week, they are a team to watch. The Astros played some good ballgames against the Nats, while Washington was sunk by errors and blown saves.

I'll talk about Tuesday and Thursday's games together, since they had similar patterns: In both games, Houston took an early lead, which they then squandered on bad pitching by Lindstrom in the top of the ninth. And in both games, the Washington closer Matt Capps got down to the last out before giving up a walkoff hit to a player whose problematical fielding had contributed to the Nats lead. Tuesday it was Berkman who had made a fielding error in the fifth that led to 3 unearned runs for the Nats. In the ninth, after Lindstrom had blown a save opportunity by giving up 2 runs, the Astros managed to load the bases (thanks in part to a Nats error). That brought up Berkman with two outs. On a 1-2 count, he "checked" his swing, according to the plate umpire. A strike would have been the third out, ending the game, but the appeal went to (who else?) third base ump Bill Hohn (the same!) who upheld the no-swing call. (The replay sure looked like a strike.) Puma knocked the next pitch into left field, scoring a pair of runs to win the game.

On Thursday, it was Carlos Lee who went from goat to hero on a single swing. He had made an unfortunate (but not erroneous) play on a 2 out blooper in the top of the ninth, which resulted in the Nats tying the game. Lindstrom allowed another run to score, giving the Nats the lead heading into the bottom of the ninth. Berkman got lucky again - he hit a 2-out liner to right, which should have been caught to end the game. But the Nats' Guzman, who already had 2 errors at short before being moved to right field, lost the ball in the lights and it dropped. Then Lee the Goat went back to his Stallion status with a big fat walkoff homer. It was funny to watch him approach the plate after running the bases -- he had both hands out like he was pleading with his jubilant teammates not to clobber him. (I'm sure he was aware of the broken leg in Anaheim.)

Compared to these nail-biters, Wednesday's game appears (from the 5-1 score) to be a walk in the park. But it also had it's nerve-wracking moments. Wandy only gave up 1 run on 5 hits, 3 walks, and 8 strikeouts. But he threw so many pitches in the process that he was at 115 after just 5 innings.  Good run support (including a homer by Lee) and solid relief pitching by Lopez, Brydak, Daigle, and Chacin kept the Nats from stealing away Wandy's chance at his third season win. The Astros also benefited from Washington errors in this game - including a single play that resulted in TWO errors for Nats shortstop Ian Desmond. It was, by the way, Casey Daigle's first major league appearance since 2006. Daigle was called up that day to fill in for Sampson, who's on the DL.