GAME 42 - May 15: Un-frickin-Believable!

Houston 8, San Francisco 7

Quote of the Day: "No baseball team should have you hyperventilating in May." (Richard Justice, on the Astros' spate of wild-and-crazy, come-from-behind wins)

The Houston sportswriters can't find enough adjectives to express their disbelief. As usual, Alyson says it best: "Borderline absurd." "Just wrong," says Richard Justice. "Unreal... too weird." Ortiz says "There's something special going on."

It was another one of those games. I was at work that afternoon, peeking now and then at the pitch-by-pitch to see how the game was going, and it wasn't looking good. After three innings, the Astros were down 6-0. Not a great start from Sampson, to say the least. And, after Cooper had finally forced Tejada to take a day off, Loretta wasn't doing too well at shortstop: He made two errors in the game, each of which had allowed a run to score. The Astros picked up a trio of runs in the fourth when Berkman hit a 2-RBI single, then advanced on a stolen base and a ground ball, and scored on Loretta's single. But the Giants came back to score another one in the bottom of the inning, making it 7-3.

That's where things stood until the eighth inning, when the come-from-behind magic kicked in. The GIants got the hard out right away: Berkman grounded out to lead off the inning. Then San Francisco's good luck took a dive. Lee homered. Blum struck out, but the pitch went wild, and he made it safely to first base. Loretta singled to put runners on first and second with one out. Then Cooper made a move: He brought in Erstad to bat for Towles. That decision paid off big time when Erstad hit his first-ever pinch homer, tying the game. They put a couple more runners on, but that was all the damage the Astros managed in the inning. Geary and Byrdak kept the Giants from scoring in the bottom of the eighth. Then came the ninth, with the Puma leading off.

Kaboom! Whooooosssh! SPLASH!

That was the sound of Berkman hitting the first pitch of the ninth inning into McCovey Cove. It was the first time an Astros batter had accomplished this feat. Berkman is a monster. Home run #15. Three more RBIs in this game. Hitting .391. Hear the Puma roar!

Valverde took the mound with the Astros suddenly ahead 8-7. Ground out. Strike out. Another strike out. GAME OVER! Astros win another series! They are now 6 for 7 on this road trip. DId the Astros win 6 games on the road last season?

Other news of the game: Geary left the game in the 8th with a strained groin injury. He has been phenomenal, with his 1.47 ERA. Hopefully, he won't be out long. Pence extended his hitting streak to 13 games. Lee and Loretta both went 3 for 5. Bourn and Towles continue not to hit.

I left work right after this game ended, and ran home to watch the game on the mlb.tv archive.