GAME 129 - August 23: Bouncing Backe

Houston 8, New York 3

Quote of the Day: "I have a long way to go to redeem myself." (Backe)

If Brandon Backe continues his ping-pong ball of a season, the Reds will be having some fun next Thursday afternoon, his next scheduled start. In a continuation of his alternating pattern of great starts and complete embarrassments, Backe held back the Mets on Saturday night to give the Astros a much-needed win. Actually, his game was not quite as good as Roy O's the night before - 3 runs in 7 innings on 5 hits and a walk, striking out 4 - but he had one big advantage over the Wizard: The Astros got some runs. Lots of runs - too bad they couldn't have split them evenly over the two games and won them both!

Continuing from Oswalt's 20 up-20 down the night before, Backe put down the first 14 batters he faced, before giving up a walk and RBI double in the fifth inning. He allowed a pair of runs in the eighth in a repeat performance from the previous game, by the same two ex-Nats: Church singled, then Schneider hit a 2-run homer. Byrdak finished up the inning, and Geary threw a hitless ninth to keep the Mets at 3.

But, as Oswalt knows from Friday night, that only helps if your teammates score some runs. This time they did, starting to rough up starter John Maine in the second inning. Berkman led off with a ground rule double - a 400+ foot smack to center, then scored on Blum's RBI single. The scoring became more serious in the third inning. Backe, with his .300+ batting average, got it started in the right direction with a single. Erstad walked, and Bourn moved them both over with a sacrifice bunt. Backe scored on Tejada's RBI single. Berkman didn't wait around to join the fun - he knocked the first pitch over the wall in left center to make it 5-0.

In the sixth, right after the Mets scored their first run, Newhan won one back for them with a lead-off homer. Quintero and Backe struck out. Then, with two down, Erstad, Bourn, Tejada, and Berkman hit consecutive singles to plate another pair of runs, to give the Astros an 8-1 lead.

This all took place just before I turned on the game after the Sabbath ended, so I didn't actually get to see any of the Astros' offensive fun on Saturday night. The Mets' bullpen shut the Astros down for the last 3 innings. But no need for greed; I watched the rest of the game on Sunday morning.

Wiggington, uncharacteristically, did not have a hit in the game, but should have - he was totally robbed by an amazing leaping-twirling-throwing play by Mets third baseman David Wright. Wright also made a terrific play to steal a hit from Newhan, but Newhan got payback with a nice defensive play of his own in the sixth: Playing second, he gloved the ground ball and flipped it from his glove to Tejada, who then threw to Berkman to complete the double play.

It's hard to know when a pitcher has redeemed himself after a couple of huge meltdowns like Backe's had recently. Backe doesn't feel like he's there yet. Maybe it's when he gets his ERA back under 5. Maybe in his next game he'll throw a no-hitter - and hit a grand slam too. That should do it.