GAME 106: The Bulldog Bites Back

Astros 4, Giants 3

The Astros kicked off their homestand with a very entertaining win over the Giants, after a discouraging road trip. It didn't look too good at the beginning, as Mike Hampton fell into his ongoing pattern of first inning trouble. After two quick outs, he gave up 3 singles in a row, allowing the Giants to score first. But unlike some of his other recent bad starts, Hampton plugged the leak at a single early run, settled down, and went on for five more, giving up only one additional run. He didn't do it without some excitement - scattering 8 hits and a pair of walks, while striking out 6. In the third through fifth innings, Hampton retired 8 straight batters. But then he had to pitch his way out of trouble up to the end - in the sixth inning, he loaded the bases with one out, then struck out two batters to end the threat.

Hampton got a little help from his friends in the field behind him. In the second inning, Pence fielded a single and made a terrific throw to the plate, allowing Pudge to tag out Renteria. In Hampton's 6-pitch fifth, the Giants went down 1-2-3 on a trio of ground balls to Tejada - only one of which could be described as routine. The third out resulted from Miggy's throw on his knees, just barely catching the (very slow) Molina running to first.

The Bulldog got some help from the Bullpen too, with a perfect seventh from Chris Sampson, and a scoreless eighth from Alberto Arias.

With everyone working so hard on defense, Houston should have had an easy time of it. But Hampton had very little help from the Astros batters in the early innings. He left the game with the Astros behind 2-1, with Blum's solo homer in the fifth accounting for the Astros only run. The problem was the Giant's excellent young starter, Matt Cain, who threw a complete game. The Bulldog caught a break when Bourn led off the bottom of the sixth with a triple, and Matsui followed with a 2-run homer to put the Astros ahead 3-2 on Hampton's watch. In the eighth, Pence tripled and Lee singled to score him for a fortuitous insurance run. That extra run turned out to be lucky for Hampton and for the Astros. In the ninth inning, Valverde tried to make it exciting, giving up a two-out run to cut the Astros' lead to just one run. But then he took pity on poor Hampton and finished off the inning for a much needed win.

So all in all, a very exciting and entertaining game, putting the Astros back to .500. Losers no more. Let's hope that we don't see the other side of .500 for the rest of the season!