Dear David,
Please don't make me write this recap. I know you said I would get extra rations and a few more hours of sunlight every other day but the game will start and, given my luck with these recaps, end very late. And I'm starting to adjust to the darkness and the chains. And I'm getting tired of ‘David's Super Cheap Dehydrated Green Olive and Pork Shavings Medley' anyway, truth be told. Just because Anthony and Brian and Ryan and Chris and Timothy say it's good doesn't mean it is. And it's the 41-58 Astros on the road against the MLB-leading 61-37 A's, who happen to win at a 2/3 clip at home. And it's the 11-3, 2.38 Kazmir up against the 2-7, 4.50 Oberholtzer. Oberholtzer's WHIP is more than 50% higher than Kazmir's. And I'm running out of rubbing alcohol and toilet paper. And my neck still hurts from that Code Red you ordered on the tail end of the July 4th weekend. And I'm still bummed about Aiken. And I'm officially moderately worried about Appel. And what does it matter anyway because that super-duper volcano under Yellowstone could go at any minute?! And then I saw the lineup, which was so bad it spurred a mini-onslaught of ironic Twitter tweets. ‘Guzman, and Grossman and Hoes. Oh my! And if I'm really going to stay up until 2:00 a.m., I'd rather it be to finish out Season One of The Killing (which is really, really binge-worthy and super awesome and set in Seattle where I used to live and the main character never blows a save or hits into a double play or winds up with her face in some guy's butt trying to steal second base. Or at least not yet. No spoilers!!)
I tried to pawn it off on the other writers but one was in the infirmary, two in solitary confinement, and another was still bitter about the incident that one day on the chain gang. The rest did what they do best: stayed quiet and out of the way. They know what you're capable of. Like the time Chris ended a sentence with a preposition and was made an example of. Or that other time Brian split an infinitive while trying to colorfully spice up an MiLB recap and got the business end of a cowboy boot for his troubles.
Whatevs. OMG. Okay, well, here goes. The game is still an hour away. Both of my woofer dogs are asleep already. It's been hours since the sun went down. My alarm goes off nine hours from now. I'm on my third beer, smuggled in by a relatively friendly minion.
Altuve starts with a single but gets caught trying to stretch it into a double, which seemed like an ominous, auspicious start. After a nice double, Carter was stranded at second on a Dominguez K, giving Kazmir an 11-pitch first inning. Oberholtzer looked shakier but did get out scot-free despite allowing two baserunners.
The second was mostly eventless, despite Guzman drawing the first leadoff walk allowed by Kazmir this year. Kazmir gets out of the inning at 30 pitches when Hoes' hard-hit shot was snagged by A's 3B James Methelson. Oberholtzer pulled off another dicey but scoreless inning in the bottom on the second. Lowrie started it off with a first pitch single to left field, which was followed by a single by Moss to right field, moving Lowrie to third. Former Astro Freiman used his apparently newly acquired funky stance to hit a ball just softly enough to get Lowrie in a rundown. And Oberholtzer proceeded to get out of the inning again.
Gonzalez leads off the top of the third with a single to center. Altuve with a hit that harmlessly glances off of the Teflon body of Kazmir, allowing Altuve to hit safely and take second despite a valiant methy effort by 3b James Donaldson to get the ball to Funky Stance Freiman, who couldn't quite make the grab, due to Altuve totally getting away with running way inside of the first base line, thereby interfering with the fielder's throw. After Hernandez grounded out, there were runners on 2nd and 3rd with an out for Carter, who laced a single, bringing in both Gonzalez and Altuve. The rally was killed when Dominguez hit into an inning-ending double play, as seems to be his wont. (Can somebody look that up for me? He trods slowly enough from base to base so he would seem to at least be in risk of GIDPing.) But there the Astros were, up 2-0. Oberholtzer gave up a run after getting in a jam in the bottom of the third. The Astros were still up, by some miracle, after three. But I was getting sleepy. The top of the fourth was soporific (go ahead, look it up), with only a Grossman single to show for it.
Then a funny thing happened. Oberholtzer mowed them down in the 4th. Then Kazmir had a three up, three down inning in the fifth that ended with an Altuve swing-and-miss strikeout that was uglier than an Ernest Borgnine Polaroid in bad light.
Bottom of the sixth, one out, runners on 1st and 3rd (due in part to a Methy Domethalson double to deep centerfield that seemed destined to leave the Oakland stadium and land in beautiful downtown Oakland) with Lowrie at the plate. Lowrie flies out to right for the second out. Grossman throws home and misses the plate by a couple hundred feet. The terrible throw not only allowed the run to tag up and get home, after stopping for a double espresso on the way, but also Norris to take second. But Obie once again pitches out of the jam, now having gone a full six innings while allowing just two runs.
Kazmir pitched into and out of a mini-jam in the top of the 7th, finishing it off with a wicked strikeout of Gonzalez. Not to be outdone, in the bottom of the seventh, Oberholtzer finished off a one-two-three inning on a diving grab by Hoes of a sharply hit ball to left field.
It kept going like that. Carter had a nice double in the top of the 8th but the A's reliever pitched out of it. Then in the bottom of the night, Oakland 3B Meth Methaldson methed his way to an inning-ending K. And that is when I went to bed, believe it or not. I was tired and under the assumption that the better team on paper -- the A's -- would pull this out. Our bullpen would figure out a way to lose. Or Porter would figure out a way for the bullpen to lose. Or the A's -- who had looked just a little bit better all night, always on the verge of breaking things open -- would figure out a way to win.
And I wake to learn I was wrong. Fantastically, surprisingly wrong. These Astros did pull it out in 12, on a HR by Hoes, after the bullpen hung in there. The bullpen hung in there, with Downs getting the win, Qualls getting the save, Hoes getting the game-ending HR, Carter getting three hits.
But for me the game ball goes to Obie, who went seven innings, giving up just two runs that could have been 20.
So there's your recap, folks. The Astros are an even .420 after 100 games and on a mini-roll.