Game Hero, 13 - 16

Matt Albers

Career victory number one 7-1/3 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 2 K, 1 BB 73 Game Score, second highest of the year after Roy O. Team-high .213 combined WPA per the folks at Fangraphs

Thanks to our pals at Fox, and their sycophantic cronies at the MLB main offices, I was not allowed to watch this season's most joyous and glorious expression of Astrodom, and I'd like them to know just exactly how grateful I am.

After all, there was no real need for me, being such a lightweight Astrofan and all, to see the first career victory, and flat out career best game, from our closest pitching prospect. No reason at all for a casual fan such as myself to have seen Hunter Pence's first homer, and a grand slam at that.

And certainly I wouldn't have taken any pleasure in watching a blowout of our fierce rivals, the Cardinals. Beating St. Louis by double digits, while shutting them out, days like that are a dime a dozen^*.

I'm sure Fox knows best, and I'm sure I didn't miss much.

While I didn't get to watch baseball, I've always got an Excel sheet I'm working on, and after Friday night's loss, in which we once again outhit our opponents and lost, I wondered if I could put together something that could figure out our records when outhitting and being outhit.

Turns out I could, and I'm pleased to share it here.

Numbers are through Saturday's blowout.

Since we always seem to be scoring in the first inning, especially in games we go on to lose, I also thought I might make a cumulative linescore.

Enjoy, numbers are again through Saturday's dance on the Cardinals' face.

Just as I suspected. Good in the first, eighth and ninth, not so good anywhen else.

Go Astros. Fuck Fox.

__________

^*Actually, we hadn't hadn't gone double digits offensively on the Cardinals since September 27th of '04, and we hadn't shut them out since September 13th of 2003.

And we hadn't done both in the same game since June 26, 1995. And lastly, near as I can tell, the Astros had never, ever, not even once, scored ten runs against the Cardinals while shutting them out in St. Louis. That is, before doing it today in a game I wasn't allowed to watch, despite the fact that I pay 14.95 per month for the privilege of doing so.

The closest we'd come to today's whitewashing was back on June 14, 1975, when Houston beat 'em under the arches by a score of 9 - 0, behind a complete game from Tom Griffin.

But no-one would could keep track of stuff like that, would they? Certainly no-one stupid enough to buy the MLB.TV package would, at any rate.