The picture on the left will lead you to a glorious slide show of sultry AP-licensed photographs from tonight's game (give a hearty thanks to the tech team and network management for making this possible).
Wandy pitched phenomenally through six innings; Sampson was nails in his inning; Hawkins finally give up a run as an Astro; and we displayed uncharacteristic (from last year) patience at the plate.
As AstrosAndy pointed out in the comments of the Game Thread:
1 down, 89 to go!
If we're going to actually accomplish that feat, here's a laundry list of:
Things Cecil Cooper needs to stop doing, already:
- Having a foolishly aggressive running game.
- Batting Ivan Rodriguez second. Dude won't get on base, therefore Lance will never have anyone to knock in because Kaz will have been thrown out during Pudge's at bat.
- Batting Hunter Pence seventh. If you want to keep him down in the line up, it's dumb, but fair enough. Though come on—seventh? Behind Blum?
Topsy-turvy baseball, I like it. Keppinger's broken bat single came at point in the game we're that final run was worth the equivalent of 5.53 runs in the forth (tons of leverage) and capped the final 16.4% of the Win Expectancy necessary to win the game. Not a bad way to arrive.