You think you know a guy.
I mean, you watch him from a far, read up on him, see the Baseball Tonight highlights. The whole nine yards. Then he goes and pitches eight outstanding innings against your favorite team, and you feel like garbage.
That's exactly what happened tonight with Zach Grienke and our Astros. We knew heading into the game that it was going to be tough to grab a "W" against a pitcher of Grienke's caliber. What's more, our best left handed hitter was out of commission for the first 8.5 innings of tonight's game because his fourth child was born. Lance entered in the bottom of the ninth and singled, but it would be all for naught. We got a look at the two best pitchers on the Royals tonight, and Grienke/Joakim Soria were impressive in limiting the Astros to one run on ten hits.
Wait a second? Ten hits? How'd we only manage one run if we had ten hits? Well, they were all singles. The only time the Astros got a hit with a runner in scoring position was in the first inning, when Miguel Tejada knocked in Hunter Pence for our only run of the game.
Lost in the shuffle of Grienke's domination was Russ Ortiz's strong outing- seven innings, two runs, five hits, four strikeouts and two walks. Against any other pitcher, on any other night, that is a winning line. Not tonight, unfortunately. Billy Butler's home run, and Miguel Olivo's RBI ground out were enough to propel the Royals to victory. A series win is still possible for the Astros though, and after getting out alive against Grienke, the Astros have to be confident heading into game two of this series.