No matter the final score, this game ended up the way it did for two reasons. The first being that Felipe Paulino lost the starting pitching match up for the Astros against rookie Mike Leake. Paulino just didn't look prepared, if that's even fair to say about a starting major league pitcher. He had issues controlling pitches in the first inning and lacked any semblance of a game plan. His approach looked almost amateurish.
Speaking of amateurish, Mike Leake, he who went straight from college to the majors, was the exact opposite. He lacks the hard, powerful stuff of Paulino, but already has a strong grasp on how to pitch to major league hitters. Locating impeccably, wasting next to nothing, the young Leake is the high shooting percentage, zone defensed college basketball team that upsets their underachieving, undisciplined but uber talented opponent.
Now, in Felipe's defense, Michael Bourn had a real stinker of a game today, going 0/5 at the dish with four strikeouts while losing a ball in the lights in the fourth allowing three runs to score. It was especially painful as there were two outs, and the runners that were on base at the time (Orlando Cabrera, Ramon Hernandez and Drew Stubbs) got on via an infield single, bloop double and a walk. Felipe started the trouble, and Bourn finished it off.
I'm a little irked at the Astros performance in the past two games, but then again we're 8-12 and have Roy and Wandy on the mound on Thursday and Friday. It's frustrating to lose games, and especially frustrating the way we lost it today, but this may just be the Gods of the hardball pushing us back down just a tad. Almost like, "Yeaaa, you're not 0-8 bad, but you're not "win four straight series" good. Ya dig? Ya dig.