On this day six years ago, the day after we contemporaneously find out Wandy will rejoin the rotation next week, Mr. Rodriguez got his second-ever big league win in a 4-2 victory over Toronto, of all clubs.
Wandy threw six innings, giving up four hits, two runs and six walks while striking out three. Chad Harville and Russ Springer each had a scoreless inning before Brad Lidge picked up his 16th save of the season.
Opposing Wandy that day was none other than Ted Lilly, who also pitched six innings, giving up seven hits and four runs while walking one and striking out one.
Morgan Ensberg, Jason Lane and Willy Taveras all hit home runs for Houston in this one, moving Houston up to 24-35 and 14 1/2 games back of the NL Central lead.
It's really staggering how far back that 2005 team was before they rallied and won the wild card. After the first week of June, they were still a sub-.500 club and were 11 games under (!!). They had Chris Burke playing every day, despite only hitting .205 and Craig Biggio hitting third, despite a .810 OPS. Oh, and that was the second-highest OPS in this lineup, behind only Ensberg.
Humberto Quintero even made an appearance in this one, though he went 0 for 2 and gave way to Brad Ausmus late. I really forget just how long Q has been around, since he was always up in fits and starts early in his career.
Here's the graphic replay of this game, thanks to Back to Baseball.