The Astros Can't Win, Lose 8th Straight Game In 2-0 Shutout.

Well, losing is not fun, and the Astros have done it 8 consecutive times in the past 8 games. It appears that the 1st-place (can you believe that?) Pirates have done really well this year with a string of really great pitching and a not-so-bad offense even after having the worst record in the major leagues in 2010. It's possible the Astros could follow in the same footsteps, but there's also the possibility they won't. However, the Astros do not really have great pitching and their offense may have just hit an all-time low recently. If time is to tell, I believe the Astros will be a lot better in the 2nd half if the Astros call up the players who should be called up (Paredes, F-Mart, Wallace). It will also be a time of uncertainty and evaluation with possible trades and seeing what Dallas Keuchel, Matt Dominguez and whoever else gets called up can do. But as for now, the Astros have lost 8 straight games and are leaving for home tonight. On a plane. On a presumably quiet plane. The soft roar of the engines. The players sleeping. Some with earbuds in their ears. Another day tomorrow. Another forgettable day today.

In today's game the Astros offense could only muster 4 wimpy singles and 3 useless walks. Something that I noted was that every single ball almost that was hit into the outfield was caught by an outfielder. Balls that were hit hard enough for hits, but high enough for fielders to track them down, and long enough to land in gloves for outs. The Astros were pretty unlucky in that regard simply because they.

If you're still reading this and noticed that I left the last sentence off unfinished, I would like to let you know that was completely intentional. Let your imaginations run wild! What do you think I meant to say? Let me know in the comments.

On pitching, Bud Norris did not showcase his best stuff today. He did get away with a lack of command and was a bit lucky, but I think he rebounded nicely to pitch a good game. 7 innings, 2 runs, 5 hits, 3 walks, 6 Ks, but a loss. Brett Myers pitched the 8th inning, and put up 0s all across his line. The Astros didn't do any pitching in the 9th, but I'm sure with 8 straight losses, somebody was doing something that rhymes with pitching instead.

The Astros had a game lost inning (GLI) of 2, meaning that the Pirates scored enough runs by the 2nd inning to win the game even if they didn't score anymore runs after that. It's a nifty, but useless stat that I created in Monday night's recap.

Matt Dominguez made his debut with the 'Stros. He had two plate appearances; his first ended up with a strikeout on 3 straight pitches on a curveball out of the zone. In his 2nd plate appearance, he grounded into a double play. In his 3rd round to bat, he was being pinch hit for with Jordan Schafer, who you guessed it, struck out. I don't blame Mills for pinch hitting for Dominguez simply because Doughnut is a relative unknown to the team and has not had good stats in the minors this year. It was also a situation of platoon advantages. Anyway, the Astros will be at home tomorrow night facing the Brewers. Maybe the Brewers pitching will brew up some cookies into the Crawford boxes. We'll also get to see the progress being made on the Astros Community Leaders advertisement wall in LF.