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What looked liked like a possible win quickly turned into yet another disappointing loss. Yet again the pitching staff pitched well, and yet again the Astros failed to score enough runs against Matt Cain, who already has a perfect game against this club.
Piling on was this play made by the Giants in foul territory on what is like yet another GIF of the Year nominee involving the Astros.
Offense
Considering the score of the game there wasn't much offense in this one. The Astros scored their first run on a Fernando Martinez homerun that landed in the front row of the second deck. The second run came, on an Astros like play, when Buster Posey had trouble handling a Matt Cain pitch that went by him, allowing Jimmy Paredes to score from third.
The newly called-up Paredes went 0-3 with a walk, but played some solid defense in right field.
Pitching
Bud Norris had his first gem (64 game score) in about a month (69 game score July 25 against Cincinnati). In 6.2 innings of work Norris allowed one run on six hits and two walks, while striking out eight. The one run that scored came on an Angel Pagan homerun. Prompting Astros.com beat writer Brain McTaggart to tweet this:
If Angel Pagan isn't hitting .500 against the Astros in his career, I'll eat a bug.
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) August 29, 2012
Pagan in 35 games and 126 plate appearances prior to tonight was hitting .208 against the Astros for his career. Hakuna Matata McTaggart, time to pay up!
Fernando Rodriguez pitched 1.1 innings of perfect ball, with three strikeouts prompting Zachray Levine of the Houston Chronicle to tweet this:
We never remember these given the workings of the human mind, but a nod to Fernando Rodriguez's performance in the heart of the SF lineup.
— Zachary Levine (@zacharylevine) August 29, 2012
Wesley Wright started the ninth, but after allowing a hit to Brandon Belt he was replaced by Wilton Lopez, who immediately gave up a double to Joaquin Arias, which tied the game. Lopez would get the next two outs, but not before allowing Arias to score on a Hector Sanchez bloop single to center giving the Giants a 3-2 lead. Hector Ambriz was eventually called upon to get the final out of the inning, which he did via a ground out to third base.
Defense
The outfield looked good, saving at least a couple runs. Unfortunately, the Giants outfield was just as good defensively and took a couple runs away from the Astros as well.
Wednesday
7:05 PM CDT Dallas Keuchel vs Barry Zito.