Angels 9, Astros 3: Astros return to form, comprehensively suck, lose like losing losers

Twelve hits, five walks, two errors, six unearned runs. A loss by six runs. That's what the Astros allowed the Angels to do to them in the second game of this three game set. The fact that the Astros ended the game within a couple of grand slams of LA seems miraculous.

Carter had a costly error in the first inning, and Feldman had no ability to work around it, as good pitchers should be to do from time to time. Both failed, both are to blame, as some of our fine commentators in the game thread seemed not to realize.

The offense stunk. Again. They were held hitless for the first three innings, and despite splashing a few singles about later in the game when it was already out of reach, couldn't string hardly anything together.

Altuve, Fowler and Castro had multi-hit games so...woo hoo, I guess. Let's dance.

I could go on, but does anyone care? I don't. If you do at this point, something might be wrong with you. How can you care when this team stinks so badly? They show a flash here or there, but then they lose. No, scratch that, they don't just lose. Every team loses from time to time. Great, awesome, historically-significant winners lose.

The Astros implode, collapsing in on themselves like dying stars, leaving behind an invisible, deadly void which utterly crushes anything and everything that dares approach it. Even the brightest, most effulgent light in the universe, which can dispel any darkness, cannot escape the merciless clutches of this club. Which, I guess is kind of fitting, given the theme of the team and their location in the most hopelessly sports-cursed city in the solar system.

I wish I could write you a proper recap, whatever that entails. I wish I could tell you who did what when and how, or cite some important stats, or weave a bunch of fancy words together to dress up this disaster. But I can't. Frankly, I almost don't even know what happened most of the game. I was watching...kind of. Sort of. In a manner of speaking.

Somehow, at some point during the game, I just...kind of went numb. I cleaned the paintbrushes and pallet I had used earlier in the day. I shaved. I ate some leftover pizza. I tinkered with the RAM in my computer. I played a little bit of Fire Emblem. I traded emails with a couple other writers about Adrian Houser and Miguel Olivo and how I want to see an Olivo vs. Shawn Chacon cage match. I took a little Advil for the sore back I suddenly woke up with this morning. I tossed a little squishy corn-starch-filled stress ball I have into the air for about 15 minutes as I stared through the screen and listened to Geoff Blum and Alan Ashby masterfully deconstruct the pitcher injury issue by informing us that not long tossing is preventing pitchers from forming the long muscles and tendons in their arms to give them the length that they need, and that Dominican pitcher's arms are fine because they throw year round and don't rest themselves. I very nearly got choked up as I prayed to God to somehow, someway make it so Jim DeShaies could return to Houston.

So...there's your recap, I guess. I don't know what else to say. I don't even know why this particular loss is hitting me like this. Maybe it means that I had subconsciously believed that this team had turned a corner and the horrific, ugly, little league losses were behind them.

Silly me; hope is for non-Houston fans.