Wow. Talk about a miracle. Not only did the Houston Astros defeat the Texas Rangers last night, but they defeated the Texas Rangers by a 7-2 score. Wandy Rodriguez dominated, and the team looked to be trying to exorcise any demons left behind by Shawn Chacon. The offense came to life in the first two innings, scoring three times in the first inning and four times in the second.
The game was so quickly out of reach that, for most of the game, the only thing in question was whether the Astros would find a way to score enough runs to keep the Rangers from winning the Silver Boot again. And the answer to that question was no.
The Astros won their second series of the month, and their second series in a row. This was the first time the Astros had won two series in a row since mid-May when they swept the Dodgers then took three of four from the Giants.
The Astros improved their record for the month to 7-15. Their season record is now 37-42. And guess what kids, there are three more games to go in interleague play for the season. Of course, those three games are against the AL East leading Boston Red Sox.
Runelvys Hernandez (0-0, 0.00) gets his first major league start since 2006 for the Astros tonight. His opponent is Daisuke Matsuzaka (8-1, 3.46). Brandon Backe (5-8, 4.82) gets the Saturday night start against cancer-survivor and no-hit pitcher Jon Lester (6-3, 3.13). Brian Moehler (4-3, 4.03) ends the series against Spring’s Josh Beckett (7-5, 3.73).
SOME MISCELLANEOUS GAME NOTES:
How do you know the game was not in doubt last night? Because Jim Deshaies and Bill Brown allowed themselves to drift away for a bit. J.D. started dropping Seinfeld references throughout, and both he and Brownie felt free to mock the whole Silver Boot thing.
And while I love J.D. and Brownie, it was also rather obvious that Astros management had handed them their talking points about Shawn Chacon before the game. They virtually ignored the whole thing Wednesday night, but spent several innings worth of time discussing it last night. This just served to remind me that, in the end, Brown and Deshaies are first, and foremost, employees of the Astros.
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The Boston Red Sox are in town this weekend. And you know what that means, don’t you? Yep, not only will the place be packed by carpetbaggers from Boston, but Drayton’s going to turn the heat back on in order to sell more overpriced lukewarm beverages.
The Red Sox have the second best record in the American League, and they’ve won six of their last ten games to hold off the hard-charging Tampa Bay Rays. The Red Sox are also 10-5 in interleague play as opposed to Houston’s 5-10. The Red Sox have the seventh best ERA in the majors, while the Astros have only the 23rd best.
But don’t expect to see Red Sox star David Ortiz, who is still weeks away from returning to the team from a wrist injury. However, maybe there will be an incident of Manny being Manny.
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For anyone who is really curious, the Astros needed to defeat the Rangers by 12 runs last night to win the Silver Boot. So the five-run victory just didn’t cut it, giving the boot once again to the Rangers. Yeah, I don’t care either.
And I’d like to thank Zachary Levine at the Chron for this depressing piece of trivia: Texas is the only state with at least two major league teams that has yet to have one of them win the World Series.
Also, I really want to know how things go out at MMP this weekend with fan conditions. So if they’re bad like with the Yankees, let me know. But if Drayton actually turns the A/C on, let me know that as well. – John Royal
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2008.
