throws like a girl

I think continually of those who were truly great, part two

Great game, St. Louis Cardinals. Good luck at Fenway.

Great season, Astros. I am disappointed that it ends here, but feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to watch this comeback up close.

I believe this might be what they call baseball fever.

Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation has a fabulous recap of yesterday's game and his thoughts about the game coming up tonight. He is cautiously optimistic, fiercely proud of his team, and as good a spokesperson for the virtues of National League baseball as there is.

...

Meanwhile, I couldn't sleep last night and kept awaking from feverish dreams about Roger Clemens giving up seven earned runs in the third inning. This is what you get when you spend your evenings watching the ALCS. Around 5AM, I realized that those dreams were literally feverish; I have spent the morning puking my guts out at 45-minute intervals.

With the 27 minutes or so I have remaining, you will get my paranoid baseball rantings.

...

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry proclaims himself "Even Steven Guy" because all of his friends live in perfect karmic balance? When good things happen to George, bad things happen to Elaine, and vice versa.

My friends, Mike Lamb is Even Steven Guy. I was glad to see his bat in the lineup yesterday instead of Morgan Ensberg, whose bat has cooled enough against St. Louis that Astros radio color guy Alan Ashby was exhorting him to get hit by a pitch in the top of the ninth. (When Ensberg did, Ashby complained that even though he got hit, he had tried to get out of the way first.) Lamb's glove, however, still makes me weep tears of blood.

Predictably, Lamb drew a walk in the top of the second; predictably, Viz failed to advance him.

In the fourth, Mike Lamb homered to right for the Astros' second run of the day. Then he missed an Albert Pujols single down the third-base line which was somehow scored a hit, and Pujols would have ended up scoring on the following Rolen double if not for some good D at the plate.

In the sixth, Mike Lamb grounded into a double-play. But he started fielding some balls. In fact, his glove got so good that we didn't see his bat again for the rest of the game.

Even Steven Guy. I think it's time to throw up again.

...

I'm troubled most by the comparison that some are making between a Boston/Houston World Series and the John Kerry/George Bush presidential race. It is a pleasing coincidence, if you like that sort of thing, but I think the outcome of the baseball postseason has way more impact on my relationship with Cubs Fan, who has become a passionate Boston supporter over the last two weeks, than it does on national politics. Cubs Fan, whose father is a longtime Cardinals fan -- we will have some lovely times together around the dinner table this fall, won't we? -- is rooting, but discreetly, for St. Louis, so they can lose to Boston in the World Series.

The pain: It's available for Game 7.

To clarify Brad Lidge's potential availability in NLCS Game 7.

In NLCS Game 3, Saturday, Lidge threw 41 pitches in two innings.

In NLCS Game 4, Sunday, Lidge threw 26 pitches in two innings.

In NLCS Game 5, Monday, Lidge threw nine pitches in one inning.

Today, in NLCS Game 6, Lidge threw 32 pitches in three innings.

So yes. I think he's available tomorrow.

...

My new boyfriend Dan Wheeler is iffier. He threw 38 pitches today in two innings, the most he's thrown in a Houston uniform. It's okay, though. As I observed earlier, my old boyfriend Roy Oswalt is tanned, rested and ready.

I want to remember this moment forever.

We're going into the twelfth inning now.

Until Eric Bruntlett sac-bunted Morgan Ensberg (HBP) to second base in the top of the ninth, it honestly hadn't occurred to me that the Astros could conceivably be going to the World Series. The. World. Series. If I were one of those guys right now, I think I'd be out vomiting in right field between every at-bat.

Come on, Carlos Beltran. Come on. Come on. Come on.

EDITED TO ADD: This is why the National League is innately superior to the American League. The Red Sox and Yankees played eight extra innings in less than 24 hours earlier this week, and not once did you see a pitcher have to pinch-hit.

EDITED TO ADD SOME MORE. This wasn't a game I imagined winning until the top of the ninth, anyway. I'm sorry that Houston has ragged out Brad Lidge beyond use for tomorrow (though he did only throw 32 pitches, and he threw 40+ last Sunday and came back for two innings on Monday's Game 5), but most of all, I'm sorry that the game didn't run so long that it delayed the start of the freaking ALCS ("The one everybody's been waiting for!" screams the mlb.com headline).

This is some good baseball, though. Clemens versus Suppan tomorrow, with Roy Oswalt in the pen if you need him. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.

I'm just going to go breathe in this paper bag for a little while. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.

Bring on the major leagues.

What's a National League? Actually, they've had a great series too. I wish I could pay more attention, but I'm too absorbed in the business at hand. Perhaps it's not fair that the NL series is being overshadowed, but despite the hyperbole and hype which surrounds the Yanks and Sox, I think the two teams have lived up to the advanced billing.

...

I only discover the National League when the Red Sox are in the World Serious. As it goes, then, my most recent knowledge of the NL revolves around guys named Mookie, Strawberry, Gooden, Hernandez, Carter, et al.

-- A Yankees blogger and a Red Sox blogger discuss (briefly) the NLCS.

On the one hand, I'm inclined to agree with them about the ALCS. What kind of baseball game features a man who is only able to pitch because his ankle is held together by actual sutures (extra close-ups on the blood leaking through the incision – now that's Red Sox for you)? Or two disputed calls that get reversed, resulting in the addition of one Boston run and the subtraction of one Yankees run? Or lines of riot police positioned along both baselines, and then in the stands themselves?

I mean, all the NLCS has going for it -- in its Monday game, anyway -- is gutsy pitching from a guy who came into Game 5 with only 116 big-league innings under his belt, half of those as a reliever with freaking Tampa Bay. (That's Brandon Backe, Yankees lovers.) And how much drama is there in a crafty 38-year-old veteran pitcher whose season started so badly that he contemplated retirement, suddenly throwing seven innings of one-hit ball? (He's named Woody Williams, and he's also from Texas, Boston fans.)

Oh, and sure, those 8-1/2 scoreless, two-hit innings suddenly coming to an end with a three-run walkoff home run from Jeff Kent, the first Astros walkoff since April 11, 2003. It was just Kent's third hit in 14 at-bats in the LCS; the Cardinals intentionally walked Lance Berkman after two strikes because they thought they could get Kent out more easily.

You might remember that crazy asshole Jeff Kent, whose free-agent signing in December 2002 was until Monday, really, if the hecklers behind me are to be believed, something of a disappointment. If you had tuned in after the ALCS had ended for the night, you might have seen Kent running toward home plate, the rest of his team waiting there to mob him, and maybe 10 feet away suddenly flinging his batting helmet into the air to reveal a face so transfigured by joy that he almost looked like he was in physical pain. If you had tuned in, you might have had the privilege of witnessing what is almost assuredly the finest moment of Jeff Kent's whole life.

I mean, if you're into that sort of thing.

But what kind of baseball is that, my friends? If there isn’t blood flowing? (Cubs Fan, a Red Wings aficionado, asked me last night if there was any sort of rule in baseball where you had to leave the field if you couldn't stop bleeding, as in hockey. I don't think that's the sort of situation that comes up too much, I said.) If there aren't flagrantly terrible calls, as when last night Gary Sheffield most assuredly did not catch Mark Bellhorn’s flyball to right before it hit the ground? If the whole thing doesn't become some kind of metaphor for Good v. Evil, Fair Trade v. Free Trade, Order v. Chaos?

...

Well, it is our kind of baseball. The Astros take the field against the Cardinals for Game 6 of the NLCS at 3PM local time today, the better to get ALCS Game 7 in prime time. I'm feeling even more bullish on Astros starter Pete Munro these days, who I saw confess to a local television reporter that he was starting to get "pissed off" that the media seems to think the Astros are conceding today's game by having him start. I'm puzzled and confused by Carlos Beltran’s failure to hit a home run in Monday's game -- Woody Williams (crusty, see above) held him hitless in three at-bats, though Beltran in typical fashion turned them into noisy flyballs. Ditto Albert Pujols.

...

Cardinals fan J. has already emailed us in classic reverse-jinx fashion to let us know that it is okay with him if our team makes it to the World Series. Same to you, I replied; he's not fooling anyone. Expatriate T. has called in sick; pennant fever is the diagnosis. Meanwhile, Houston mayor Bill White is urging employers to let their workers watch or listen from work this afternoon.

Which reminds me. I have been meaning to write for several days about what it is like to be in a city whose baseball team has suddenly gone deeper into the postseason than it has in nearly two decades. As I was driving home the evening of NLCS Game 1, I passed one of those freeway megachurches with a big scrolling electronic sign in front. REV. JOE BLOW, OCTOBER 31, 10:30 A.M., it read. NOW ENROLLING PRE-K THRU 12. And then suddenly: GO ASTROS.

Go Astros!

A shonda to my people.

A new radio spot has debuted during Astros flagship station KTRH's broadcast of the Yankees/BoSox game tonight.

What's more exciting than making it to the World Series? asks a breathless announcer.

The answer? The grand opening of Houston's hottest, most elegant new steakhouse: Strip House! blah blah blah blah opening November 2nd.

...

Throws Like A Girl is an advertising professional by day, and so feels doubly ashamed by this travesty of copywriting. I would love to know, first, who produced this spot, since it is one of the dumbest sentiments I have ever heard expressed in the name of commerce, and, second, who the media genius was who thought the best time to broadcast it was during a non-Astros baseball game. The audience for which, I would assume, is not just a bunch of Astros postseason bandwagoneers who might like a nice, juicy steak after the game, but instead the sort of losers who spent their nights posting to baseball message boards. Us, I mean.

...

Announcer: What's more exciting than making it to the World Series?

Puzzled Astros Fan: You're kidding, right?

Announcer: (scornfully) Of course we are. That's why we're not opening until the World Series is over. Strip House! Opening November 2nd!

I just can't let go of this.

This morning, I keep seething over the fact that the Astros started out with a lead, which they then let go of, in each of their 2004 postseason losses.

NLDS, Game 2:
Astros lead 2-0 into the bottom of the seventh, when Roy Oswalt gives up a double to Wise and a single to Furcal, leading to Atlanta's first run of the day. He is promptly relieved by Brad Lidge, who gives up a second run in his above-the-call-of-duty 2-2/3 innings, tying the game and sending it into extra innings. Obviously, the Astros bats deserve more blame here than the Astros bullpen, but still: The bullpen failed to nail it down.

NLDS, Game 4:
Astros lead 5-2 into the top of the sixth, when an obviously gassed Roger Clemens comes out and Chad Qualls comes in. Qualls promptly gives up a three-run homer to Adam LaRoche, and, following Phil Garner's inexplicable inability to keep Lidge in the game for more than two outs, Russ Springer gives up the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth.

NLCS, Game 1:
Astros go up 2-0 in the top of the first, which is promptly tied at 2-2 in the bottom of the first, but three-days-rested Brandon Backe manages to hold back the powerful Cardinals lineup for 4-2/3 innings. In the meantime, Houston puts up another two runs and is leading 4-2 when Garner decides to lift Backe, with two outs in the fifth, for Chad M.F. Qualls, who gives up the Larry Walker single that scores Backe's two runners. Then, in the next inning, he gives up another couple of runs before being relieved by Chad Harville, who sends the remainder of Qualls' runners home.

NLCS, Game 2:
The Astros have slowly and carefully built up a 3-0 lead into the fifth inning and Pete Munro, who no one could have reasonably expected to shut down the freaking Cardinals for four innings, has ke[t St. Louis from scoring. With one runner on base, he gives up a home run to Larry Walker -- again, you can hardly hold this against poor Pete Munro. It's Larry Freaking Walker, for gosh sakes. Munro leaves with a 3-2 lead, two outs, and a runner on first. Chad Harville comes in and gives up another home run. Dan Miceli gives up another two in the bottom of the eighth, leading Astros fans around the country to scream BRAD LIDGE! BRAD LIDGE! WHERE IS BRAD LIDGE, YOU M*********** PHIL GARNER!

...

So in the postseason, the bullpen is 0-4. Which makes Garner's decision to start Clemens on short rest in NLDS Game 4, Oswalt on short rest in NLDS Game 5, and Backe on short rest in NLCS Game 1 all the more unconscionable. No matter how balls-out those starters can be, short rest necessarily means that you're going to be calling in the bullpen. Which is something Garner needs to avoid at all costs.

With Clemens on full rest today and Brad Lidge inexplicably having not pitched since last Sunday, for two outs, against the Braves, I am hoping we see seven innings of Clemens, followed by two innings of Lidge. It is imperative that the Astros win today, and evidence shows that can only happen if they keep their hands out of the bullpen, which lately reminds me of that episode of Gilligan's Island where Gilligan accidentally drinks a beaker of nitroglycerin and is in danger of spontaneously combusting if he makes any sudden movements.

Given the Astros' terrible record for late-inning, come-from-behind offense -- they have scored only 58 runs in late innings this season, out of a total 803 runs scored all season (about 7 percent of their total runs scored; the NL average is about 8 percent) -- the Astros cannot afford to fall behind. They cannot afford to go to the pen.

...

I know I said I was happy just to make it to the postseason. I know I tried to go into this with low expectations. But I'm not seeing an Astros team that is outclassed by the Cardinals. I'm seeing an Astros team whose manager does not effectively manage his weakest link -- his bullpen.

Going through the motions

I thought I was going to be okay with the loss in Game 2 -- ask Cubs Fan and she will tell you that I took it gracefully when Pujols hit that bomb in the bottom of the eighth off Miceli -- but as time passes and I read more and more intelligent analysis of the sheer boneheadedness of Garner's decision to use Miceli instead of Lidge, I just find myself wanting to raise my head toward the heavens, like a Red Sox fan, and scream WHY GOD? WHY ME? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

I am grateful, really, for the night off.

...

From my correspondence with Astros fan T. and Cardinals fan J.

THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF
Denial - The Astros can beat the Cardinals!
Anger - Why did !@#^*!& Garner not bring in Lidge!
Bargaining - Just let Munro pitch well!
Depression - It doesn't matter how well Munro pitches. Man, this team sucks.
Acceptance - At least the Cardinals will beat the !$!@#^$ Yankees.

Shut up before I hit you.

This morning, Clay Davenport at Baseball Prospectus has Houston's odds of beating St. Louis in the NLCS at 26.3612.

I must say this sounds remarkably generous.

The consensus seems to be:

1. Phil Garner took Brandon Backe out at least an inning too early.
2. Phil Garner left Chad Qualls in at least a couple of batters too long, though looking back at the pitch-by-pitch, it's not unreasonable to believe that the Cardinals got lucky.
3. Lance Berkman can look embarrassingly bad in the field sometimes.
4. If you're going to start a pitcher on short rest, Backe is a better choice than Oswalt or Clemens.
5. The thought of a Clemens-Oswalt-Pettitte-Miller-Backe rotation is what will get us through the winter, even if Clemens immediately announces his retirement when Houston gets eliminated (odds: 73.64) or wins the World Series (odds: 10.4965).

About the somewhat celebrated St. Louis bullpen, I kept channeling Herman Blume in Rushmore:

I got to tell you, Max. I don't know what you see in her. I don't think she's right for you. She's not that beautiful. She's not that interesting. I mean, sure, there's something about her, but ...

Of course, that might have just been because Tony LaRussa didn't summon my boyfriend Steve Kline. And by the way, how delightful is it that Google gives you that link before his ESPN player page?

Live for today.

As an Astros fan, you go through the baseball season without the national media paying much attention to your team most of the time. Sure, the signings of Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens last winter garnered a lot of attention, and the Astros' subsequent midsummer swoon drew the occasional cluck, but most days, the Astros are free to play baseball as well or as poorly as they choose without anyone's paying much mind.

So it's overwhelmingly strange to find Houston in the NLCS, and suddenly Astros content has increased by about three thousand percent.

I will leave the thoughtful analysis to others. I don't have anything useful to add about the weirdness of Phil Garner's ordering of the rotation -- I take comfort from gfoxcook's comment that pitching Munro in Game 2 allows Garner to use Backe on full rest at home next Monday, where he has been markedly more effective, although please insert the standard caveats about small sample sizes and the dangers of presupposing that a Game 5 will actually be necessary. I don't have anything to say about the likelihood of Carlos Beltran's remaining an Astro in the coming years -- though I am heartened by various reports that he has joined Andy Pettitte's Bible group. Carlos, we are a Bible-loving people here in Houston! (Well, not me, personally, but pretty much everyone else, it seems like.)

Instead, I'll just reiterate that Woody Williams, for whom I have warm feelings simply because I read this morning that he used to be an Astros Buddy when he was a kid, has been very vulnerable against Houston this year. I predict the final score of Game 1 will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-10. Who actually wins? Your guess is as good as mine.

...

Our office manager just twitted up to my desk asking when the next game was. Um, tonight? I answered in disbelief. "But there's a debate scheduled!" she complained. It is times like this that I miss my baseball-loving former colleagues T. and J. more than I can express.