Thank you Colby.
Man, I figured that this was going to be an game of 'almosts' that would cost us. Rajai Davis was almost safe at home, Edwin Encarnacion almost hit a home run, J.P. Arencibia almost hit a home run, Jose Reyes almost stole second (yeah he really was safe). Too many guys left on, as always.
But then, in the bottom of the 9th, Emilio Bonifacio starts things off with a double. Great swing Emilio. Adam Lind (hitting in place of the ejected Jose Bautista) strikes out, Edwin gets intentionally walked. Then Colby comes through. Colby is having an amazing July, coming into the game hitting .375/.419/.625 and yet I'm still told how awful he is, but then Morosi is a fool.
Unusual for us, we had 10 walks today. And 7 hits to go with those walks. You'd think we could do better than 2 runs. Melky had three hits. Jose Reyes, Edwin, Maicer Izturis and Brett Lawrie each had two walks.
The only starter not to get on base today was Jose Bautista. Jose was not happy with a strike called that was a good six inches off the plate, then he swung at the next pitch (further off the plate) and said something (likely not happy birthday) to the umpire and was quickly ejected. I imagine that the umpire was hearing about the zone all day (there was times we saw Astro manager Bo Porter shouting things towards him), which might explain the quick thumb, or, perhaps Jose hit the key phrase quickly.
Todd Redmond had a really good start. 6 innings, 3 hits, 2 walks, 1 earned (a home run) and 10 strikeouts. He did benefit from the wide strike zone and the crappy team he was facing, but he threw lots of strikes and kept the Astros off the bases. The Astros saw something in the combination of Redmond and Josh Thole and stole four bases off the pair. Rajai matched them, picking up 4 steals for our side.
Aaron Loup, Steve Delabar and Casey Janssen (getting the win) each pitched a scoreless inning as well.
Jarred Cosart had a nice start for the Astros, even if he walked 5 in 6 innings. Bo Porter is the most irritating manager in the majors. Every pitching change has to be preceded by stalling tactics. Just get your relievers up earlier!
Jays of the Day are Redmond (.241 WPA), Cabrera (.202), Bonifacio (.172), Janssen (.143) and Delabar (.110). I'm also giving one to Colby for the game winning hit. Even if he had only a .063 WPA, we've had so much trouble scoring guys, I think he earned it. I'm also giving one to Rajai, four steals is pretty impressive, and if he was out, on that play at home, he was barely out. Yeah, likely he should have gone through the catcher, not around, but still, it was very close.
Suckage Bautista (-.202 and the ejection), Thole (-.156, and an error on a stolen base), Reyes (-.177, though I thought he was safe on the steal attempt), Lind (-.112, for the one strikeout).
We had a nice GameThread, even if it was a bit of a irritating game. 25 of us totaled 648 comment. It's my last GameThread for a bit, I'm off to California to see some live Blue Jay baseball in Oakland and Anaheim. Alan F. had the walk off win for us. Great baseball instincts Alan.
# | Commenter | # Comments |
---|---|---|
1 | Alan F. | 98 |
2 | Tom Dakers | 82 |
3 | Marcos Montenegro | 74 |
4 | MjwW | 67 |
5 | ABsteve | 62 |
6 | Robert S McLeod | 31 |
7 | Belisarius | 31 |
8 | MapleMan | 27 |
9 | KevinInCT | 26 |
10 | fatpuppy | 23 |
11 | shortofbrillant | 22 |
12 | REMO | 21 |
13 | leafs71 | 19 |
14 | Redonred | 18 |
15 | TorontoJays | 12 |
16 | fishedin | 12 |