Late afternoon in the desert, by nightfall the Astros will be 3 games back of the Reds if they complete the sweep of the D'Backs. Reds bully blew up again, giving up 4 runs in the 8th - all off St. Pius-ex Gary Majewski - to lose to Atlanta 6-4.*Got this in just before Adam Everett stepped to the . Again a day off for Biggio, but why do you put Everett in the 2-hole??? The whole line-up which has been so succesful on this trip could have been the same except for Chris Burke replacing Biggio, but Phil Garner bumps Everett to the top for some reason - we'll see how it works out. So far he's o-1 and lucky he didn't hit into a double play.(3:48pm)
*That didn't take long - 2-0 Astros with another mammoth blast from Lance Berkman to dead center. He does it on a 3-0 count, which once again makes me wonder who came up with the idea to take the 3-0 pitch, personally I think it's stupid unless you're a pitcher.(3:50pm)
*Everett maing Garner look good now, rips a double down the line, but he's stranded there.
*Pettitte makes one bad pitch in the 3rd, but all of a sudden the game is tied. The one bad pitch was laced for an opposite field double by impressive rookie Stephen Drew, but a walk, an indield ground out and a bad hop single led to 2 runs (4:40pm)
*Man does Brad Ausmus make you wanna forget about his grand slam in a hurry. He's already hit into 2 double plays in his 6 at-bats since and both have come with a runner on third and 1 out, thus costing the team a run. Nearly every one of them are tailor made, too. (4:53pm)
*A bit of frustration showing from the 'Stros. Two outs and a man on third in the top of the 6th, Pettitte scalded a line drive that Drew picked clean and fired to first to end the threat. Pettitte was visibly upset as he couldn't beat the throw. Pettitte allowed the go-ahead run in the bottom of the inning, almost like he knew it was coming. In the top of the 7th, Everett sacrificed Tavares to second after his leadoff walk. But like we all knew, that meant Berkman would be intentionally walked - which he was. That hurts on two counts, 1. your best hitter gets no swings and 2. a weak legged Berkman now might have to run the bases. The second batch of frustration came when Huff looked to tie the game with a smash up the middle, but Drew was playing him perfectly and flipped to second on to first for the inning-ending, twin-killing. Huff slammed his helmet down and that left the Astros still down a run heading to the 7th. (5:57pm)
*Should this game end up a loss, it shouldn't sting quite as much as some of the others. The Astros still did squander several good scoring opportunities, including another fruitless bases loaded at-bat in the 5th by Morgan Ensberg, but they had good at-bats throu
ghout the game and the ball simply did not find holes.*Breaking news: Eric Byrnes owns the Astros. His 3rd HR vs. the 'Stros extends the lead to 4-2 after 7.(6:06pm)
*Turns out the Byrnes HR was huge since the Astros rallied with 3 hits and a run in the 9th. The rally ended with Ensberg striking out with the tying run on third base. But unlike when things are going badly, they battled in the 9th and at least Ensberg had a very good at-bat before swinging and missing on a fastball on the 9th pitch of the at-bat
*Now the bad part of the 9th inning. Hopefully before the end of the season and its too late, Garner will realize that Orlando Palmeiro is not a good pinch hitter. With his awful K to open the 9th, he dropped to .204 as a PH. That was his 49th PH appearance - that is not a small sample size. Only Philadelphia's David Dellucci has more ABs (51), yet Palmeiro continues to be woefully ineffective. The team has been terrible with PH all year, so it's a good thing one of their best, Eric Bruntlett, was sent to Round Rock.
*BTW - Pettitte has never had a losing season and he just set a career worst with his 12th loss.
*Record:53-58, 4 games back of Cincy, 4 teams b/w them in the wild card race.
----- WEX
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