elievable homestand in club history. I'm not asking you to come up with others that could beat it, but I want merely to run through the sheer joy that these 10, soon-to-be 11 games provided for baseball fans in Houston. (By the way, this entry is being written during the top of the 15th inning of Saturday's game with the Mets and it was prompted by the game-saving catch in the bottom of the 14th made by the best player ever to patrol center field at Minute Maid Park - Carlos Beltran.)Just take a quick glance back at what has transpired since Colorado came town to kick the madness off...
6/28
Carlos Lee hits a grand slam in the bottom of the 11th to save the Astros from a deflating extra innings loss and that swing isn't even one of the two most memorable from the night. Craig Biggio had only the 2nd 5-hit game of his career, with hit number 3 - a 7th inning single - giving him 3,000 hits in his soon-to-be Hall-of-Fame career. That hit brought home the tying run and Biggio was thrown out trying to turn it into a double, only fitting for the all-time doubles leader among righthanded batters. His 5th hit was a two-out single in the 11th, when he beat out what appeared to be a routine ground-out to shortstop. That began what turned out to be the winning rally and I'll take a wild guess and say Biggio is leading the league in infield singles this year among 40-year olds.
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6/29Mark Loretta followed Carlos Lee's script by belting the second walk-off homer in as many nights. Down a run again in their final at-bat with nobody on and two outs, Lee walks and Loretta belts just his 2nd longball of the season.
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6/30Virtually nothing good happens in this game, but at least fans at Minute Maid Park see the first shutout of the season - for either the visitors or the 'Stros - as Jeff Francis and two relievers shut out the Astros on just 4 hits.
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7/1The Astros take the series from the Rockies by delivering their first home shutout of t
he season. So none all year for either team all year - then shutout in back-to-back games...hmm. Wandy Rodriguez goes 7 scoreless allowing just 3 hits, which would have been big the highlight had the Astros not posted their highest run total of the season in front of the home fans winning 12-0. Still you could argue that the most interesting or important aspect of the game came from Lance Berkman who hit his first homer of the season from the right side.-------------------------------
7/2Phillies are in and 40-year old Woody Williams is the youngest of the starters as he faced 44-year old Jamie Moyer. The Astros scored 2 runs in the 7th during a 4 walk inning - 2 of which forced in runs and during one drawn by Eric Bruntlett, fans got to see a flying Shane Victorino as he launched himself into the stands attempting to catch a foul ball. Like most of the homestand the 9th inning was an adventure. Dan Wheeler was handed a 4-run lead, but loaded the bases and gave up a 2-run double before being lifted for Trever Miller - who despite entering the game with a 7.52 ERA - retired both batters he faced to earn his first save of the season and only the 8th of his career.
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7/3I guess two walk-off homers in one homestand wasn't enough. Hunter Pence gets into the act when he blasts the 1st pitch of the bottom of the 13th inning to send the crowd into yet another frenzy. None of that excitement would have been possible if not for Lance Barksdale calling Lee safe at first in the bottom of the 9th on the back end of what should have been a game-ending double play ball. A colleague of mine said, "even Don Denkinger thought that was a bad call." - that should indicate just how bad the call was.
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7/4The Phillies finale provided nearly nothing to write home about in the 8-3 loss, but in the 9th Pence hit his 3rd homer in three games, so at least there was that for the fans......who stayed.
Pence also now qualifies for the league batting title as well - too bad he's not an All-Star.
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7/5The Mets are now in to wrap up the first half of the season, John Maine, the best NL starter not going to the All-Star game totally shuts the Astros down. Even still Biggio had 2 more hits one of which pushed him past Hall-of-Famer Wade Boggs on the all-time list and in the 9th he struck out to end the game against former teammate Billy Wagner. Of significance, Biggio was 3-3 previously in his career against Billy the Kid including a game winning homer in '05 when Wags was with Philly.
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7/6Wandy Rodriguez pitches for the second time on the homestand and for the second time he pitches scoreless baseball. This time however he finishes what he started for the first time ever in his 63rd career start. He'd never even pitched into the 9th inning before. The 4-hitter also helped improve his home numbers to 5-2 with a 1.81 ERA at MMP, only All-Star Chris Young of the Padres is better at home (0.82 ERA). Again, remember 0 shutouts all year at MMP until this homestand, this was the 3rd one in 7 games.
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7/7The game that just wouldn't end. 17 innings of baseball and the Astros have nothing to show for it after losing 5-3. Houston was shutout for the final 13 innings. They had a runner reach second base in the 9th, 10th, 12th, 14th and 15th innings, but could not manage a key hit - heck they had only 3 knocks in extra innings and they were all singles. But one of their outs was probably the toughest play for the fans at MMP to stomach this entire season. With runners on 1st and 3rd with two outs, Luke Scott pinch hit for Matt Albers. He launched the 2-1 pinch to dead-center and deep - very, very deep. The longer it stayed in the air the more you knew it was going to hurt when Beltran made the catch and that's exactly what he did. Gliding towards and then up Tal's Hill, falling on his left side as the 430' bomb falls softly into his glove, prolonging the Astros agony. Naturally he drove the knife in even further when he rips what turns out to be the game-winning single off Brian Moehler in the 17th.
Like I said off the top, I'm my humble opinion, there's basically no way Astros fans have been given more for their money on any homestand in the history of the franchise. Too bad they take 4 days off after Sunday. Too bad also that they're too far out of the race for these wins and losses to carry much, much more meaning.
--- Don't forget I'll talk to you first thing in the morning starting at 6am each day this week on SportsRadio 610 , alongside Andre Ware, filling in for Vandy.
---- WEX
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