ALDS Game Two

This one picked up where the last one left off. The Astros took an early lead. We had a little more luck scoring against Scott Kazmir, but we still found ourselves trailing early and not managing to catch up.

Then in the bottom of the sixth things finally turned around. We quit gunning for the fences and put together a string of station-to-station plays that tied the game. It was especially satisfying to see Eric Hosmer (who represented the tying run) go first to third on a single by Kendrys Morales that probably wouldn’t have happened if the Astros hadn’t been playing yet another stupid shift.

Alcides Escobar led off the bottom of the seventh with a triple (always fun to see one of those regardless of the circumstances) and then became what proved to be the winning run. The best part about our two good innings is that they finally brought the crowd back into the game. The ballpark was as loud as it was last year, which seemed to help in no small measure.

The final nail for Houston was dramatic pick-off at first in the top of the ninth, Wade Davis’s first in years (literally). Such a play would have been exciting by itself, but here it was made more so by the success of an appeal of the first base umpire’s bad “safe” call.

That was actually the second appeal that went our way. The other was also at first, when Escobar bunted for what was clearly a single but was called out nonetheless. I’m still iffy on instant replay, but it was certainly handy this afternoon.

So that was much better than we’ve seen recently. I even liked the 2:45 start time, which allowed us to get out to the K without too much traffic trouble and got the game done in time for us to grab Touch of Asia for dinner. I hope we didn’t jinx the team by indulging in our usual last-game-of-the-season meal!

ASTROS (4) AT ROYALS (5)

ASTROS               AB  R  H BI  ROYALS               AB  R  H BI
Jose Altuve           5  0  0  0  Alcides Escobar       5  1  2  0  
George Springer       3  1  1  2  Ben Zobrist           4  0  2  1  
Carlos Correa         4  0  1  0  Lorenzo Cain          4  1  1  0  
Colby Rasmus          3  1  2  2  Eric Hosmer           4  1  1  1  
Evan Gattis           4  0  1  0  Kendrys Morales       4  0  1  0  
Luis Valbuena         4  0  1  0  Mike Moustakas        3  0  0  0  
Chris Carter          4  1  1  0  Salvador Perez        3  1  2  2  
Jason Castro          2  1  0  0  Alex Gordon           3  0  1  0  
 Jed Lowrie           1  0  0  0  Alex Rios             3  1  1  0  
Jake Marisnick        3  0  1  0   Paulo Orlando        1  0  0  0  
 Preston Tucker       0  0  0  0                                    
TOTALS               33  4  8  4  TOTALS               34  5 11  4

ASTROS                        121 000 000 -- 4  
ROYALS                        011 002 10x -- 5  

LOB--ASTROS 6, ROYALS 8. 2B--Colby Rasmus, Alex Rios,
Lorenzo Cain. 3B--Alcides Escobar. HR--Colby Rasmus,
Salvador Perez. SB--Jarrod Dyson.

 ASTROS                          IP    H    R   ER   BB   SO   HR
Scott Kazmir                   5.33    5    3    3    1    4    1
Oliver Perez                   0.00    2    1    1    1    0    0
Josh Fields                    0.67    0    0    0    1    2    0
Will Harris                    0.67    2    1    1    0    0    0
Tony Sipp                      0.67    0    0    0    0    0    0
Pat Neshek                     0.67    2    0    0    0    1    0
 ROYALS                     
Johnny Cueto                   6.00    7    4    4    3    5    1
Kelvin Herrera                 1.00    1    0    0    0    1    0
Ryan Madson                    1.00    0    0    0    0    2    0
Wade Davis                     1.00    0    0    0    1    1    0

SO--Luis Valbuena (2), Jed Lowrie, Chris Carter (2), Jake
Marisnick, George Springer, Carlos Correa (2), Kendrys
Morales (2), Alex Rios, Alex Gordon, Alcides Escobar,
Salvador Perez, Paulo Orlando. BB--Colby Rasmus, Jason
Castro, George Springer, Preston Tucker, Alex Gordon, Mike
Moustakas, Salvador Perez.