If Vincent Van Gogh had been watching the bottom of the 8th in the Astros Game 2, 7-6, rally win over the Yankees on 7/01/17, here’s what he might have painted in celebration of that starry night.
Indeed, the 2017 Houston Astros are the Michelangelo of the Miracle Rally in major league baseball, but maybe we should allow some credit also to Vincent Van Gogh for the “Starry, Starry Night” level quality that showed up in the bottom of the 8th of Game 2’s 4-run rally and 7-6 victory margin over the Yankees on Saturday. If you are a Houston fan, it was just that star-splendidly beautiful – with daubs of color and light spread all over the place from that winning double down the left field line by Yuli Gurriel off ace NY reliever Aroldis Chapman. That skimming sideboard bumper and bouncer off the far left field corner wall drove home the tying and eventual winning runs at a time in which a missed pitch by Gurriel would have put the home boys back on the field – still a run back – with no guarantee they could hold on, prevent further Yankee scoring in the top of the 9th, and then reignite things again in their last chance time at bat shot by finding those tying and winning runs in a second wonder rally.
No need for “what-if” wondering here about last night. The Astro Artists got it done in the 8th. And that proved enough.
On a less confident level, it will be interesting to see if our current Astros pitching staff can actually improve with rest. If not, some arms need to show up that can help keep all this great hitting ability and terrific baseball savvy together for victory in all those short series hills that have to be climbed at the end of the year.
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Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
July 3, 2017 at 1:35 am |
Most of the pitching staff on display at today’s game looked very different from the DisAstros performances of the past 2 days.
My wife and I were there today. Marwin Gonzales has been a rather unsung hero of this Astros team, closely followed by Yuli Gurriel. They both delivered telling blows today, marking quite a stretch for Mr. Gurriel. Another dramatic takeaway moment was provided by Aaron Judge and his first at-bat double, which sounded like a small bomb going off as the ball roared on a line over the head of George Springer in about 2.5 seconds after being struck. It barely missed leaving the field before it caromed off the top of the wall and ricocheted too far out of Springer’s reach to hold Judge to a single. Also, Carlos Correa went 4 for 5 and drove in 3 runs with 2 doubles and 2 singles. I had this thought while watching Judge and Correa chatting a bit while Judge was standing next to Correa at second base after his double: Judge is a rookie playing his first full season, and he is 25 years old. The veteran in that conversation was Correa, who now is in his 3rd year as a full-time starting shortstop in major league baseball, and he is 22 years old. And Carlos Correa is exploding as we speak. He has been in the process of taking his game to another level in the past several weeks. At 3.9, his WAR now is third best in MLB, just behind Paul Goldschmidt and a good bit further behind Judge. But it is rising, rapidly, as we head into the all-star break after next weekend. That Mr. Correa is one very talented young man.
July 3, 2017 at 1:41 am |
The whole team is so good! What an assemblage of ballplayers! I have to tip my hat to Jeff Luhnow and his crew of talent wizards.