The Pecan Park Eagle

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, Juan! You’re going to have a game catching for the Astros next season that you will never forget!”

“Astros Win Losable Game Due To Amazing Clutch Hitting”

~ SABR Friend, Colleague, and Pecan Park Eagle Contributor, Mark Wernick.

Thanks, Mark, for reminding us that every game that hangs on the often fragile balance between winning and losing is ultimately one team’s loss of a winnable game – or the other club’s adrenaline-pumping victory in an apparently lost cause. Sunday’s bottom of the 9th inning 4-run rally by the Houston Astros produced a 7-6 walk-off game and series win and yet another confirmation that Yogi Berra was oh so right when he advised all of us to always remember that the game “ain’t over til it’s over.”

That truism has never been more alive than it is today with this good hitting Astros ball club. You just never know when it’s going to start shattering the air of any ballpark with doubles, triples, and homers like the sound of machine gun fire at a garage on Clark Street in Chicago. Once the Astros get started in a bottom of the 9th rally situation, they don’t ever seem to stop until they are the only team walking away in joy.

It happened again Sunday, closing out the 7-game home stand on a much happier moment we had a right to expect. For those of you didn’t see or hear it, here’s a brief recap of its unfolding:

Bottom of 9th, Blue Jays leading 6-3, right hand closer Roberto Osuna enter the game to finish the job.

(1) Jose Altuve slaps a one-strike pitch up the middle for a single.

(2) Josh Reddick is called out on strikes on a 2-2 pitch. Reddick’s rage gets him tossed. 1 out; Altuve still on 1st.

(3) Yuli Gurriel bangs the first pitch he sees to left field for a base hit; Altuve moves to 2nd with 1 out.

(4) Marwin Gonzalez works the count to 2-1 before lacing a sharp single to right; with Altuve holding at 3rd, Gurriel hugging 2nd, and Gonzalez now perched on 1st, the bases are now loaded with only 1 out.

(5) Carlos Beltran has a chance for the Grand Slam moment. Not to be this time. Beltran works the account to 2-1 before lashing a ball to the right side; the ground ball turns into a 6-3 force out at 2nd, but Beltran reaches 1st safely to prolong the game as Altuve scores from 3rd. With 2 outs, the score now is 6-4, Blue Jays, with Gurriel now moved over to 3rd and Beltran on 1st.

(6) Alex Bregman crushes the first pitch he sees into the left center gap for a triple, his 8th straight game with an extra base hit, and a ball that scores Gurriel and a sliding Beltran to tie the game now at 6-6, with two outs, and Bregman grinning from 3rd like the potential winning run that he is.

(7) Juan Centeno, a call-up catcher, was down to 1-2 in the pitch count, when he turned the page on the 2017 Astros rally script and promptly dumped a single to right field to score Bregman with the winning run.

Final Happy Dance Card Score: Astros 7 – Blue Jays 6.

********************

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST STANDINGS

THROUGH GAMES OF SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 2017 

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST SCORES

GAMES OF SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 2017

 ASTROS 7 – BLUE JAYS 6.

 MARINERS 8, 1 – ROYALS 5, 9. (Double Header)

 ATHLETICS 11 – ANGELS 10.

 TWINS 6 – RANGERS 5.

AMERICAN LEAGUE BATTING AVERAGE

THROUGH GAMES OF SUNDAY, AUGUST 6, 2017

NR * = NEEDS MORE “AB”S TO QUALIFY FOR RANKING.

********************

Tags: Winnable And Losable: Two Haves of the Whole

This entry was posted on August 7, 2017 at 4:26 am and is filed under Baseball, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.