Paulino Gives Up One Run And Pirates Break Their 14 Game Away Losing Streak

Paulino had an interesting game - lasted 5 innings, gave up 6 singles, 7 K, 1 walk and 1 run. He had all his pitches working, but tended to overthrow a LOT. He went to SEVEN 3-2 counts then gave up 3 singles, 2 FO, 1 K and 1 walk - and the pitches thrown for the 3 singles and 2 FO were mid-plate, high in the strike zone. Of the 58 pitches he threw which were strikes, 16 were swing and miss - pretty awesome - 8 on FB, 7 in sliders and 1 changeup. Of the 8 of his 15 outs which weren't strikeouts (and he had only one K looking - and the hitter was unhappy with that call, but the pitch was DEFINITELY a strike AND the first pitch, which was called a ball, was also a strike) he had 5 flyouts, to grounders to third and 1 pickoff. That was kewl. It was his second pickoff this year, too. Quintero likes those snap throws to first a whole lot, but they are almost always off line and Berkman has to usually lean the wrong way to get them and Q, best I can find, has never picked off a runner in the bigs. Unlike Yadi Molina. This game was just plain sorry. The Astros left Bourn on 3rd with 1 out in the first, Q hit a ball to left in the 3rd and for some crazy reason, decided to challenge Lastings Milledge. Whaaaaaaaaa? Q runs like an elephant with sore feet, Milledge is FAST and has a fantastic arm. Bourn or Matsui or Towles would have made it. Q????? good grief. Where was I? Oh yeah - hitting suckitude. Miggy reaches on error in the 5th, only for some reason, it's scored a hit even though Ronny Cedeno letting the ball bounce off his glove should be called an error, no matter who is running. And Miggy isn't that fast. 1 on, no outs. And Maholm gets 3 straight grounders to short and Miggy is stranded at third. In the 6th, Lance and Carlos leave men on second and third. In the 7th, Miggy reached first, don't ask me how because Fox preferred to show Patty Smith interviewing all of Tommy Manzella's relatives to the, you know, like, baseball game. I could understand it if Tommy's dad was a total DILF, but he's just an ordinary middle aged man. OK, I could also understand it if Tommy's sisters looked/dressed like Playboy bunny strippers or something, but they are just ordinary 20 something females. I never understood the point of doing those interviews DURING the ball game - why not just have it on the pre-game or post game show? Why show that instead of on the field action? Seriously, does the audience REALLY want that? Now, if I could get some sort of response like - how does it feel to have my son sitting on his dead but so he can watch game after game from the dugout because the moron manager thinks that fans don't want to see young players, they want to watch Miggy/Carlos/Pence hit into yet another GIDP? You are asking me how does it feel? You want the truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!! The truth is I wanted him to be a flight attendant liker his mother, not a *(%$%! baseball player!!!!! Now THAT would be worth missing almost any play for... Where was I? Oh yes. The suckitude of Astros hitting. Even JD is chronicling the daily additions to the GIDP total, he talks EVERY game about how the Astros won't take pitches, don't walk, don't look for something good to hit in hitters' counts, how they hit most everything on the ground (and, by the way, for the most part, if you don't have the speed of Michael Bourn, you are NOT gonna beat it out) and how Pence has more than doubled his GIDP totals. He hasn't talked about how Cooper has adversely influenced Pence by insisting that he pull everything because he is "a RBI man" - and I am actually starting to think that it might be best for Pence to bat leadoff and forget about the stupid RBIs. And everything that is the sukc of Astros culminated in the 9th inning facing Matt Capps, the closer, who is having a LOUSY year. Lance hits a homer off the LF wall. Carlos singles to left. We all know what is going to happen fer SHER. Miggy takes a slider for a strike, then pops up ball 1 to short. For some reason, Capps goes over to the first base line to scream some kind of obscenity at Miggy, the dugout empties, but nothing happens. Anyway, it's Pence and he naturally, well, you'll never guess what he does, I mean, it's what the Astros DO. And then Capps screams some more obscenities. I don't know exactly what is down with all this - hit the ball on the ground crap. But I will say that Michael Bourn had the only Astros hit against Maholm in which the ball was actually a fly ball double. But only 6 of the 27 outs were fly ball outs - Bourn had 2 Ks and the rest were all grounders. Miggy is old and tired and Carlos is who he is, but Pence's hitting has gotten worse and I don't know whether or not this is in any part due to the influence of Berry and Coop or not. But there is nothing good to say about the way this team has performed with the bat this year. When Michael Bourn hits better with RISP than Carlos Lee does, this is NOT good. sigh We're off to see the Reds. Tomorrow, Wandy faces Bronson Arroyo, who had an absolutely HORRIBLE June and July, but has fired off 8 QS in a row, throwing at least 7 innings/start, but is only 2-2 with a 1.97 ERA over 59.1 IP. Pitching very well does not necessarily get you a win, hunh? Roy Oswalt has left 8 games this year while leading and gotten nothing to show for his trouble. Wandy has 5 ND in which he gave up only 1 ER, 1 in which he gave up 3 and 1 in which he gave up 4 (he was pulled with 2 MOB and the bullpen let both score.) Lance LUUUUUVVVVVS hitting in Cincy. Wandy also pitches well at Cincy - 36 IP over 6 GS - 3.27 ERA/1.43 WHIP/.244 BAA - 6 HR, 15 BB, 32 K. Of course, we will be playing pretty much with the Old Guys because Coop knows that the Astros fans are coming to the park to see them and um er well, guess he better think up some other excuse, seeing as how he can't say that he is somehow obligated to play veterans because this is a "meaningful" game...