Another night of scoreboard-watching: tonight was the final evening in Astro-Girl's and my partial season-ticket package at Minute-Maid, and so I was able to watch Pettitte's start via white numerals painted on green wooden squares and slid, one at a time, into the slots in left field.
(The Astros-Brewers game was a microcosm of the Astros' dreary-except-for-two-or-three-players season. In answer to a Prince Fielder home run early, Carlos Lee homered in the fourth, a shot that clattered up on the train tracks high above the left-field Crawford Boxes, and hence us. We saw the rookie marvel, Hunter Pence, sac-fly home a run in the seventh to make it 4-2, 'Stros. Lidge--wasn't the suspense killing you?--surrendered the lead, giving up a two-run homer to a .230 lead-off man that landed two rows deep in the right-field bleachers and, in the process, resulted in Pence (lately moved to right) banging his head off the Chase sign and crumpling on the warning track. For a minute, nobody knew how bad things were; the wagon gate near the right-field foul pole swung open, and an electric flatbed, of the kind used for transporting immobilized players to an ambulance, was driven to the entrance. However, Pence, though shaken, remained in the game, long enough to drive in the game-winning hit in the tenth. Pence is what 'Stros fans take away from this season, he and a solid season from Lee. Everyone else the acquired or counted on to support the base of Oswalt, Berkman, Lee, and eventually Pence were either shockingly craptacular (Jason Jennings, Chris Burke, Mo Ensberg, Jason Lane), flat-out disappointing (Luke Scott, Mike Lamb), wildly inconsistent (Brad Lidge, Wandy Rodriguez), or closing out their careers (Biggio and Ausmus). It should be mentioned that, when things seemed at their lowest but the season was still barely salvageable, the team acquired Ty Wigginton, thus giving themselves, however briefly, four third basemen. Anyway, back to the Yankees.)
So: 1 1/2 down, 5 1/2 up.
Six in the loss column.
Bring on the Jays.
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