Last night I went to go see the Astros play against the Diamondbacks. Thanks to my boss, we had good seats - 28th row behind the plate. On paper, the matchup should have been a no-brainer - Halsey is a rookie pitcher, Clemens has over 300 wins - but the reality of the game showed otherwise. Clemens posted 2 earned runs and a third unearned on 3 errors in the 1st inning. He shut them down after that, but the damage was done. The Astros are having a real problem with run support this year - there were a couple of great opportunities to score but hit into double plays quite a bit - and then Burns gave up 3 in the 9th to really push the game out of reach.
I got some decent pictures, though - you can see them up at
Flickr.com. The picture above is of Diamondbacks lefty specialist Javier Lopez just after releasing the ball from his sidearm delivery.
You may be interested in checking out
The Crawfish Boxes and
Bleed Cubbie Blue; they're two blogs started under the umbrella of the SportsBlog empire (founded by
Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas). Right now there's not too much traffic to either - they're relatively new - but if you're a fan of the Astros or the Cubs you might be interested in stopping by.
halsey and clemens are both UT alum. the rocket is a living legend. you have to factor in his age, and he's still one of the more dominant pitchers in the league. he had an off night, but even then he only gave up 3 runs -- on any other team that's enough to keep them in the game. clemens should have notched 7 wins by now, but the astros' offense is abysmal. minute maid is a hitter's ballpark, but they're doing nothing with it.