Friday, August 24, 2007

Juan Gutierrez wanted to make his mark in the Majors as he came out for his first career start. Juan was filling in for injured Roy Oswalt, but didn't quite play up to par. He had a ugly first inning where he yielded five runs. He looked good when he retired the first batter, but then it started raining doubles. He couldn't keep his fast ball low enough and the opposition was crushing it. He did, however, have a great change-up last night. It really kept the batters off balance. He pitched four K's.

The Nats grabbed another run in the fourth before Lance Berkman plated Biggio in the fifth. Carlos Lee showed that he brought his bat with him sending a deep two run shot into the Crawford boxes. That maid it a three run game, 6-3. The homer gave Carlos Lee his 99th RBI of the year. He came up in the 7th to hit a broken bat bloop over the infield to become the first NL player of the year to reach 100 RBIs. He showed up yet again in the ninth to put up his second two run home run of the game. That made the game a one run game, but that's all the Astros could manage.

Besides Lee's offensive performance, the Astros really weren't that hot at the plate. They Nationals let 7 walks go by, but the Astros only cashed in on one.

The 'Stros defense was working pretty good though. Berkman made a great diving stop at first, and Burk made an outstanding catch in right field. The worst Defensive play was when Lee dove for a ball and missed, but Pence backed him up and no damage was done.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are coming off a win of there own as they come into Houston. Matt Albers will look to turn things around for the Astros against Ian Snell.


Andrew Dow