waltermalling wrote: it's now official and the roof is going to be closed in houston for all 3 games. ridiculous.

Houston WANTS the roof closed dumbfuck.

sorry i said closed instead of open.
they obviously want it closed.
mlb won't let them and the roof will
be open for all 3 games.

slowriot wrote:it's impressive that he pitched hurt (at least, i just heard he's hurt. arm or shoulder problem?)... but the fact is he left the bullpen in a tight spot and that inevitably cost them the game. so i wouldn't call his performance anything other than, "meh."

Two runs in six innings against the American League champion is leaving the bullpen in a tight spot?

I think the White Sox pitching performance during the ALCS has distorted the definition of the phrase "quality start".

agreed

vockins wrote:

spoon wrote:No. He lost.


Regards,
spoon

Please explain.

Regards,
vockins

My ambiguity!...not in the baseball statistic meaning of "loss" but in the team meaning of loss...as in the Astros lost.
Sir, however, you are correct. He did not give up the winning run. (though, I think that is a flawed statistic to begin with.)

Regards,
spoon

wow

Here's the bottom line:

Astros pitching got them into the World Series. Once there, it's let them down. Poetic justice?

Can Oswalt pitch the remaining games?

Wandy Rodriguez allowed only one run. He was obviously nervous, but he's not the goat everyone's made him out to be.

Adam Everett should be benched. Period.

it's also a shame that the crook bud selig and mlb won't let a team have the home field advantage they deserve

But Mr. Selig and MLB did allow this to happen, Walter. The winning league in the MLB All Star Game is awarded home field advantage for the World Series. The winning league was American and thus the White Sox received home field advantage for the Series. The Astros didn't deserve it in this case. You may not like that (though you would undoubtably would be crowing about such an advantage had Boston acheived the World Series), but them's the rules.

If the Astros were the team you made them out to be, they could beat the Sox roof open or closed. That's one of the marks of a champion team...they win regardless of weather or field condition. We'll find out soon whether that's the case for "your" Houston club...

vockins wrote:

ginandtacos.com wrote: Pettite was barely adequate.

Two runs over six innings is barely adequate? He outpitched Buehrle.

What in my comments implied anything about Buerhle? He was awful. I have seen him pitch about 200 times in my life and that was probably his worst performance. I've never seen him so consistently unable to locate his curve and sinker. He hung everything, and badly.

Pettite allowed plenty of baserunners and, excepting some execution errors from the Sox, the damage could have been worse. He wasn't awful. He was adequate. He pitched "OK" and his team lost.

Far, far cry from the dominating performance of the Clemens-Pettite-Oswalt troika that the national media has been unable to shut up about for a month. And Houston's bullpen was actually touted as having an edge over the Sox going into the series. Yeah, good one!

With Brad "The Human Gas Can" Lidge and Wheeler, Qualls, etc pitching this badly I can't imagine how Houston got this far. I can only assume that this is completely out of character for them. Or perhaps they fattened their stats against the Cubs and Reds and aren't as good as advertised.

(Yes, the Sox pump their stats by playing the Royals, Tigers, etc....the point is that it's ridiculous to pump up one team or unit as "the best" until they've performed against the best. Regular season stats are dubious at best. Ortiz and Ramirez hit a full 25% of their homers against the Devil Rays.)

ginandtacos.com wrote:With Brad "The Human Gas Can" Lidge and Wheeler, Qualls, etc pitching this badly I can't imagine how Houston got this far.

Clearly, you did not watch the NLDS against the Braves, or the great majority of the NLCS.

Other than Lidge's meatball to Pujols, and WS Game 2, the Astros bullpen has been lights-out.

Is Bobby Jenks also "The Human Gas Can" now?