Game recap direct from Houston. I went to the game and well, yecch.
Things started out nicely, with a leadoff home run from Jimmy Rollins. Cole Hamels pitched pretty badly, his command was mediocre and he put himself in situations where he could be undone by dinks and dunks, and a couple of hard hit line drives to the outfield. The Astros put up three runs in the fifth inning, on a two-run single by Carlos Lee and an RBI double from Miguel Tejada, that turned out to be all the Astros needed on the day.
All of the Phillies scoring came on solo home runs -- Rollins in the first, Ben Francisco in the fourth, and Jayson Werth in the eighth.
The Phillies hit a lot of balls hard, including several hard outs off Bud Norris, the Astros' rookie starter, but luck wasn't on their side on balls in play. Astros closer Jose Valverde pitched a scoreless ninth inning for the save.
Oh, and that Michael Bourn guy, with two singles, two stolen bases on botched pickoffs, and two runs scored, gave us all bad flashback memories of Juan F. Pierre, 2003 model.
A couple notes about Minute Maid Park, after the jump:
1. Indoor baseball is really disorienting. But given the oppressive humidity outside, it was strongly preferred. I actually called the stadium before heading out to make sure the roof would be closed (it was!).
2. Astros fans are, in general, very relaxed. Except about football. Between the fourth and fifth inning they played highlights from yesterday's college football action, which got the same response from the fans as the action on the baseball field. They were really psyched about the BYU-Oklahoma highlights.
3. They've retired about a zillion numbers. I always give the Phillies credit for not "over-retiring" too many uniform numbers. I mean, Mike Scott? Really?
4. You can get frozen margaritas there.
So the Phillies are gonna try to prevent the sweep tomorrow. They'll send J.A. Happ to the mound, versus Brian Moehler for the Astros.