The Cardinals completed the sweep of the Astros on Thursday night by squeezing in a run in the 12th to take a 2-1 victory. Roy O and Jason Marquis were locked in a pitching dual for most of the game, and you had a sense that it was not the Astros’ night when the team’s fastest player, Adam Everett, was thrown out at third base in the 7th on a nice throw from Jim Edmunds (close play, though). Of course, Biggio followed with an RBI single, which would have plated two and won the game if Everett had not been nailed.
The series revealed the Astros’ weakness that I noted earlier here on Opening Day — that is, this team will struggle to score runs during stretches of the season. They scored only 10 in three games against the Cards, and six of those were in the blowout loss in the second game of the series. The ‘Stros now move on to Denver for a three game set with the Rockies this weekend (Brandon Duckworth starts the opener in place of the rehabbing Andy Pettitte), then move on to Pittsburgh for three before returning to the Juice Box next Friday for a four game series with the Reds.
By the way, one of the highlights of the game last night was a real free-for-all between two fans in the stands during the bottom of the 11th. One of the two fellows involved in the fight quickly got the upper hand and was really hammering the other guy when the police finally broke it up. The police escorted one of the two guys from the stadium, but I couldn’t tell whether it was the fellow who got creamed or the winner by TKO who got removed.