The ‘Stros beat the Rockies 13-7 in a typical Coors Field game on Friday night or, as Astros’ color man Jim DeShaies put it, “the Astros went on a 10 to 2 run to take control of the game.”
Games at Coors Field are often quite strange. Yesterday, the grounds crew worked all day to remove four inches of snow from the field that had fallen on Thursday night. Because of the high altitude, the baseball flies further when hit. Pitchers are well aware of this, so they tend to pitch more defensively, which usually makes matters worse for them. Sometimes, a pitcher will look like he is dominating a hitter for several pitches and then suddenly, the hitter will whack the next pitch into the adjoining county. So, when watching games at Coors, you just have to get used to that type of thing.
Mike Lamb had a career game for the ‘Stros with four hits and six RBIs, and Brandon Duckworth gave up five hits and four runs in five innings (that’s like giving up three hits and a run in seven innings anywhere else) to pick up the win. Denver native Brad Lidge struck out the last four Rockies batters of the game, which is tantamount to striking out the entire lineup anywhere else.
The Rocket goes for his fourth win today in his second career start at Coors.