I felt bad for Derek Holland. I thought this game was going to be easy for him. Again – Houston Astros. We got up 4-0 in the third inning. Was a nice outburst of offense, actually.
Kinsler stuck out. Elvis walked. Josh grounded out, and Beltre singled, scoring Elvis. Michael Young reached on an error. Then David Murphy hit a ball to right center. The center fielder Jordan Schafer and the right fielder Justin Maxwell crashed into each other (although not that bad) going after the ball. This led to an injury exit for Schafer who rolled his foot in the collision. However, since both guys went down, the ball rolled past that point, and it allowed Murphy to hit an inside the park home run.
What’s cool about that moment is that it allowed me to explain to my daughter what an inside the park home run was. It took me a few years to get her to understand that when a player runs, it’ s not a home run. I had finally gotten into her head that a home run is when they hit the ball over the fence. Then we get an inside the parker, so I had to throw a curveball to her limited 7yr old understandings of the weird parts of the game. Haven’t tried to explain the infield fly rule yet. :)
After that, the Astros pecked away – but pecked with power. Chris Snyder had a solo home run in the bottom of the third. Carlos Lee had a 2 run bomb in the bottom of the fourth. Justin Maxwell had a big two run home run in the bottom of the fifth. That gave the Astros the lead 5-4. They made it 6-4 the next inning with a sac fly.
The Rangers did push across a run in the top of the seventh, but the loss of the lead was pretty deflating, especially for this fan. Oh well, I know you can’t win them all, but.. BUT.. It’s the Astros!