Holdin' Onto Hope Part 2: Cranes, Trains, and Auto-Explosions (The Show 12)

[TheNumber35]

Quote: Originally Posted by royals19

You gonna pull a good ol' fashioned Matt Kemp on him?

In short...yes, if I see Mr. Sanchez again, I will be beaning him as many times as I can. And we face LAD in the last series of the season, so those games could be huge considering they are 2 games up on us in the wild card hunt right now.

[royals19]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheNumber35

In short...yes, if I see Mr. Sanchez again, I will be beaning him as many times as I can. And we face LAD in the last series of the season, so those games could be huge considering they are 2 games up on us in the wild card hunt right now.

Alright that'll be great! I hate Sanchez. That punk stuck my Royals with a 7.00+ ERA and maybe 2 good innings before we shipped him to Colorado (needless to say, he's going to get what he deserves there).

[TheNumber35]

Visitor's Bullpen at Comerica Park
July 13th, 2013
6:55 pm


Jeremy threw warmup pitches to his catcher Jason Castro preparing for the biggest start of his comeback yet. His first prime-time game, a game against his former team. They were going for the sweep of his former team tonight no less. Butterflies danced through his stomach as he thought of what this start could do for him...one way or the other. It could vault him back to star status, or mark him as a mediocre pitcher with good luck. Everything depended on tonight. As he threw his slider to Castro in the pen, Jason stopped for a second and brought Jeremy closer.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jason Castro

Hey man, relax. Me and you are gonna smoke these fools tonight. I got you. Just throw what we went over and everything is gonna be fine. They'll get to Max and everything will be fine. I promise.

That made Jeremy feel better, his catcher and his team had faith in him. Time to shine Jeremy, let's do this one for everyone who still loves you out there.



Welcome to Comerica Park, I'm Jon Miller and this is Joe Morgan*** welcoming you inside this lovely venue to see a great matchup of interleague baseball. Tonight is a story of redemption, a comeback come full circle. Isn't that right Joe?



***

Spoiler

I went old school for the beginning of this game, I remember the good ol' days of Sunday Night Baseball. This isn't a Sunday game but I DON'T CARE!

Absolutely Jon, this game has to mean a lot to the starter on the Astros side: Jeremy Bonderman. He was a key cog in those Tiger teams from years ago. The World Series run? That was in large part due to a great performance from Jeremy Bonderman down the stretch and in the playoffs. But injuries derailed his career, and all looked lost for the 27 year old Bonderman. A year out of the game and out of options, he took to an experimental procedure in Germany as his last resort. Now at age 29, he is making a miraculous comeback with Houston. And he runs into his former squad tonight. This game means a lot to Bonderman and it means a lot to the city of Detroit as well. This guy was a hero for them and now he's donning a new uniform and pitching arguably the best baseball of his career.

That's it for us, tonight as we'll get you back to your regular broadcaster for the start of the game. Enjoy....

Geezers cramping my style, oh well. They DID do a nice job of setting the scene for me. Bonderman versus Scherzer is the matchup tonight and it won't disappoint.

First pitch of the 2nd hitter of the night, Scherzer facing Altuve and this happens.


Ding dong, Altuve is trotting with is 2nd dinger of the year...this one was a "ringing" homer *snickers*. 1-0 Stros. And out comes Bondo for his Detroit debut. Applause could be heard throughout Comerica, classy fans here in Detroit. They gave him a 5 minute standing ovation as he warmed up.


Look at his numbers, he's been damn good all season and he was good again tonight.


There's the final line for Jeremy in tonight's ballgame. Yeah, it is a bit of a spoiler. Also there's this:


Kerpow! Justin "Melky Who" Maxwell with another dinger. This one would give us a solid 4-0 lead, and although things got shaky at the end. Bonderman would take home the win and so would the Astros.


Ballgame, and that's a sweep boys. We just swept a 1st place squad. Now we head to KC to face the Royals. Whom we swept, which means we've won 6 in a row. Following the end of this series, we're headed to Tampa Bay to face off against the Rays.

But before the team left KC, some news broke as they had acquired 1B Carlos Pena from the division leading Cincinnati Reds for CF J.B Shuck. Pena is hitting .143 on the season in 3 games. He has been rotting behind Joey Votto and asked Cincinnati for a trade after they promised him more PT in the offseason. (Note: Carlos you are stupid for accepting a deal to a team with a stud 1B) Carlos is set to arrive in Tampa with the club and should figure to start the 1st game of the series against James Shields. Matt Dominguez figures to see his playing time diminish now, with Johnson shifting back to his natural position of 3rd.

[AC]

I have a slight feeling that this next updates will be, oh, I dunno...





I'm watching you, 35...

[TheNumber35]

Welcome to the Trop...the chittiest ballpark in all of baseball, if I do say so myself. Every time I see this place, I want to throw up in my mouth. It is disgusting, ugly, and every bad word you could ever throw out in a sentence. Wait? We are at home instead of in Tampa? Halleluiah! I must have misread the schedule...but there are no complaints here. I HATE the Trop.

Welcome to the Astros Carlos Pena.


The Reds didn't appreciate you, and we're sorry about that. Let us reward you with a couple tidbits about the Astros transactions this last week:

DFA'd David Carpenter (1-4, 7.64 ERA, .560 BAA), Lucas Harrell (1-8, 8.77 ERA, .356 BAA), and Hector Noesi (1-1, 6.60 ERA, 15 HR allowed in 30.1 innings)

Noesi was claimed by these Rays, but sits in their AAA affiliate. Harrell was claimed by the Yankees! Oh hail the mighty Yankees for taking us out from under a god awful contract and a god awful player. I hope that you rot in hell Milky. And Carpenter cleared waivers and is sitting in free agency. But onto our action, it would be an interesting game against these Rays as they come into the game ranked 2nd in team batting average. Wait is that right? I had to of misread that...


Yes that is correct, wow...the same Rays that have been no-hit 3 times in the last 4 years are 2nd in baseball in team average? Impressive turnaround. Here we go with today's action


Thank god we're at home, I can't reiterate enough times how much I ****ing hate that chithole in Tampa. Tampa's lineup for all to see


Ahh that's why they're 2nd in average. The top 6 hitters are all hitting .275 or higher. Good news we've got Kyle "The Fisher Price Buzzsaw" Weiland coming to the rescue today.


He would face off against Mr. Big Game James himself


Not so great in the numbers column for Big Game. But he is always a tough matchup. Fast forward to the top of the 4th inning. Catcher Steven Vogt takes a 2-1 fastball from Weiland and lines it to center, scoring Travis Hafner from 2nd base to make the game 1-0. However, former Ray Carlos Pena would double and be plated by a Jason Castro single to tie the game at 1. An inning later, Kyle Weiland would single and be scored on a Chris Johnson RBI single to make it 2-1. And so it stayed. Yes it really was a 2-1 final. Kyle Weiland gave us 6 strong innings (as shown here)


And we would take this one here in Houston.


Oh that reminds me, Sergio Escalona had been pitching so badly in the closers role recently. Which led to a change of the guard at closer, welcome to the fray Kevin Jepsen. Your 1.09 ERA and .187 BAA is music to my ears. Pena goes 1-4 in his Houston debut and scores a run.

[TheNumber35]

Off we go! After taking 2 of 3 from Tampa, we took 2 of 3 from Minnesota and moved into Chicago to face the division rival Cubbies. 5-0 Jeremy Bonderman vs Paul MahoLOLm (yes that is his nickname for me.) Not much else to say about this one, other than how much of a one-sided pitching matchup it was.


vs this


Yeah, you do the math.


Bondo was on point all game long. First inning he punched out 2 batters and was looking sharp. 2nd inning he allowed a run, but it took him only 15 pitches to get through. 3rd inning, punched out the 8 hitter McDonald on a NASTY heater up and in and the pitcher on a slider. 4th inning goes quickly as well. And he also helps his own cause in this game with an RBI single.

But Juicin's 16th bomb on the year is a bigger story.


And so is a CG for Jeremy. He punched out 11, walked nobody (which is unbelievable considering the walk numbers he's been giving me in some starts) and allowed the 1 run.


We would take this one easy by a final of 5-1


Big news is on the horizon for the Astros as they sit a mere 2 games out of the Wild Card lead. A rumored big trade has been preliminarily approved which sends a slugger to Houston. More on this in a minute!

[AC]

Ohhhh, here it comes!

[jknott10]

Are any of those Bonderman starts sim starts?