Cole Hamels not Shellshocked Enough to Miss Out on One-Hitting Astros

This could be a bit scattered, as America is leading its WBC game against Canada at the moment, and Jimmy just muffed a grounder to allow a man on in the bottom of the eighth with no outs.

It’s been a game of consistent frustrations that your countrymen are currently winning but has produced some of the higher quality tweets of the decade.

Cole Hamels got started early, allowing a lead off double to whoever leads off for the Astros.  After that, he didn’t allow anything ever again.  Well, he allowed the run to score, but nobody ever touched base again; not while Hamels was pitching, not while any of the relievers tapped over the last four innings were pitching, never.

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And as Larry Andersen noted in the radio broadcast, no, the Astros are not the 1927 Yankees.  But they were the opposing team, and Cole humiliated them, though again, they are the Astros, and they may not even distinguish that humiliation from the many, many others.  And I say that knowing that should we have had to play them during the regular season, they would almost certainly have swept us out of our home stadium.

Cole was sharp, and his successors Tyler Cloyd, Zach Miner, Jeremy Horst, and Justin De Fratus all kept Houston at bay, a task that seems to become somehow easier the further into games you go.  Laynce Nix and Michael Young both went 2-for-3 with 1 and 0 RBI, respectively.  But the real day was had, again, by Freddy Galvis, again; the kid went 3-for-4 with a double and two RBI, one with two outs.

Then, there was the matter of former Phillies farmhand Jarred Cosart plucking Darin Ruf in the elbow, causing him to leave the game.  On the one hand, if the inevitable injuries are going to happen, maybe they should be allowed to happen to the younger, more muscly people, so that they absorb and heal faster than, say, a second baseman made of sand.

Just a thought.  Sort of despicable.

It doesn’t matter; Ruf was fine, thankfully, though he did strike out again today in an 0-for-2 performance.  As of yet, the Freak of the Eastern League isn’t making quite a stir.  He’s just scraping up against .200 for a batting average and completes the slash line with an unappealing .314/.300 combo.  Yikes.

Oh, also, Erik Kratz had an RBI triple.  So.  You know.

Astros, I guess.

As catching prospect Cameron Rupp once famously said he would stay in Clearwater “until they ask me to leave.”  He was asked to leave today after the game.

Also Charlie Manuel was run over by a tricycle.