Recap: Cubs at Astros, 5/19/08

The replay showed that Geovany Soto's long shot to left-center should have been a garden-variety home run. Undeterred by the blown call, however, Soto got his homer the hard way, motoring his way around the bases into a stand-up, three run, inside-the-parker that proved to be the game winning shot.

The Cubs got their latest road trip off to a good start tonight, beating the Astros 7-2 in a game that was much closer than the score might suggest. The Astros kept it close through eight, scoring twice and getting their fair-share of runners in scoring position. Like many before them, however, the Astros' offense was undone by the rally-killing powers of Jim Edmonds and Carlos Marmol.

Ted Lilly had a fairly decent outing, going 5 1/3 innings and giving up both of the Astros' earned runs on 6 K's and 2 walks. He threw three perfect innings to start the game before control problems cropped up in the fourth, falling behind 3-1 to Miguel Tejada (resulting in a double), and, later in the inning, Hunter Pence, going 3-0 before catching up to a full count (thankfully, Jim Edmonds bailed Lilly out of the inning with an impressive-seeming catch...but more on that later).

Lilly continued to struggle with his control in the fifth, walking pinch-hitter Jose Cruz Jr. (and his sub-.300 OBP), and then giving up a run-scoring single to Michael Bourn after falling behind 3-1.
Despite the jams, Lilly lasted into the sixth before letting the bullpen take over. Lieber pitched an excellent inning and two-thirds, getting a double-play ball out of Hunter Pence to end the sixth and working a quick seventh. Weurtz was less than stellar in the eighth, giving up hits to Bourne and KazMat before handing things over to Carlos Marmol, who quickly snuffed out the mini-rally and put the Astros to bed.

The Cubs' offense pressed onward anyway, adding four superfluous runs -- punctuated by Aramis Ramirez's seventh homer of the year, a two-run blast into left center in the top of the ninth that put the game away well before Bob Howry struck out two in a perfect half-inning to end the game.

It all adds up to a fairly ho-hum win, given the way the 2008 Cubs' season has unfolded thus far: steady offensive production, reasonably solid pitching performances, excellent work out of the bullpen, and good defensive play.

Speaking of defensive play, however, there was one part of tonight's game that I thought was particularly interesting, and troubled me more than a little bit. I'm referring to Jim Edmonds' winding, twirling, over-the-shoulder rundown of Hunter Pence's long fly to end the fourth. Watching as it happened, I thought Edmonds misplayed the ball, taking a bad route and not having the speed to make up for it. He looked about two steps slow to me (perhaps residual ankle gimpiness from taking a foul off his ankle in the top of the fourth). My first thought -- as Len and Bob began heaping praises upon Edmonds for the great catch -- was that Felix Pie runs that ball down and makes the catch look easy. As they showed the replay, I was a little more impressed with Edmonds' play (mostly because the replay showed that Edmonds was actually running faster than it seemed initially). Still, if nights like these are a sign of things to come, I get the feeling that we in Cubdom are in for a lot of long floaters to center bouncing on the warning track, over Edmonds' head. I hope I'm wrong.

Other notes from tonight's game:

-Bob mentioned that Brad Ausmus was playing the role of tutor to rookie Astros catcher J.R. Towles. As a Cubs fan, I really hope Ausmus tutors Towles into another 15 years of .252/.325/.346 baseball.

-Where was Hunter Pence on Soto's HR ball? The ball seemed to lay in center field forever, until Bourn came dashing back to get the ball in the infield. Why wasn't Pence backing up the play? I have to think if Pence does his job there, Soto has a triple at worst.

-After two at-bats, I was trying to remember the last time I saw Derrek Lee take a first pitch. I'm pretty sure it was sometime last week. Maybe. Alas, my wonderings were for naught, as Lee took a first pitch in the seventh, and proceeded to have two really solid ABs to finish off the game. A corner turned, perhaps? Let's all hope so.

-Lance Berkman should grow his beard back. There's nothing about his doughy cheeks that's going to intimidate a pitcher. Nothing.

-CSN got a few shots of Cecil Cooper looking positively Dustyesque early in the game -- staring blankly into space for unsettlingly long periods of time -- which made me pity Astros fans a little more than I already do. Then Len mentioned that Cooper hates to bunt, returning me to my standard level of Astro-pitying.

Tomorrow it's Dempster versus Sampson. I'll have a game preview post up to get you the standard stats and some Cubs-related links from around the web.