In the final game of the regular season, the Astros did me proud. We beat the Cardinals tonight - the regular season champions. As usual, "Joltin" Joe gave us 3 solid innings of starting pitching to pickup his second victory of the season. In his second appearance of the season, Cody "Hustle" struck out the side in the fourth and final inning, again with no hits and no runs. The real story, however, was the offense in the second inning where the Astros scored a whopping 14 runs to take a commanding lead which we never let go. The final score was 19-8. Your Astros Stars of the Game were:
The Astros continued to play hard in back-to-back games against another really good opponent in the Reds. Despite missing some of our biggest bats - and playing with only 9 players - the Astros had a 7 run first inning to take a 7-4 lead. We continued to grind through a couple more innings to a 11-11 tie, despite another solid starting pitching effort from "Joltin" Joe who pitched three innings giving up only 4 earned runs with 7 strikeouts. However, with Andrew "Freddie Ballgame" suffering from a shoulder injury, and Connor "The Comet" with a hurt thumb, we had to go deep for relief pitching once again. Stepping up was "Pokey" Matt who made a solid pitching debut going 1 1/3 innings. Patrick "P-Diddy" filled in for 2/3 of inning. The real story was Cody "Hustle" who made his pitching debut in the final inning and didn't allow a hit or an earned run. The final score was 11-20, but we continue to develop as a team, finding new strengths as we prepare for the playoffs. Your Astros stars of the game were:
The Astros played a heck of a game tonight against the Athletics. It was another see-saw battle with the Astros jumping to a 4-3 lead after 1 inning, and 11-7 lead after 4 innings on some solid. "Joltin" Joe and Andrew "Freddie Ballgame" gave us some good pitching over the first three innings. But then we had our one bad inning where - despite some good pitching from Connor "The Comet," we managed to give up 9 runs in the 5th inning. After reaching deep into our bullpen, we had another tough inning in the 6th, giving up 9 more runs. But facing a 12 run deficit in the bottom of the 6th inning, the Astros showed some grit and never gave up, scoring 10 runs in the inning and almost pulling off the come-back victory. The final score was 22-24, but I was proud of the team for playing hard tonight. Your Astros stars of the game were:Two more games left in the regular season this week.
Not much to say about this game other than the Astros really didn't show up ready to play tonight's game against the Orioles. We committed 8 fielding errors (not counting the balls we just didn't show effort trying to get to), we had 10 strikeouts hitting, and we walked 13 opponent batters pitching. Other than that, we played really well. To put salt in the wound, the Orioles - in a total "Bush-League" move - took an extra long, full-team huddle in the middle of the field with a 10 run lead, only to try and pull the "third-baseman really has the ball and not the pitcher so we can tag your runner out" trick. Luckily the umps called it a balk, but not the sort of play you call when your beating a team by ten runs (although before the move, we had actually just scored four runs and had some momentum going).We have three more regular season games to play. Hopefully we can get back into the groove we were in a few games back when we were playing really good baseball. All teams make the playoffs, so if we can end on a high-note, we start with a clean slate for a possible playoff run.
The 3-8 Astros put up a fight against the division-leading 8-2 Cardinals. It was a see-saw game with the Astros leading 5-4 after 3 innings. But the Cardinals are a good hitting team and they had an 8 run inning that really killed us. The Astros fought back to make it a 9-12 game, but ended up losing 9-16. Our Astros stars of the game were:
PartnerShip LLC is once again participating in the the Cleveland Corporate Challenge -- a 14 event corporate athletic competition promoting company camaraderie, employee wellness and business networking while helping local charities. We are competing in the Division 1 category (1-79 employees). Our first event, co-ed softball, was this past Saturday. We won two games and lost two. The team photo is shown here (I am second from the left). It was good fun, and a nice employee bonding experience - although my old muscles could feel it the next day! I don't recall which events PartnerShip will be participating in, but I signed up for 4 events: Softball, Bowling, Mini-Golf, and 3x3 Basketball. I'm looking forward to the next event.
Coming off a big win against the Orioles two nights earlier, I had high hopes for the Astros last night against the Indians (we beat the them the last time we played). The team had been playing really well, but the wheels fell off last night. Andrew "Freddie Ballgame" pitched the first inning and was steady, giving up 2 runs (1 earned). However, he got clobbered advancing home on a passed ball in the top of the 2nd inning, so I needed to bring Connor "The Comet" in to pitch an inning earlier than expected. Connor gave up 3 runs, but couldn't go beyond the 2nd inning due to a sore arm. After that, it was one pitcher after another. All told, we gave up only 4 hits to the Indians, but we walked 18 batters and hit two more! So, the final score was 2-18. My Astros stars of the game were:
This is pretty cool. PartnerShip recently began an "employee appreciation" program whereby employees receive nominations and formal notes of appreciation throughout the month - all which translate into "skid" stickers that an employee placed on a football helmet cutout they were given at the start of the program. Recognition is supposed to be any exceptional activity or act that goes above-and-beyond the normal call of duty.
The Astros were originally scheduled to play the Orioles this past Tuesday. However, the Orioles were going to miss players and would have had to forfeit so they appealed to the league to reschedule the game (without asking us). The game was rescheduled for this afternoon, but it meant the Astros could field only 9 players and we would be missing our two best pitchers (Joe and Connor). Well, I am proud to say the team really picked up their game today in order to beat the Orioles by a score of 14-9. Andrew "Freddie Ballgame" was our starting pitcher. After a solid first inning, the Orioles sneaked a few runs in the second. But the Astros hit the ball hard - including a critical bases loaded triple by Seth "Astro Boy" in the third - to take the lead. Madison "The Mad-Hitter" made her pitching debut and turned in two shutout innings. Seth came in to close the game out, but injured his arm after facing three hitters. So, Dillon "Black Pants" made his pitching debut as well - and with some great defense behind him - he registered the save. While everyone played well today, your Astros stars of the game were:
Last night the Hollywood Four went to the minor league Lake Erie Crushers baseball game in Avon, OH. This was the 50th unique professional baseball stadium that this Hollywood Dad has visited (29 major league ball parks; and 21 minor league ball parks). This doesn't include two spring training ballparks in Arizona, and is in addition to some other important baseball sites that we have visited: Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Field of Dreams, Louisville Slugger factory, and one World Series game. The rest of the Hollywood Four are not far behind, with Karen having visited 41 of these same stadiums, Abby having visited 34 of them, and Andrew having visited 30. You can click the image in the upper right to see a full chronology of our baseball travels. This summer we plan on visiting at least three new ball parks: Frederick Keys, Harrisburg Senators and Altoona Curve.
I returned home this evening from the 2012 TMSA Conference in Hollywood, FL. Similar to the event last year, it was a great opportunity for me to network with some new and former industry colleagues; enjoy a little educational stimulation around trendy marketing topics; establish benchmarks against where my PartnerShip is at relative to some of our industry peers; and also just unwind and have a little fun.