The NLDS ends with a bang
Oct. 9th, 2005 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melliciousWe were going to go see Serenity again at 3:45, because the baseball game would surely be over by then - it started at noon. Along about the 7th inning I went and took a shower because the Astros were losing. When I came back they were still losing, 6-1 - but then in the 8th the Astros got several hits, and I said, "Wow, all the breaks are going their way all of a sudden." (Much more nattering about baseball under the cut.) And then Lance Berkman hit a grand slam to make it 6-5, and I was thinking, well, at least if they lose they weren't embarassed, and they would just go back to Atlanta and play tomorrow anyway. But the Astros didn't seem to want to go to Atlanta, because with 2 outs in the 9th and nobody on, Brad Ausmus hit a ball that I thought first was going to be an out, and then I thought was going to be a double off the wall - and it did hit off the wall, but I didn't realize until Ausmus broke into a jog after passing 2nd that it had hit the wall above the yellow line (near the 404' sign, no less) and so it was a homer and the game was tied.
And we never got to go see Serenity, because it stayed tied for about three hours. I am not exaggerating, unfortunately - it went eighteen innings. I sort of got more confident as it went along, because the Astros have a great bullpen and Atlanta has a pretty bad one (which is how it came to be tied in the first place, isn't it?), and when we started running out of pitchers in the bullpen, well, we had Roger Clemens. They put Clemens in to pinch-hit, no less, in... god, I don't know, maybe the 15th inning? and then he pitched three innings after that, and apparently would have kept going if Chris Burke, of all people, hadn't hit a home run to finally end it in the 18th. I had given up on TV along about the 16th and was listening to the radio in the bedroom, but I ran back in the living room when Milo started yelling so I could see the celebration.
I don't know which one is the more unlikely hero, Ausmus or Burke. (Ausmus had three home runs this year. Count 'em, three. And he played four out of every five days.) But that kind of thing always seems to happen in the playoffs, with the unlikely heroes. At least it's happening to us this time instead of to the team playing against us.
And we never got to go see Serenity, because it stayed tied for about three hours. I am not exaggerating, unfortunately - it went eighteen innings. I sort of got more confident as it went along, because the Astros have a great bullpen and Atlanta has a pretty bad one (which is how it came to be tied in the first place, isn't it?), and when we started running out of pitchers in the bullpen, well, we had Roger Clemens. They put Clemens in to pinch-hit, no less, in... god, I don't know, maybe the 15th inning? and then he pitched three innings after that, and apparently would have kept going if Chris Burke, of all people, hadn't hit a home run to finally end it in the 18th. I had given up on TV along about the 16th and was listening to the radio in the bedroom, but I ran back in the living room when Milo started yelling so I could see the celebration.
I don't know which one is the more unlikely hero, Ausmus or Burke. (Ausmus had three home runs this year. Count 'em, three. And he played four out of every five days.) But that kind of thing always seems to happen in the playoffs, with the unlikely heroes. At least it's happening to us this time instead of to the team playing against us.
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