Recap for G7 @ Pittsburgh

At some point you have to stop tipping your cap to the opposite pitcher. 24 hours after Kyle Lohse throws the best game of his career, so does Zach Duke, all 27-39 of him. Moehler again doesn't make it through the 3rd iwth 45 pitches in 2.1IP - but lowers his ERA from 37.80 to 27.00. Moehler could not keep the ball down, and the Pirates tattooed him - and anyone else wearing a red jersey who wanted to throw a ball - all over the place. And as it turns out, Moehler left with a right knee sprain.

Duke got 14 groundball outs, 8 flyball outs, and five strikeouts - three of which belonged to 1B1: Lance Berkman, who got pissed after the 2nd. Your Astros are now 7x61 (.115) since Saturday's game, and the Astros have trailed in 61 of the 63 innings in which they have played.

Moehler: 2.1IP, 7H, 4ER, 0K/1BB, 1HR. Six of the seven outs he got were fly-balls
Byrdak: 0.2IP, 1H, 1ER, 0K/2BB
Ortiz: 1IP, 1H, 1K
Sampson: 2IP, 2H, 1BB
Wright: 1IP, 1H, 1K/1BB
Geary: 0.2IP, 2H, 1ER, 1HR

Pitcher	Pit/Str	Strike%	BF/Outs	Efficiency%	GB/FB/K
Moehler	45/25	55.5%	15/7	46.6%	1/6/0
Byrdak	30/16	53.3%	5/2	40%	2/0/0
Ortiz	17/10	58.8%	4/3	75%	2/0/1
Sampson	21/12	57.1%	9/6	66.7%	2/4/0
Wright	18/9	50%	5/3	60%	0/2/1
Geary	14/10	71.4%	5/3	60%	2/1/0

With Pirates' 3B1 Ramon Vazquez' single in the 7th, every Pirates player had at least one hit - including Duke.

The Astros simply don't know how to hit when ahead. Duke threw 1st-pitch balls to six of the first eight Astro batters, and 15 1st-pitch balls overall. How many of those at-bats resulted in a hit? Two.

Man of the Match:
No one on the offense gets this award, so we'll give it to Chris Sampson, who only needed 21 pitches to go through 2IPs.

Goat of the Game:
Sorry, Lance. 0x4 with 3Ks.