What's cooler than being cool? Ice cold!

The Good

• Chan Ho Park: As poorly as Billingsley pitched, Park was basically his doppelganger. Three innings of shut out ball and his three hits surrendered never conspired to create any trouble for the second tour of duty Dodger.   "He's been doing a good job coming out the bullpen," praised Joe Torre.  "He's getting loose quicker and he's coming in with good stuff right off the bat, which has impressed me."  Torre was asked if Park was a candidate for the fifth spot once tenuously owned by a now injured Esteban Loaiza.  Basically, there's a week or so before any decision would need to be made, but Torre noted that it's a role where Park has found success in the past.  Stay tuned. 
• The second inning relay: The pair of runs surrendered by Bills in frame numero dos could have transformed into a trio, had Matt Kemp, Jeff Kent, and Russell Martin not joined forces for a picture perfect relay.  With Miguel Tejada on first, Lance Berkman cranked a double to deep right and the former A/O was waved home.  After tracking down the ball, Kemp hit Kent in shallow right, who then hucked a laser home to Martin.  The All-Star backstop does a great job blocking off the plate, which eventually left Tejada nowhere to go except against a catcher's mitt.  Run saved.  Not that it really mattered, but still, good work.   

The Bad

• Chad Billingsley:  Five innings, five runs (four earned) and 96 pitches, 52 of which came in the first two frames alone (which, coincidentally, is where Houston did all its scoring).  After inducing a ground out from Michael Bourn, Bills immediately found trouble, loading the bases with the next three hitters in fashion that included both a wild pitch and a hit batsman.  The kid eventually settled down to allow only one hit over the next three innings, but by then, both his arm and his outing were basically toast.  After consecutive strong starts, optimism that Bills had turned a corner on his erratic start were understandable.  Unfortunately, in classic Paul Adbul fashion, those two steps forward were accompanied by two steps back.
  
  By the way, am I the only person who saw that video back in '89 and found it very strange to see Abdul seemingly deadset on make her relationship with a cartoon cat work?  Really, Paula?  Really?  Annoying as he often comes off, I can see why she eventually decided to move on to Emilio Estevez.  In a lot of ways, it's simply less complicated.  She and the cat were from two different worlds, literally and figuratively. 
  
  Oddly enough, Billingsley fell into a pattern of getting ahead in the count, then giving up the hits.  "I wasn't able to put them away when I was given two strikes," lamented the starter.  "I was going to my off speed stuff and I was keeping it up in the zone.  Giving them a pitch they could handle instead of going just below the zone and just a little away from the hitter."  Torre put it an interesting way.  "Sometimes, you complain guys aren't throwing enough strikes.  He just probably stayed in the strike zone too long."      
• The blue bats: A scant three hits to show for the evening.  And unless the entire trio consisted of multi-run homers, which is seriously tough to pull off when only three other batters reach base-- two by walk and Andruw Jones by Tejada's odd insistence to chase a ball into not so shallow left, proving the CF a trip via error-- you're not likely to produce much scoring with so few knocks.  In this particular case, they produced as little as possible.

Also, talked a bit with Rafael Furcal after the game.  His odds of playing tomorrow seem about as good as mine right now.  And considering BK is actually the one at the park Sunday afternoon, you do the math.  He said the hitting end of things doesn't cause any pain, but he can't really run right now.  As he noted, being able to hit doesn't do you much good if you can't run out what you send into the field.  The injury has been even more frustrating because he's watching his team lose and can't do a thing to help.

The Audio

• Joe Torre: Download joe_torre_astros_postgame_05108.mp3
• Chad Billingsley: Download chad_billingsley_postgame_astros_051008.mp3

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