Live From Spring Training ’09: Astros vs. Phillies

The Houston Astros made it seven in a row today with a 6-5 win over the Philadelphia Phillies as I watched my final spring training game this year from the seat occupied by President Bush, 41, for a couple of games earlier this week. Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins didn’t make the trip, but the rest of the Phillies regulars did and they faced what is likely to be Houston’s starting lineup on opening day.

Roy Oswalt struggled early and was touched for 4 hits and 3 runs in the second inning including a long home run by Jayson Werth as he had difficulty keeping the ball down and continued his troublesome trend of giving up too many hits after getting 2 strikes on the batter. It appeared to be more of the same in the next inning when Chase Utley singled and Werth doubled with no outs. Miguel Tejada helped prevent what could have been another big inning with a diving catch of a line drive off the bat of Pedro Feliz. From that point on, Oswalt was much sharper as he threw 97 pitches through 6 innings with no walks and six strikeouts.

Tejada hit a solo homer off Brett Myers in the fourth inning and doubled in the tying run in the 6th with the third of his three hits. Hunter Pence then put the Astros ahead to stay with the second of his three hits, driving in Tejada. The Astros tacked on two insurance runs in the 8th on hits by Jason Smith, Pence and Geoff Blum to go ahead 6-3. It turned out they needed these runs. Chris Samson worked a 1-2-3 inning in the 8th but ran into trouble in the 9th when Matt Stairs hit a home run and the Phillies put together two more hits for another run before Sampson got the last two outs with the tying run, Eric Bruntlett, on second base.

• The Astros have had a most unusual spring training, winning only one of their first 20 games before embarking on the current 7-game streak. Are they peaking too soon?