A sun-drenched, record crowd of 7,020 fans saw the Houston Astros\u00c2\u00a0overcome a 4-0 deficit to defeat a New York Yankees split squad 8-6 in Kissimmee Saturday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yankees struck early against Brett Myers with a home run by Robinson Cano in the second inning\u00c2\u00a0and two more runs in the third on a triple by Brett Gardner, a\u00c2\u00a0walk, and the first of two doubles by Alex Rodriguez.\u00c2\u00a0 Another run scored in the 4th inning on consecutive doubles by Ramiro Pena and Mike\u00c2\u00a0Rivera.<\/p>\n
The Astros finally broke through against Yankee starter, Alfredo Aceves, in the bottom of the 4th with two runs highlighted by the first of two doubles by Hunter Pence and went ahead to stay\u00c2\u00a0in the 5th on singles\u00c2\u00a0by\u00c2\u00a0Jason Bourgeois and Carlos Lee and doubles by Jeff Keppinger and Pence.\u00c2\u00a0 The Astros added two more in the 8th inning on a two-run homer by Cory Sullivan and survived some shaky relief pitching by Casey Daigle and Shane Loux for the 8-6 win which was finally secured when center fielder, T.J. Steele, snared a sinking line drive off the bat of Reid Gorecki to end the game.<\/p>\n
Myers became the first Astro starter to work 5 innings and picked up the win despite allowing 3 walks and 6 extra base hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Loux was credited with a save.\u00c2\u00a0 Pence continues\u00c2\u00a0to hit the ball hard and is batting over .450 for the spring, reminiscent of the showing he made three years ago when he burst on the scene.\u00c2\u00a0 Bourgeois and Sullivan are waging a strong battle for the fifth outfielder job.\u00c2\u00a0 Shortstop, Tommy Manzella, limped off the field after trying to beat out a double play and was replaced by Keppinger.<\/p>\n
The Astros have split squad games on Sunday with Roy Oswalt working against the Mets in Kissimmee and Brian Moehler scheduled to face the Red Sox in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
A SABR member since 1984, Bill has written articles for The National Pastime, The Baseball Research Journal and other publications and web sites.\u00c2\u00a0 For the past 16 years, he has worked for Tal Smith Enterprises on salary arbitration and has attended many arbitration hearings.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A sun-drenched, record crowd of 7,020 fans saw the Houston Astros\u00c2\u00a0overcome a 4-0 deficit to defeat a New York Yankees split squad 8-6 in Kissimmee Saturday afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 The Yankees struck early against Brett Myers with a home run by Robinson Cano in the second inning\u00c2\u00a0and two more runs in the third on a triple by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1481,4519,5331,3215,3243,5320,5337,645,444,5334,5335,5332,413,3242,257,1442,5129,5124,5336,5333],"class_list":["post-3645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-baseball-research-journal","tag-casey-daigle","tag-houston-astros","tag-hunter-pence","tag-jeff-keppinger","tag-mike-rivera","tag-national-pastime","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-ramiro-pena","tag-record-crowd","tag-reid-gorecki","tag-robinson-cano","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-sabr-member","tag-shane-loux","tag-smith-enterprises","tag-split-squad","tag-squad-games","tag-tommy-manzella"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}