Bud Norris shines as Houston Astros defeat San Diego Padres 1-0 – MLB Season Review
In the first of their fourth scheduled meetings, the National League Central franchise Houston Astros overpowered the league rival San Diego Padres 1-0 on Thursday, April 14 at Minute Maid Park in Texas.
Michael Bourn singled to bring in Humberto Quintero for the only run to snatch a triumph in pitchers’ dominated outing.
Astros’ starter Bud Norris put in a brilliant pitching performance as he managed to pitch six scoreless innings striking-out seven and allowing only two hits. His efforts were amazing as Norris managed to restrict the Padres’ offence and virtually shut them
down from scoring any runs throughout the close game.
"The focus was big," Houston manager Brad Mills said of his starter's outing. "Even though he threw a lot of pitches he didn't let that affect him. He knew that he had to come back and make some pitches and he did."
On the other hand, Padres’ Dustin Moseley pitched just over six innings but unfortunately he went for seven hits. Moseley earned his third loss of the season with his poor pitching performance.
"It's frustrating, but you go out there and do your job, and you leave the rest up to the team, and hopefully guys pull through," Moseley said. "Through the first three it hasn't happened, but it's a long year. I mean, these guys can start scoring 10 a game
for me."
The game was completely dominated by the pitching, as the final score clearly reflects. Both teams found it hard to get any solid runs on the board. Norris managed to restrict the Padres’ offence with his brilliant variations in pitching. The Padres struggled
throughout the game and looked frustrated by Norris’ pitching prowess.
The Astros played aggressively and put in an impressive performance to overpower the Padres by just a single run in the end. Even though it is still early in the season, both teams will be taking a good hard look at their batting line-ups to determine where
their weaknesses are. Both teams know that it will be a rough road ahead if their offence does not fire and is only limited to scoring a single run throughout an entire game.
On the pitching front, the Padres will be disappointed as their hurler was not accurate and they ended up paying the price for it with a single run loss in the end. The Astros will be happy that Norris is firing and his pitching is spot on the money. It
will be interesting to see how the Astros manage him throughout the season, especially against some of the more powerful teams in MLB.
It will be interesting to see how far the Astros will be able to carry their winning momentum forward into their next match-up.
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