{"id":1122,"date":"2005-10-17T23:08:39","date_gmt":"2005-10-18T04:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1122"},"modified":"2005-10-17T23:10:50","modified_gmt":"2005-10-18T04:10:50","slug":"stros-heartbreak-in-place-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/?p=1122","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Stros:  Heartbreak in Place of History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At one time a single strike away from their first-ever World Series, the Astros fall <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/mlb\/playoffs2005\/news\/story?id=2194640\">5-4<\/a> in a dramatic and painful ninth-inning loss.<\/p>\n<p>Still, one strike away.  Now, back to St. Louis.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, this puts the Astros at 0-5 in games that could have sent them into the fall classic.  Last year, they lost <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/postseason\/2004_NLCS.shtml\">two<\/a> in St. Louis and, in 1980, they lost <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/postseason\/1980_NLCS.shtml\">two<\/a> at home to Philadelphia.  Like tonight, they had a lead at some point in each and every game.  1980 was particularly painful, with multiple-run leads blown in the two straight eighth innings and extra-inning losses in both games.<\/p>\n<p>Still, one strike away with a two-run lead.  And a heart-crushing loss comes instead.<\/p>\n<p>Now, a repeat of last year&#8217;s 3-2 series lead heading back to Busch Stadium for an Astros team that should almost certainly feel snake-bit.  If there&#8217;s any hope, it&#8217;s in the starting pitching duo of Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemons on the mound for a team that has proven amazingly resilient all season.<\/p>\n<p>Still, one strike away with a two-run lead and the home-town fans roaring and the champagne chilled.  Damn, this hurts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At one time a single strike away from their first-ever World Series, the Astros fall 5-4 in a dramatic and painful ninth-inning loss. Still, one strike away. Now, back to St. Louis. By the way, this puts the Astros at 0-5 in games that could have sent them into the fall classic. Last year, they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/targetcentermass.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}