Earlier this month, the Houston Astros committed what I consider to be the worst play in the history of professional baseball when they turned a sacrifice bunt into a Cirque du Soleil-like dance of futility. I describe it as, “the kind of thing people put into movies about bad baseball teams in the opening montage so you’ll feel happy for them when they stop squatting and farting on the field”.

Now I think they’re just doing it on purpose.

Their latest work (by way of our friends at SportsGrid) features catcher Jason Castro and pitcher Fernando “A Bad Pitcher” Abad simultaneously charging an R.A. Dickey knuckle-swing, running into each other and helplessly falling to the ground as a pitcher beat them to first and a run scored from second.

There’s no way this can be real. Houston decided to amp up the helplessness a la the Washington Generals so even if lose 100 games next year and DON’T run into each other all the time it’ll look like an improvement. Or they’re about to be helped by angels. I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to hurry up and get to the punchline.

[via Yardbarker]

Here’s the recap from Larry Brown Sports, which is so understated it might as well read “baseball game was arranged and performed”.

The Astros and Nats were tied at 4 in the 11th when Kurt Suzuki attempted to move Roger Bernadina up from first to second on a sac bunt. He got much more than he expected thanks to some embarrassingly sloppy fielding from the Astros.

I guess it’s hard to write “a guy bunted and the Astros jammed their fingers into each others’ asses until they lost the game” and feel okay about it. Seriously, I’ve sat here for 10 minutes trying to think of a time when I’ve seen a worse play in baseball, professional or Pony League T-Ball or otherwise, and I can’t do it. Even that picture is confusing. In one tiny little square you get every explanation for the Astros being the worst team in baseball, and for their 4-31 streak heading into this Futility Armageddon moment.

This is the kind of thing people put into movies about bad baseball teams in the opening montage so you’ll feel happy for them when they stop squatting and farting on the field. Get it together, Astros.

UPDATE: Here’s the Benny Hill version, by request.

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