Did Oswalt throw at Carlos Lee?

In the fifth inning of last night’s game Carlos Lee hit a pop fly to left-field against former teammate Roy Oswalt. When the ball came off the bat I dejectedly muttered a random obscenity. Oh, wait a second, this is Minute Maid Park! Lo and behold the ball found it’s way into the Crawford Boxes for a two-run homer. My disgust quickly turned to delight. I suppose the opposite was true for Oswalt. But you would think Roy would be used to giving up pop fly homers to left, having pitched in MMP for ten years.

Lee’s homer gave the Astros a 4-1 lead. Oswalt had not pitched great, but he hadn’t pitched badly either. Those of us who are familiar with Roy know that he can get a little hot under the collar when things aren’t going his way. In Lee’s next at-bat Oswalt came up and in with a fastball, striking El Caballo on the left hand. As Carlos dropped his bat, jumped up and down, and waved his left hand back and forth like a salon patron attempting to dry her nails I immediately had flashbacks of 2008 when Lee missed the last month-and-a-half of the season with a broken pinky. To add insult to injury Oswalt began protesting that the ball had missed Lee’s hand and had instead made contact with the bat. Now I was really pissed! Oswalt showed no remorse- he must have thrown at Lee intentionally. Sore loser alert! I was once a big fan of Roy. But this was the last straw for me. It was bad enough that he publicly asked to be traded last year and pretty much burned every bridge on his way out of town. Sorry Roy but I have officially unfollowed you on twitter. Take that!

The Astros had the last laugh, handing Oswalt his ninth defeat of the season. Fortunately Carlos was not seriously hurt. He stayed in the game and is back in the starting lineup tonight against Cole Hamels. The Astros cannot afford to lose the one bat in their lineup that opposing pitchers still fear. J.A. Happ gets the start for Houston tonight. Will he be asked to  retaliate against his former team?