I went to Minute Maid Park Thursday night full of hope. The Astros had pulled a win out of thin air against the Cardinals the night before led by the great pitching efforts of Bud Norris and I suddenly believed in miracles.

I thought Happ would pitch well. I thought the Astros would finally find a way to score on some of those numerous hits they keep getting. I thought Carlos Lee would hit into the Crawford Boxes. I thought they could win the series. I thought wrong.

It wasn’t all miserable. I had a helmet sundae. I was there with a friend who, despite being a Brit who was raised on rugby, has become a huge baseball fan. I had great seats, so there’s that. Oh, I was supposed to be talking about the game though, wasn’t I?

The upside of the game was Hunter Pence, once again. First, it has to be said that Hunter’s got some scruff going on his face. I don’t know if it’s a superstitious thing or if it will be around for much longer, but…wow…I hope so!

Hunter’s hot, and this time I mean at the plate. With two hits last night he extended his streak to a career-high 20 games. Within those 20 games he’s had multiple hits in 10. The boy is on fire with a batting average of .315. If we could get one or two more guys going like this, the Astros just might have some decent offense!

So while the Astros lost 9-2, I had a great time with a friend, laughed a lot, saw a few nice homers (that hurt us), had a chili cheese dog and a helmet sundae, and just enjoyed a night at the ballpark.

Meanwhile, the Astros will welcome back Brandon Lyon from the DL tonight as they take on the Braves at Minute Maid Park. In addition, Robinson Cancel has been sent back to AAA OKC and Carlos Corporan, who has missed most of this season with a broken finger, is being brought up to hopefully take some pressure off J.R. Towles, who’s been taking a beating behind the plate of late. Game time tonight is 7:05pm. Go out to MMP and have a helmet sundae for me.

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the Senior Houston Astros Writer for Aerys Sports. You can read her Astros blog at www.talesfromthejuicebox.com, email her at agirlinthesouth@gmail.com, or follow her on twitter @agirlinthesouth.