I hate the few days a year when there are no future or former Astros with birthdays. I still feel compelled to come up with something and I end up going down tons of rabbit trails. But I always seem to find something of interest, at least to me.
In looking at non-Astros players with birthdays today, one name jumped out for me - Jack Clark who is 57 today. I remember the absolute dread of seeing him come to the plate against the Astros. He always seem to just kill us. Well, that wasn't all in my imagination. Thanks to Baseball-Reference's fabulous search engine, I discovered that Jack the Ripper had a robust batting average against several of the Astros pitchers.
.385 vs. Danny Darwin
.341 vs. Joaquin Andujar
.326 vs. Bob Knepper
.306 vs. Joe Niekro
He even hit .289 vs. J.R. Richard who allowed a lifetime batting average of only .212.
But there were a few pitchers that shut him down fairly well. He only hit .167 off Mike Scott and Frank DiPino, .190 off Dave Smith and .231 off Jim Deshaies, which brings me to the next thing I found.
I found a site that will "replay" any game in which you're interested. This particular game was one in which JD shut down Jack Clark, striking him out three times. As an added bonus, it will take you down memory lane in looking at that terrific 1986 team. Hope you enjoy it.
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