nings have room for a few hoicks over slip. And Chinaman is a Test match-winning innings-at-the-death watch-over-and-over-on-Youtube kind of a b

HOUSTON -- Houstons struggles against Texas might cost the Astros a playoff spot.Ken Giles allowed two runs in the ninth inning of the Astros 3-2 loss to the Rangers on Tuesday night. Giles had converted nine consecutive save opportunities.Houston (75-70) has won just three times in 18 games against Texas this year. It is 4 1/2 games back of Toronto and Baltimore for the top spot in the wild-card standings.Ive seen and been in some tough ones, Houston manager A.J. Hinch said. This ones pretty hard. We had every chance to win the game and obviously strange things happen when we play these guys.Giles trouble started when Rougned Odor reached on a wild pitch after striking out with one out. He swiped second and scored on Elvis Andrus two-out triple. Jurickson Profar followed with a tiebreaking RBI single.Things didnt go our way, go my way, Giles said. Its my responsibility to shut the guys down. I didnt do my job today. I take full responsibility for that. I didnt make the pitches when I needed to so Im just going to take the good from the bad and just bounce back for the guys next time.It was the first blown save for Giles (2-4) since June 18 against Cincinnati. Alex Claudio (4-1) pitched the eighth for the win, and Tanner Scheppers worked a perfect ninth for his first save.These guys play complete games across the way and we havent been able to solve them, Hinch said.Jose Altuve homered in the fourth and Jason Castro connected in the sixth, sending a drive to the upper deck in right field to give the Astros a 2-1 lead.Adrian Beltre led off the second with his 30th homer for AL West-leading Texas (87-59). Beltre fell to a knee after swinging, but his towering shot traveled all the way to the Crawford Boxes in left.Houston right-hander Brad Peacock allowed three hits in six innings. He retired his last 10 batters.Texas right-hander A.J. Griffin also pitched well, striking out seven in a season-long seven innings. Griffin has allowed 26 homers this season and seven over his three September starts.TRAINERS ROOMAstros: LHP Dallas Keuchel, who hasnt pitched since Aug. 27 because of inflammation in his left shoulder, probably will not throw Wednesday, Hinch said. We are going to go day to day and see if we can increase any type of activity, but his target date is a little gray area than anything else, Hinch said.WATCH YOUR STEPOn Evan Gattis towering popup in the fifth, Andrus came in from shortstop and walked up the back of the pitchers mound. As he made the catch, Andrus appeared to trip on the top of the mound and fell, but hung on to the ball.Altuve also lost his footing during the game, but his fall did not have a good result. Altuve hit an infield single off third base in the sixth that was fielded by Andrus. Altuve made a wide turn around first and slipped in the dirt about 15 feet past first. Andrus double-pumped and then fired to first as Altuve had issues getting his footing back and was tagged out.UP NEXTRangers: LHP Derek Holland (7-7) will start Wednesday instead of RHP Yu Darvish, manager Jeff Banister said following Tuesdays game. Darvish will move behind LHP Cole Hamels in the rotation and start Saturday.Astros: RP Joe Musgrove (2-4) will take the mound Wednesday night for the Astros looking to repeat the success he had in his last start Friday against the Cubs when he allowed two runs in six innings. Air Force 1 Alte Gore-Tex . Peter Gammons, an analyst for Major League Baseballs network and website, drew the ire of hockey fans on Sunday when he criticized the two NHL teams on Twitter for their physical game the night before. Sf Air Force 1 Mid Bianche . Giroud, who wasnt in the starting lineup for two matches after allegations about his private life and a decline in form, scored twice in the first half. Tomas Rosickys chip made it 3-0 before half time at Emirates Stadium, while defender Laurent Koscielny scored an unmarked header in the second half. http://www.airforce1outletitalia.it/scontate-sf-air-force-1-mid-nere.html .Y. - New York City has been selected to host the NBA All-Star weekend in 2015, with the game played at Madison Square Garden and the slam dunk contest and other skills events held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Air Force 1 Alte Bianche Outlet . The judges scored it 48-47, 48-47, 49-46 for Jones (19-1). It was the champions closest call. Despite the loss, it was a remarkable show by the confident Swedish challenger, who had the best of the early rounds and then hung on in the fourth and fifth. Nike Sf Air Force 1 Mid Uomo Scarpe . Miller reached right to deflect Mikhail Grabovskis attempt with just over 2 minutes remaining in regulation, and then made two more saves in the shootout Sunday to give the Sabres a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals. There are at least two types of book readers. (I refer to the people who read books and not those new-fangled devices.) The first type read their books in one go, rarely pausing for rumination, reflection or any handwork with pencils or highlighters. If at all, they reflect on the book after theyre done reading.Then there is the rare type - those who cannot read a book without obliterating it with dog ears, notes in the margin, underlined passages and bookmarks. They convert the reading experience into a process. Perhaps they even stop every few minutes to tweet out interesting lines.If you are one of the latter, you will take days to get through young Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilakas Chinaman. That is even if you really want to finish this brilliant book as quickly as you possibly can. With clever lines on every page, Chinaman is the most tweetable book Ive ever read.In hindsight it appears to me as if Karunatilaka wrote the book with a checklist in his mind: Thats one more page done. Do we have a joke? Check. A brutal dig at cricket? Check. An irreverent swipe at Sri Lankan culture? Check.A superb work of fiction blended with non-fiction that makes you sit up night after night reading it? Double check.Chinaman is, mostly, the story of a Sri Lankan journalists hunt for a long-forgotten, and fictional, Sri Lankan cricket player called Pradeep Mathew. Mathew has a brief, meteoric cricketing career in the late 80s and early 90s that sees him achieve superhuman bowling records. But he vanishes as quickly as he appeared.As the curious, and increasingly obsessive, journalist, Karunasena, begins to peel back the layers of Mathews life he realises something is amiss. Mathew has vanished not just from the cricketing scene, it appears he has ceased to exist. His existence has even been expunged from the record books. And there is something disturbingly Orwellian about it all.Yet Karunatilakas book is equally about Karunasena. I wish I knew more about the author to see how self-referential this character is. Or maybe they just share Karunas. But the character of the 64-year old journalist is a wonderful device to place the topic of Sri Lankan cricket within the larger themes provided by Sri Lankan society and history.So on the one hand there is the obsessed, alcoholic journalist, well into the twilight of his career, going in search of a human mirage. But on the other there is the very real world that this journalist occupies. One of his friends is a diplomat who may have an ugly secret that involves little boys.ddddddddddddYet another is a member of Sri Lankas Burgher minority, who is as obsessed with cricket as Karunasena is. And somewhere in the final third of the book a bomb explodes at a train station. It happens casually, the death toll described as if in an afterthought.Most of all Chinaman is a book about cricket. Karunatilaka has crafted a thinly veiled version of modern cricket, complete with reviled commentators, horny cricketers, loose women and big, bad money.Did I say the veil was thin? I meant to say it is almost transparent. One of the books minor characters is the Turbanned Indian Commentator. Mentioned frequently enough so that after a while he is just referred to as TIC. Earlier in the book there is a beefy English cricketer, whose idea for a documentary is what really kicks off the hunt for Pradeep Mathew. His name is, but of course, Tony Botham.Karunatilaka skewers cricketers old, new, good and bad, all in style. And with prose that is infectious. Once you get past the first 50 pages, which are the slowest but not by much, the book is - no cliché intended - unputdownable. The mysteries of Pradeep Mathew, combined with the brutal dissection of cricket and the delicious morsels of cricketing trivia come together to form one of the strongest, most immersive plots in a sports novel, or indeed any novel, I have read in a long time.The book is not without its gimmicks. There are a few towards the end that are particularly laboured. And there are a few occasions where the dialogues seem too smart by half. But all good innings have room for a few hoicks over slip. And Chinaman is a Test match-winning innings-at-the-death watch-over-and-over-on-Youtube kind of a book.At least one commentator has called Chinaman the first great Sri Lankan novel. Perhaps it is. It certainly is a superb novel. For all cricket fans, especially those from the subcontinent, it is a compulsory addition to their library.And if you cant stand cricket, this is still a book well worth reading. For sheer scope, ambition and inventiveness. Karunatilaka has smashed this out of the park.Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka Random House Currently available in Sri Lanka and online. An Indian edition of this book, due out in January 2011, will be available across the subcontinent ' ' '