The Houston Astros introduced Reid Ryan as their new president on Friday.

It's possible somewhere down the road we'll look back at that moment as the turning point in their organization's history. For now, though, they're still the same old Houston Astros, which means losing games in every way imaginable will continue.

For example, let's look at Friday night's 5-4 walkoff loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Astros held a 4-1 lead through five innings, but saw that evaporate by the time the ninth inning rolled around. The all too familiar sense of impending doom had to be consuming Astros fans at this point, and especially so when Pittsburgh loaded the bases with one out after pitcher Edgar Gonzalez botched a would be 1-6-3 double play.

However, as bleak as it looked for that moment, fans were able to let out a temporary sigh of relief after Gonzalez recovered to strikeout Neil Walker for a huge second out. Gonzalez then made the biggest pitch of the game, getting Russell Martin to hit a weak fly ball into short right field for what should have been the third and final out of the inning.

Only one little problem... Impending DOOM finally arrived at PNC Park.

The Juice returns for season No. 6! It's almost eligible for free-agency! Stop by daily for news from the action, along with great photos, stats, video highlights and more.

With their desired lineup intact for the first time in 40 games, the Atlanta Braves offense turned it up a notch in their 8-5 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Jason Heyward, who just returned from the disabled list on Thursday after undergoing an emergency appendectomy in Colorado last month, reached base three times to help set the table. Justin Upton then cleared it in the sixth, cracking his third career grand slam off Paco Rodriguez.

''As soon as he took that swing, I knew that ball was going to be out of the ballpark,'' said Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez. ''That was one of the prettiest swings I've seen put on a baseball.'

After traveling an estimated 461 feet, we're sure the baseball agreed with Gonzalez's assessment. It was Upton's tenth homer — out of 14 — to travel over 420 feet this season. He's

(@BrianDuensing52)

Classic coming-of-age baseball flick "The Sandlot" turned 20 last month — which we documented at length on the anniversary date. The celebrations continue into the summer, however. Like this Sunday, when Target Field will screen the film after that day's game Boston Red Sox-Minnesota Twins game.

To get people hyped, a couple of "Sandlot" actors visited the Twins and Red Sox before Friday's game. But get this: Chauncey Leopardi, who played kiss-stealing Michael "Squints" Palledorous, and Patrick Renna, who played wise-cracking Ham Porter, still look like kids next to big leaguers. Even though they're now 31 and 34, respectively.

Brian Duensing of the Twins tweeted the picture above, while Renna himself Instagrammed these pics with David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia and Will Middlebrooks of the Red Sox.

As an appetizer to Friday night’s nearly full slate of 14 games, Major League Baseball has published the entire MSG broadcast of David Wells' perfect game against the Minnesota Twins from May 17, 1998 on their Youtube channel.

That’s right, it was exactly 15 years ago today that Wells joined the history books as the thirteenth pitcher to throw a perfect game in MLB history. We’ve actually added another eight perfect games to this list since then (most recently Philip Humber and Felix Hernandez during the 2012 season), so obviously we’re seeing them at a much more frequent clip over that timeframe, but it certainly doesn’t diminish Wells’ accomplishment on that afternoon one bit.

Of course Wells also claimed in his book that he was partially in the bag (aka “half-drunk“) that afternoon after spending the previous night out drinking with the cast of Saturday Night Live. If true, I suppose that adds another layer to his performance. Then again, taking one look at the lineup Minnesota fielded that day makes you wonder if he could have been completely hammered and still done just as well.

Here it is with their batting averages leading in to that game included:

In the minor leagues, creativity is king. When you're running a team, you can't necessarily count on players being there. They get shuffled around all the time. Instead, you have to sell tickets with gimmicks, weird promo nights and crazy food creations.

Minor League Baseball, in its current Food Fight contest, has narrowed down 64 crazy culinary treats you can get at its stadiums around the country. There are four categories — gut busters, hogs 'n' dogs, local legends and scrumptious sandwiches. You can head to their site to vote for the ones that look most appetizing.

Here at The Stew, we're going to forego all the categories and just show you 10 that we think are the craziest — we're talking weird, wacky, over-the-top. Stuff you'd expect to find at the county fair. It's up to you whether you actually want to track these down and eat them, or just stare at the pictures and drool. No judgement either way. 

(MLB.tv)

Jeff Keppinger of the Chicago White Sox had gone 0 for the 2013 season when it came to drawing a walk, until he finally took a pitch for ball four in his 141st plate appearance Thursday night. Keppinger's timing, if not his frequency, was terrific. His walk against Michael Kohn came with the bases loaded in the eighth inning against the Los Angeles Angels and forced in the go-ahead run. The White Sox won 5-4.

The walk was the third in a row issued by Kohn, who threw 12 of his final 14 pitches out of the strike zone.

''It seemed like their guy just lost it there,'' Keppinger said.

Hey, it happens, not that Keppinger has taken advantage much. He was the last player in the majors having at least 30 plate appearances to draw a walk this season. He beat Jarrod Dyson of the Royals (42 plate appearances) by one day.

Historically speaking, Keppinger drawing a base on balls has not been comparable, in lack of frequency, to Juan Pierre hitting a home run. Keppinger has drawn 180 walks in 2,846 plate appearances during his career. It's not a lot of walks, but it's one every 15.8 trips, which is more often than Pierre's pauses of 450 trips per dinger. He walked 51 times in 2010. It's in him.

Drawing a walk should be easier to do for any major leaguer, simply by happenstance, than hitting a home run. Other than the Kansas City Royals, nobody walks less as a team than the White Sox, and it's one of the reasons they're 18-21 coming into Friday. So it's not all Keppinger's fault — there's some kind of groupthink going on with the White Sox, whose batting coach Jeff Manto has never expressed much appreciation for how drawing walks can help an offense. The team's manager didn't seem all that gung-ho about seeing Keppinger be so selective, either.

Somewhere in Taiwan, Manny Ramirez is staring at an iPad laughing at Ian Kinsler.

Ramirez showed us a pretty horrible example of sliding recently, but he's got nothing on what Ian Kinsler did in Thursday's Texas Rangers game against the Detroit Tigers while advancing to third base from first on a single. Let's cut to the GIF:

It was so bad that even Ron Washington, his own manager, had to laugh at Kinsler. If you prefer the frozen-motion pictures, here's the story of Kinsler's slide in three acts:

There's a lot to like about the catch the fan at Yankee Stadium makes in the video above. He's wearing a glove, which some people don't like, but they're wrong. There's no way he makes the catch without it. And a foul ball must have been unexpected, because the batter, Chris Stewart, was a right-handed hitter. Rarely do right-handed hitters put foul balls where the fan was sitting. Way to be on your toes, literally and figuratively.

He also makes an all-out effort to catch the ball, slamming his left arm and full torso into the rows of seats behind him. Terrific grit. And, ouch. As Mike Blowers of the Seattle Mariners broadcast team says, "He's going to feel that in the morning."

No matter, because this guy got PUMPED. Primal screams, forceful high-fives, likely bro hugs (off camera). He was proud of himself, as he should have been. There was nothing nonchalant about it. David Cone, part of the YES Mystery Wheel of New York Yankees TV broadcasters, said the catch was "Like Derek Jeter in the playoffs a few years back." I think he's referring to the catch Jeter made against the A's in the 2001 playoffs. Or it could have been the one against the Red Sox in July 2004.

Well, the guy didn't appear to draw blood, and Jeter had a longer way to run, and almost everything he does has a nonchalance about it — that's one of the reasons he's Jeter — but it's an OK comparison for live television, and it probably crossed the mind of a viewer or two, as well, that it might be Jeter-like. I don't have a problem with the fan's catch, anything about it, except for the jersey the guy was wearing.

Oh, no, Mo. (MLB.tv)

Does that look like a licensed Mariano Rivera jersey to you?

I don't like the font of the No. 42. Seems off. I don't like the color. It's too light. Even the pinstripes. It's not even close to what the Yankees wear on the field. I'm afraid we're going to have to eject this young man, nullify his catch and confiscate his ball because of obvious jersey violations.

Now, the same thing goes for the guy next to him in the Bernie Williams replica jersey, but for another reason. While the color is right, and the font is right, the Yankees don't put their names on their jerseys ever (even though this one appears to be licensed by MLB). Sorry, son, you're going to have to leave too.

What an unfortunate ending to what seemed an inspiring story.