This is a double edged sword for Cooper. If he lets his starter pitch the 7th (or later), he will catch the blame if the starter falters (not an unlikely scenario in the 7th for most starters). If later on in the year, said starter gets injured then Cooper will get the blame for "overpitching" the pitcher deep into games.
don't forget about Brocail. It's amazing to think that this team is winning at all without the "usual" contributions from Oswalt, Berkman, Valverde, Brocail, and Geary. I said this tongue-in-cheek earlier, but this team could be poised for a good run if you think about "adding" players the caliber of those mentioned above for the second-half run. If Geary, Brocail, and Valverde come back healthy, our bully looks absolutely bullish when you add those three to Sampson and Hawkins. Now if we can just get another consistent starting pitcher to go between Roy (if he's back) and Wandy....
Every team has injuries though. The Cubs are without their best hitter for months (Ramirez) and had their top pitcher (Zambrano) on the DL. The Cards lost their top pitcher (Carpenter) for something like 6 weeks as well as their #2 and #3 hitters (Ludwick and Ankiel) going on the DL. The Reds lost their #2 pitcher (Volquez) on the DL and just put their #1 hitter (Votto) on the DL. Milwaukee has the least of the problems, losing only their leadoff hitter (Weeks) - but he's out for the whole season.
3 of their last 4, buddy. Get that pebble rolling down the hill! Right, but we only make excuses for ourselves here. IF - and that's capital "I", capital "F", things break right for the Astros it's not hard to see a team that could push 80+ wins. The Chronicle's 'stros fan blogger had the following in his post this morning:
Man o man... where has this Paulino been all season? That's not only ace stuff he's dishing up there.... that's Cy-young quality. Throwin 97 mph gas with ease.
That's like describing Wandy Rodriguez's home and away splits from 2 years ago. If Paulino's "Dr. Jekyll" is this good, somebody needs to get into this kid's head and teach him how to pitch. Bring in a pitching guru. Hire Dave Duncan away from the Cardinals. Do whatever it takes... his arm is obviously gifted as hell. If he can control his aresenal (which also features a decent enough curve), he can be dominant every game.
I do. Speaking of walks, Tejada walked twice in May. That was a rare poor AB for Pence. Jimenez worked him over pretty good.
swinging at pitches out of the strike zone makes it a lot easier for a pitcher to work you over.... 2, so Tejada is on pace for 12 walks for the year?
True. It was mostly on Pence. He was over eager to get his bat on the ball and drive in that guy on 3rd. Yea, I guess you can't complain about Tejada though since he's hitting for such a high average. The problem is that his average is very likely to come back down to earth while his walk rate won't change much, if at all.
with that fastball and slider he probably ends up the closer, once the stros trade valverde and hawkins later in the season.
Yup, he doesn't throw much else other than his fastball. Hitters seem to figure him out pretty quickly. If his command isn't there, he can get into trouble quickly.
