I apologize for making fun of your Luke Scott man crush. He's looked bad in the outfield, but great at the plate.
Sorry to post this a second time, but If Luke Scott hits a walk-off right here, my sig for the rest of time will say "DaDakota is a god walking among mere mortals".
He can play, he was a man among boys at RR, and you could see he is ready, and his confidence is so much better this year, last year he was nervous.....now....he knows he belongs. He is good in LF, but the Astros have him moving around a bit, it will take some adjusting. Cycle last night...wow. DD
Hitting for the cycle proves what a great hitter he is. He's going to be a significant offensive contributor for years to come. Signed, Andujar Cedeno
It is not a guarantee, ala Richard Hidalgo, and our current Morgan Ensberg, or Brad Ausmus hitting .280 or so for the last half of last year and the first half of this one. However, Luke is a legitimate player...probably .275 with some pop over his career, but he is currently hitting .406 or so...which is staggering, ride em while they are hot Garner. Sam & Max, so you want Luke to fail then? DD
yeah, i want luke to fail,dada. what??? why would i want that??? i think luke is a good player. i agree he should be seeing more time. i'm not ready to say much more about him, though, because he hit for the cycle one game. happy for him. i'm sure he had a blast last night. i'm sure friends from around the country are still calling him this morning saying congratulations.
And the hits just keep on coming....he is still batting .403..... Ah....it is good to be the king. DD
if the astros DON'T make the playoffs, and i don't see how that's possible, two things will stand out: everyone's passive approach to mrogan ensberg; it's still unfathomable to me that he was allowed five weeks to determine he was hurt. unbelievable. the other gigantic blunder - giving jason lane half a season to suck donkey dicks at the expense of luke scott. in late june, i b****ed up a storm about the astros' farm system, wondering why they were so quick to use it last year and so slow to go to it this year. i'm still pissed jason hirsh isn't here yet. but scott earned the call-up months ago, and even if he had failed, he couldn't have failed any worse than lane, so why did no one manage that with urgency? boggles my mind. but the team now seems to have an urgency and lower tolerance. garner's not hesitating to play the hot hand nor is giving the bullpen much rope. i like that.
Luke has been awesome. Seems to have been the added spark. We've been hitting a lot of HR's lately and have looked like a real team.
I don't have a problem with them trying to let Lane get straightened out. Last season, after the ASB, he batted 0.300 with a 0.890 OPS - that's a legitimate, high-level starting outfielder, and similar numbers to Carlos Lee, who everyone would have been thrilled with if we had traded for him. If the organization believed that was the "real" Lane, you have to let him try to play through it. If you don't, you've wasted a valuable asset. It obviously didn't work, but the only way to find out is to play the guy. Even this season, in April and June, he had an OPS of 0.870 and 0.838 respectively - his other stats were problematic, but not worthy of dumping if you think he'll improve. He sucked in May and July, but he got his July opportunities by playing decently in June.
his 2006 numbers have essentially been augmented by a single night in june when he went 3/5 with a homer and 5 RBIs againt the braves. take that night away and his numbers are: .203/10/25/.686. his OPS actually drops 36 points. one night and half a good season (which followed a pedestrian half of a season) do not justify 220+ ABs. sorry. especially when you have a guy posting an OPS of .950 over the course of his last 190 triple A games. that guy deserves a shot; lane had his. the astros fell asleep at the wheel on this one; same with ensberg.
I like Luke's hitting...Fielding, well...either way, we need to show some love, but not the Man Love DD has for ever guy with good wood...
LOL - You can't win them all.....but I still think a lot of whether a player succeeds or not is confidence, Fizer just lost his....and never got it back. He is still in the NBA though. DD
I think he could be a Johnny Damon-type player. Hit a few HR's, drive in runs, steal a few bases. Plus he seems to be a nice guy and a christian which is always good.
Put him in left field where he is comfortable and he is more than adequate. As for offense the ball jumps off his bat, only Berkman has the same kind of pop. DD
Using that philosophy, you'd throw away alot of the major league's top players who didn't have breakout years in their first year. It's a waste of resources to throw away prospects after a few months of bad play. You'd have thrown away Ensberg in the middle of 2004, for example. Burke would never have made it out of August last year. Lane's numbers last year (his first full year) were better than Bagwell's either of first two years, for comparison purposes. And while he's older, he wasn't in the majors earlier due to position blocking, nothing else. At first base, he was blocked by Bagwell, and in the OF, he was blocked by various combinations of Berkman, Biggio, Hidalgo, and Alou.
Or Luke after he struggled mightily last year. I think Lane had enough time to prove himself, and he may rally to be a .270 hitter or so, but Dierker always said he thought Lane was the perfect 4th outfielder because he had too many holes in his swing to be an every day player. I think Dierker was right. DD PS. I also said Burke should be playing more....EARLY last year.
