Things have gotten pretty bad in Astroland when people are praying for 1-out-of-4 against a subpar team at home. :grin:
I think we will get at least 18 runs over 4 games. I mean didn't we score 19 runs against a "better" staff vs the Pirates in only 3 games? I am looking forward to game 4, Haren vs Wandy...should be fun. :grin:
LWLW Thats me being overly optimistic too. This team may sooner or later be pushed into rebuilding mode rather than picking an exit plan for Drayton. I say give it until the amateur draft (Mid June) for us to win. If it doesn't work out, we should rebuild. I know we probably can't move Carlos but if we trade everyone else, I guarantee Tubby will allow a trade. I'm pretty sure his contract says that either in the last two or three years of the deal, that he has pick 8-10 teams or something like that to accept trades to. We should try that if he doesn't go for it. Would his 5 and 10 rights disable the clause for the final 2 or 3 years of his deal? I just hope that we dont ask for Ed Wade's head. If so, we should hire Bobby Heck to run the team. He's baseball savvy. Ed is bad with free agents. (i.e. David Bell i.e. Jim Thome) I like the guy and I'm sure in the next week or so, I will be complimenting some his work. He can build a farm. That doesn't mean he won't be fired.
I think with Paulino we should take the attitude of running him into the ground with his pitch count each outing. He's young and he goes to 100 pitches consistently in only 5-6 innings. Just let it fall off and see what he's got long-term.
Only inning 5 but we shall go back to this: Something was suppose to give right? Only 1 run scored, 4 hits. Guess not. *Shrugs* Nothing surprising though.
Paulino has a plus fastball and a half-decent slider. I'd like to see him under the tutelage of Dave Duncan, which we should promptly kidnap from the Cardinals.
If there is a game in recent memory that the Astros have a chance to come back in, this is it. If we can't get to Cy Valdez in his ML debut, maybe we can get to the pen. I'm guessing we'll get one more shot at Valdez here in the bottom of the 5th. Qualls is struggling early in the season but I get the feeling that he'll pwn us if given the opportunity.
Also 3 walks and a hit batter. We've stranded 6 runners so far as Keppinger grounds out to Cy Valdez. Maybe Caballo can get on base here.
To be fair to Paulino, that HR shot came off of a pitch that appeared to me to be tailing well inside of the plate. I was only watching passively though. Did anybody get a better look?
Paulino has given up 17 BBs in 26.2 IP this season. Bourn providing another one of his nightly highlight reel plays.
Yeah the guys in the booth were talking about that earlier and how he doesnt walk much and likes to swing.
I'm sure that every announcer of every team he's ever played for was doing the same thing at one time or another. :grin: Good glove. Among the league-worst bats for 3B. He's roughly the Adam Everett of 3B. Tommy Manzella appears to be the "I'm in the Astros organization or I wouldn't be in the majors" of shortstops. He's made a few plus plays with his glove along with a number of errors and I keep hearing about how he doesn't have great range because of his body type. Both he and Adam Everett had roughly the same number of games in the minors (approx. 500) and guess who had the better numbers?
Well, 124 pitches tonight. Not too bad of an outing for Paulino. Too many walks as usual but the 3R HR seemed to be a pretty tough pitch. I need to see the replay again. Wasn't paying close attention at the time.
Bourn just got robbed of a pretty nice outfield assist that would've kept it at 5-1 and ended the inning. The slow mo replay showed that Q clearly made the tag. Lazy baserunning by Reynolds and blown call by the home plate ump.
