Nope, no surprise at all. You are exactly right. I was holding out hope at first, because our pitching staff is so good, and there was a CHANCE that Lane, Taveras, Burke, and Ensberg could have great years. But that isn't happening. What is sad is that we were a contender last year and basically let a few guys go without replacing them. There should have been a plan B.
Well, I am not surprised but there is nothing we can do at this point. I say it's time to plan for next year. I just do not know how we are going to do that. Do we give up on Ensberg, Everett and Lane? Of the three, I would prefer to keep Everett but we would have to have a better hitting catcher. Our 7-8 hitters are terrible. Actually 3,5 and 6 aren't very good either.
Honestly, yes. I thought the pitching would be able to overcome the offensive liabilities. I'm still watching though, hoping things will turn around.
Honestly I'm surprised. I didn't think this team would be this bad. I figured 3rd place at best and somewhere around .500 ball all season. We are not even close to that right now. This offense is just horrid. We are counting on hitters like Lamb and Ensberg to be the 4 and 5 hitters. These are guys that can't even crack the starting lineups of a bunch of teams. I'm not going to hate too much on Ensberg though. He is actually hitting the ball fairly well.
Ooh here's a real good one that shows just how bad the Astros offense has been. Remember Richard Hildalgo? Well, he is currently batting .189. Yes, .189! Yet he has 5 hr's which would tie him with the team lead on the Astros. He also has 18 rbi's which is 1 more than anyone on the whole Astros roster right now. Is that incredible or what?
I slightly disagree - Willy's bigger problem now is his swing form. His form induces more fly balls it seems because of a somewhat undercut swing. His swing needs to level of a bitso that he can hit more ground balls and utilize his spead better. He reads the ball quite well - at least better than I expected but he does not flatten and "compact" his swing well enough to be consistently effective. He also needs to relax more.
I expected to be a .500 team for most of the season....I figured our pitching would keep us in most games. I had no inkling that the offense would turn into the awful-fense. DD
Let the young un's play = plan b I guess Mclane fooled us all. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3181877
The only thing I am taking solace in is the fact that it really can't get much worse. They can only improve from here. I don't have any grand illusions of postseason play, but .500 or better is still not out of the realm of possibility. Even at .500, they can rebuild for the future. Remeber the 2nd half of the 2000 season? That is what carried them to the NL Central Division title in 2001. There will be a point in this season where the light turns on. Lane is a much better hitter than what he has shown over the last few weeks. Taveras is about where I expected him which is not bad coming directly from AA. Biggio has been a monster and probably our only All-Star this year. Berkman will get back in the swing of things soon. Ensberg has been an enigma for me. I don't get it. He's hitting .300 but it really doesn't seem like it with the amount of K's with runners on. Lamb really doesn't do it for me. He's not hitting that well and it's certainly no where near enough to make up for his "defense." Sadly, one of the biggest suprises is Orlando Palmeiro. He's been very consistent to this point. I would like to see Todd Self get some starts to see what he can do. I think he will be a good on base guy in the mold of Lyle Overbay...not a lot of power, but will get a lot of hits and drive in some runs. Maybe Carlos Rivera and Mike Coolbaugh get looks this season, too. All in all, it's jsut going ot be one of those seasons. They're bad now, but like I said earlier, it really can't get much worse.
So, a guy with an average of .300, an OBP of .403, and a SlgPct of .482 should be batting no higher than 6th? Huh?
This is truly one of the most perplexing things in the season thus far... Ensberg's hitting numbers are overall the 2nd best on the team (to Biggio), and yet he's actually been harmful to the team because of his numerous strikeouts with RISP, and overall (he's got like 30K's already... amazing). The name of the game is still getting runners on base, and driving them in. I have a feeling that a lot of his hits and homeruns have come with nobody on base... so that is probably the source of his great stats.
Runners on: .250/.351/.343 17 Ks Runners In Scoring Position: .304/.429/.435 9Ks The Ks are a problem. Yet, let's compare Ensberg to the NL average third baseman: Ensberg .300/.403/.482 NL Average ..266/.356/.422 If the Astros had 7 other hitters whe were as far above the league average at their postion as Ensberg, they would be in great shape, even with all the strikeouts. Right now the Astros only have one other such player.
Willy may have trouble reading the ball off the bat, but he has the speed to make up for it. Honestly, the guy is already one of the best fielding centerfielders in the NL. I have seen him drop a couple of balls that he got to after long runs, but overall I am excited about his future as an Astro. If he can learn to be more selective at the plate he could be another Kenny Lofton (yeah, the same Lofton we traded away) He's a keeper.
N'er a ****tier fence have I ever seen. Willy is encouraging. I think Lane will get more consistent with time...I don't have much hope left that Ensberg will ever even approach the numbers he racked up that first year when he jacked 18 bombs. Lance will most likely always be Lance. We will need a monster offseason to really compete again next season...that or some of our prospects need to really progress and shoot up the ranks, because there isn't a whole lot to look forward to prospect-wise for another year or two.
Ensberg is NOT an rbi guy much like Bagwell isn't an rbi at this stage of his career, but they can sure get on base. Why not do something radical and put him at leadoff with Biggio and Berkman behind him? Taveras while showing alot of promise is just not ready and Biggio's slugging percentage is being wasted at the top slot. Hell, it can't get any worse.
