Roger clearly did not have it tonigh, and the last few outings he has been seriously struggling. The Stros offense could help out occasionally. DD
Wandy throwing 7 1/3 inning of 1 run ball yesterday certainly didn't help us out with the baseball gods... Its truly an "even em out" game. We win virtually every one of Pettite and Wandy's starts (especially the starts where Wandy has been awful)... but we're a below .500 team when the guy who's got the sub 2 ERA is on the mound.
There are many superlatives we can use with Roger Clemens, but he is 43 years old and has pitched over 200 innings this year......in other words, he bound to get tired at some point. In his last 7 starts (including tonight): 1-4, 40.1 IP 37 Hits, 4.24 ERA. Not terrible, but not vintage Rocket numbers either.
Damn, this is the last thing that Iwanted to happen tonite, we had a serious chance to give us some breathing room. We still have to play the cards twice at busch and we know how well this team does there. Oh well at least there is tommorrow.
Well, we better start winning there some time soon... otherwise, there's really no point in going to the playoff now, is there.
positive thing in this loss? well, not really positive, but none of the NL wild card opponents played tonight.
ya know though.... the pirates did beat us on talk like a pirate day........... coincidence? no no...... just kidding it's our god-awful offense
After what the Steelers did to our Texans, one wouda thought that our Stromiles would have come out with vengeance. Our biggest problem of late has been situational hitting - we might as well be the worst in the NL in that department. It is hard for us to hit extra bases - that is granted but to not be able to hit well (the smarts and awareness) situationally will be a problem going forward. We cannot out slug any teams we play from here on out - we might as well start playing smart ball and stop having silly outs. If it means Ensberg, Lamb or Lane laying down a bunt in certain situations, so be it. And yeah - those guys better start learning how to blunt or at least start practicing swinging bunts We need smart ball from here on out not dumb ball (I already had enough with Franci).
as long as we never win when the rocket starts, we should be A-OK granted the rocket has blown monkey balls the last two starts, but not his fault he's not entitled to a bad start every once in a while. we'll win for pettite though.
in a way though I'm terrified another pitcher with less than 2-3 starts is going against us tonight in fact he hasn't even made a start
we need the stros to pick it up tonite. We got pettite going so that is a good thing. one game up, twelve to go.......
Snell is actually a really good pitching prospect. Hes not quite 24 and has had an excellent career in the minors. 11-3 with 5:1 K to BB ratio, with almost 1k/inning in AAA this year. He threw a no-hitter earlier this year in AAA also. Snell and Duke were dominant for the Indianpolis Indians at AAA. The Pirates have Tom Gorzelanny throwing tonight. Hes a lefty who just turned 23 and spent most of the year at AA Altoona, pitching very well. He doesn't throw as hard as Snell, but is very effective.
So you guys think the stros will score tonight? Ugly stat of the week: The Pirates have 27 straight innings of shut out ball against the Astros right now.
You have to like our odds then... cause the chances of them throwing 36 shutout innings is RIDICULOUS!
