WOW!!! You have got to be kidding me. Micelli was horrible down the stretch. He allowed two or three base runners with 0 or 1 outs and Lidge had to come in in the 8th inning and save his ass. I remember it vividly, he also cost us a game or two down the stretch as well.
Here are his regular season stats: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pitchinglogs.php?p=micelda01&y=2004 Here is a blurb at the bottom of the website: Did you know that Dan Miceli pitched 37 games at home, had an ERA of 6.10, pitched 31 innings, allowed 43 hits, had 21 earned runs, 22 runs, and 6 home runs, walked 9 batters (4 intentionally), threw 0 wild pitches, hit batters 0 times, and balked 0 times?
The situation you describe - Lidge bailing out DM - did happen twice, including the last game of the season. In no way whatsoever can you point to a game in September that DM "cost" the Astros - they were 11-2 in Sept/Oct games in which he pitched, and in the 2 losses he surrendered no runs, and the Stros lost those games 5-1 & 5-2. You're letting his crappy playoff performance cloud your thinking.
Its kinda hard to hate Beltran. He got a better offer and took it. He made the logical move. Was it Jay Powell who blew it in the last game against the Braves? I think it might be. Tim Redding was awful and so was Miceli. No one bugs me as much as Ensberg on the current roster. He panics and fails to come through in the clutch. Ausmus is even worse right now but atleast he doesnt bat high in the order. I dont even want to start with the bullpen.
Billy Wanger a prick? You must be one the most non-educated human beings in the world. He called out Uncle Drayotn becasue he didn't make a move during the 03 season and it costs us the playoffs. If it wasn't for Billy calling him out, We wouldn't have Roger or Andy. Get a clue. He's one the most popular Astros of all-time.
You must be one the most non-educated human beings in the world if you think Drayton WOULDN'T have signed Roger/Andy without Billy saying something. Gimme a break.
Who would you have traded for that season? It's not like a lot of impact players were moved. It's also not like Drayton had never made deadline deals before that (Astacio and Williams, Randy Johnson). He's a prick for calling out his owner after his owner made him a millionaire many times over. **** him. Go root for the Mets.
No I am not letting the worse perfomance ever cloud my thinking. I totally remember him getting bailed out all the time by Lidge. His stats although not great do not show how bad he truly was at the end of the year. Many games he would come in the 7th inning and do fine, then he would start the 8th inning and put a couple of men on base and Lidge would have to save his ass as usual. He started the season very well but he was very shaky at best at the end of the year. I don't see how you can say without him we would not have got to the playoffs or that "he pitched his ass off". That is simply not the case. I watched every game down the stretch closely but the only way to really know how bad he was is to watch the tapes because the box scores will not show how many times Lidge relieved Miceli. Unfortunately replays are hard to come by and box scores and stats are not.
Actually, we didn't make a trade because there was no one worth trading for - just like last year. The rest of the players on the team admitted that the management did all that they could and that the players didn't perform to expectations (including a Wagner implosion in the last week that lost us a game in a season we missed the playoffs by 1 game).
Micelli was pretty solid until those blown games in the playoffs last year. And I don't really hate Wagner cause there was truth, in part, to his comments. The Astros weren't gonna keep both him and Richard Hidalgo at the time. It made perfect baseball and financial sense. And offering the big contract to Hidalgo seems pretty stupid in hindshight, but at the time it was the smart decision cause Wagner was asking for way too much as a closer. But Drayton has been far from a cheap owner. And Wagner ran his mouth off and bought his one way ticket outa town. And in no way did Wagner's words lead Drayton to acquiring Pettite and Clemens. That's pretty silly. I'll also add that Wagner shot his mouth off yet he CONTINUALLY failed to perform during the postseason. So stop defending the man. I don't have any ill-will towards him, but he is far from innocent in that whole mess.
Our definition of the stretch run must be different. I consider it the last two months of the season, August and September. To add to it, he would also come in to relief someone and give up a single or two and give up runs which would go on their ERA not his. Yes I know he didn't lose a bunch of games down the stretch, but if he wasn't taken out at the right time who knows what would have happened. Please continue to standup for Dan "the missile" Miceli some more if you would like but that guy has and always will be a scrub(except for April of 2004 and most of 2003). Please check the link I put on my post and look deep into the stats and his +4.5 ERA. The buy I replied to first said Miceli pitch his ass off down the stretch and I couldn't disagree more. Maybe he did not lose us a bunch of games but he certainly did not help us in a bunch of games either. We won down the stretch in spite of him not because of him.
Im not defending Miceli, just pointing out your gross exagerrations and inaccuracies. Going back to beginning of August (1st), it happened a total of 3 times. Miceli's # in Aug/September: WL - 3-1 BAA - .187 ERA - 2.29 HITS - 14 IP - 19.2 K - 26 BB - 11 Yeah he was REALLY horrible.
If you want people to "look deep into the stats" you post, you should probably not post incorrect stats.
