I thought it was a no doubter that he didn't swung then I saw the home plate ump ring him up and I was like WTF? Well, we have Roy going tomorrow but Wainwright has been pretty tough on the Stros, it should be a good game.
you are down 1 in the 9th with a man on third and one out....you bunt. that was the exact same situation. 1st and 2nd down 2 and 1 out. we have a manager with no brains. i hope he's gone by months end. this series will be a sweep.
I think Bourne in the 8 spot is perfect. If he gets on, he can run at will - I hate having speed in front of good players and then managers saying "we don't want to risk getting him thrown out with Berkman coming up" or whatnot. He can try to steal 2nd and then be bunted over to 3rd by the pitcher, making it easier for a weak leadoff hitter to drive him in with a single.
A fan from a really bad team would know that his team is really friggin bad. The Astros have a bunch of geezers that make them entertaining enough to get your hopes up, but EVERY friggin time they disappoint. I'm not believing the hype this year.
Except it doesn't usually happen that way, at least from my limited recollection of last season and so far this year. Usually, when Bourn is at 8 and reaches base, Cooper is content with letting the pitcher bunt him to second and leave him in "scoring position" for the top of the order. It's seemed like Bourn was more much aggressive on the basepaths hitting 1 or 2 than he has been at 8. It's one of those situations where I agree with you completely in theory, but Cooper doesn't usually let it play out that way, at least from what I've seen.
What hype? Almost every single source outside of Houston picks the Astros to be one of the worst teams in baseball. Unless by "hype" you mean what Cecil Cooper says. And nobody is forcing you to watch. I'm a pessimist myself but I'm not giving up 4 games into the season. I know it's likely the Astros won't make the playoffs but there have been a lot of teams in every sport that have defied expectations, including the Astros on a number of occasions.
As I've said about 100 times, it's a good thing Ed Wade decided to spend $2.5m on a mediocre-at-best, 41-year-old middle reliever instead of saving $3m for one of your best run producers when the alternative is Geoff Blum.
Certainly - I should have clarified that my posts tend to assume I am managing. Bourn has speed, and pretty much only has speed. If we don't use it, then there's no point in him playing. In general, I am not a fan at all of Cooper.
We've got a bunch of vets with all-star caliber (or former) potential. The expectations that we get those type of seasons from these vets....along with stand-out seasons from players like Bourn, Pence, Matsui, Blum, Kepp...is pretty high if we are to do well. Obviously, we've got questionable starting pitching beyond Oswalt that we are also counting on. There are a lot of question marks...moreso than than these other better teams in the league. It feels like the season is more like a roll of the dice as far as how it turns out. One thing I've noticed early on...I don't feel a lot of confidence coming from our players and we seem to be playing on our heels versus in attack mode. I dunno. I'll be pissed if Oswalt has a disappointing homerun-laden outing again today and our bats are silent much of the game. I do know that much.
That malaise seems to have become commonplace for this team now. For whatever reason, they just don't show any sense of urgency at the beginning of the season. Yes it's a long season, but considering this team has missed the playoffs by a few games 2 of the past 3 seasons, getting off to a good start is pretty important. Maybe this team just can't get motivated unless their backs are to the wall. And Roy kind of annoys me a little from time to time because he seems too concerned at times in getting quick outs that he starts to give up a little too many hits.
