Hey, you make a good point. It's a real letdown when the team is so badly outclassed in October. But 08 and 09, this is 70s and 80s level sucktitude. (80, 81, and 86 excluded of course!) And I get sick and freaking tired of waiting around watching bad baseball because they'll have their "second half run". How about they get off their asses and play during the first half, too? Roy is an ace for two months and a #4 at best for four months. Berkman jogs to first and grounders. Lee stops for a Margarita and a sack of nachos. Bellyaching to the press, making t-shirts blaming managers and commissioners. I agree with Ed Wade's infamous scream: "Look in the ******* mirror!!". My favorite team sucks donkey balls. That is all.
Maybe its me going nuts but everyone says the typical second half run will come but honestly you look at the so called runs and I believe they are overblown. In 04, yes that was an awesome run and truly the definition of a RUN so nothing there. In 05, in reality the Stros didn't do a 2nd half run because they started making there push in late May early June after the 15-30 start. So the team had a bad start not a great finish in my point of view? In 06, The team was not very good and was under .500 for most of the year. The Cards began to implode and we got super hot for a 2 week stretch but do you count an 8 or 9 game winning streak a 2nd half run? Also lost 2 out of 3 in Atlanta to close out the year which kinda killed there chances. In 08, This was a nice run by the Stros with avg to below avg pitching so I cant really knock it and the hurricane might have killed what would have been a magical September. I guess my point is I am tired of hearing about the Stros making there Runs and waiting till it comes to take it home. The only two years I consider the Stros making true legitmate RUNS are in 04 and 08.
Nope. But the fingerpointing and t-shirt nonsense really saddens me. The bad baseball saddens me, too. But surprised? No. The team, on paper, was a joke in March. Shouldn't be surprised to see it play out that way.
The funny thing is, similar to this year, their 2nd half schedule last season was tougher than their 1st half schedule yet they still put up the best mark in the league after the break: http://blogs.chron.com/unofficialscorer/2009/02/astros_got_no_help_in_last_yea.html As far as Roy, he's been underwhelming the last two years, as a whole, by his standards (his club record of nearly 40 scoreless IP last season aside), but we're talking about a guy that has more wins than any other pitcher since he entered the league. He'll likely be the winningest pitcher in Astros history at some point next season, assuming he doesn't get traded before then. To my knowledge, he's always been well-respected by his owner, teammates and fans as well as other players and coaches around the league. So, even if he's underperformed recently and even if he said some things he shouldn't have said, I'm still going to cut him slack given his track record, both on and off the field. Professional athletes live under a microscope. In a sport full of druggies and prima donnas, I believe Roy has been one of the good guys who, for the large part, has kept his mouth shut and done his job. If anything, he made a mistake which shows he's human and I don't think his words were quite as bad as some people are making them out to be. He may even be right to some extent. After a decade of being one of the most consistent, winning pitchers in baseball and keeping his mouth shut 99.9% of the time, I think he should get a little leeway. We're not talking about Ron Artest or Milton Bradley here. Edit: Regarding his performance on the field, I just wanted to add that this season, he'll probably post an ERA in the mid-3s and a WHIP better than the one he had during the 2004 season when he first won 20 games and was 3rd in the Cy Young vote. He may even surpass his ERA from that season. He's easily been our 2nd best starting pitcher this season yet Mike Hampton and his 5 and a half ERA has as many wins as him. A lot of that has to due with a lack of run support and possibly facing tougher opposing pitchers. Roy has never had an ERA above 3.54 in his enitre career. That's ridiculous consistency, nearly unmatched by any other player in the league. Even Santana, who is another model of consitency, like Roy, has faltered this season. Wandy has better numbers than Santana in 2009. Also, remember that Roy has a bad disc in his back. He could have easily hung it up for the season but he got treatment and is still out there battling. Before he went down with 2 injuries recently, he was the hottest pitcher on the planet for a stretch of several games.
I don't know that you can say Santana is faltering since coming to NY. His last season in Minnesota, Santana had an ERA of 3.33. Last year in NY, Santana had an ERA of 2.5 - the best ERA of his career, though his peripheral stats declined. This year, he's at 3.11, though he's out for the season due to injury.
#1, the hitting is much more potent in the AL. Comparing stats across leagues is a sketchy task. #2, ERA is not always the most telling statistic. If we are going to compare across leagues, in a league without a DH and the Yankees and Red Sox, he's posted a career full-season worst WHIP, OPS against, SO/BB ratio, among other stats. Look at what CC and Cliff Lee did after coming over to the weaker-hitting NL. They feasted, basically. Santana has gone slightly in the other direction. Basically, almost all his numbers this season are below his career averages. His decline has been roughly comparable to Roy's, in other words, it's marginal. Neither really deserve much criticism considering their phenomenal consistency. I was really just trying to make the point that Roy deserves some slack. Edit: I should have strictly pointed to 2009, though, which is what I meant, initially. I made the change in the original post. I was just thinking about some of the stuff I watched and heard this season. He was excellent, as usual, last season. And, again, the point isn't about Santana. Like Roy, he's been a model of consistency over his career. I should have just left him out of the discussion. My inaccuracies are taking away from the larger point.
