Well, damn. With this kind of pitching, it doesn't matter if we are able to score more than 1 run a game. Last year all we needed were around 4 runs a game to win many games. Not so much this season.
My gawd the Astros suck. Can we just get the season over with, name Pence rookie of the year and let the Adelman era begin already? Will Garner be gone by all star break?
Astros are 10th in the Majors in ERA and 11th in WHIP. They're in the bottom 10 in most offensive categories. Offense is still the major problem.
4 runs in the last 4 games. At least Arizona's offense is worse than ours. They probably caught the virus when they stole our uniforms.
last night wasn't one of them. albers gave up 4 in 6 1/3. look, i threw up the names of the pitchers we'd be facing in SF. with the way we're hitting right now, it ain't gonna happen against pitchers like that. we caught a break in the fact that randy johnson is hurt and not pitching Friday against us. most important thing: lance berkman has 6 extra base hits this season. 6. your number 3 hitter...has 6 extra base hits. i can't wait for some Billy Beane-counter to tell me how it doesn't matter and what a great year Lance is having because he still has a swell OBP.
take that, nerds! with your protractors, protect protectors and slide-rulers! there are degrees of how to evaluate performance, MM. the #1 objective of every hitter at every level of baseball, from tee-ball to the majors, is to NOT make an out. and berkamn is still, even now, very good at not making outs - why would you disparage that? at the same time, no one in their right mind, even a billy beane-counter (clever!) would dare suggest that he's been productive while not making those outs.
Even if Lance gets rolling (as he will) sometime soon... you can't have a lineup with just two above average hitters, one average hitter (Loretta), and one unknown (Pence) and expect to compete (given our average pitching). I'm talking about Luke Scott and Morgan Ensberg. One of these guys needs to step up. Luke had a good 4 day stretch earlier this month... and has been unheard of since then. Morgan has been unheard of for the last year and a half. If just one of those guys produce, the offense has a chance to be more consistent.
just when people started saying lance is going to be a better hitter than bagwell, he starts off the season badly. way to jinx him.
This still isn't as bad as when he started off his 2003 season... but they also had Kent, and a half-decent Bagwell still playing, so it wasn't too detrimental. 2003 was also the worst year Lance has ever had, while being pretty much healthy.
oh, i totally agree. but guys in the 3 hole need to be driving in runs. 6 extra base hits sucks. we don't pay the guy to merely get on base. i'm thinking, with as many close games as we've lost, that berkman being berkman probably means we're at .500 right now. just guessing.
But what is "being Berkman"? Are we to expect he can duplicate his 2006 season for the next 10 years? Or could this be another 2003 for him, where he ended up with a similiar batting average/obp as he has right now (with just 25 HR's)? He's clearly somewhere in between the two... and he will eventually hit a sustained hot streak. Lets see how he responds after his first off-day of the season. And, while it would be nice to be even .500... they need Scott/Ensberg to do anything if they want to be better than that. Otherwise, it simply looks like a mediocre ball club without any sense of urgency (other than Bidge getting to 3000 hits).
Can Pence bat leadoff? I like his pop and speed at the top of the order. Berkman is being pitched around because usually batters 1 and 2 are already out......he needs some ABs with a runner on base.....IMO. DD
he was pretty damn consistent 2005 through 2006. that's what i certainly thought was berkman. i certainly think that's what mclane thought berkman was when he inked him. it just seems to me that the carlos lee move didn't improve us from last season...because lee's been filling the hole berkman left in production from last year to this year. of all the problems i thought we might have this year, lance berkman wasn't really high on the list.
Not necessarily. And, billy-beane counters *always* pull this out. If you're a 3-6 hitter, and a runner is on third with less than 2 outs, your job is NOT to "not make an out" -- it's to drive in the freaking run. An out is more productive than a walk in this instance. An out scores the run 80-90% of the time; a walk scores the run less than 50% of the time. If Lance hits like this all year, the Astros will not win. And his OBP will be precious little consolation.
He didn't hit a lot of HRs in 2003, but it wasn't anything like this year. His OPS was 0.927 (compared to 0.934 in 2005). He had a 0.515 slugging %. This year, he has an OPS of 0.780 and a 0.368 SLG% right now. If he ended up with 2003 numbers, that would be a HUGE upgrade. He's far worse than his worst year (except for his rookie September callup year) right now. In that year, he even had a higher SLG than he does right now.
