this reminds me of early 90s when finley and gonzo were coming up and we had a young pitching staff big and bags were young and you could just feel something exciting was about to happen .... i remember one season they got gonzo to pinch hit in the last game so he could hit 300 and next season that was the astros selling point .. these youngs guys are going to come into their own .. ja happ seems like a really good pitcher .. bud norris as a number 4 or 5 right now is pretty solid .. wandy and myers at one and two and perhaps paulino (who was pitching pretty well before he got hurt) at 5 and thats not even taking jordan lyles into account .. back end of the bullpen with lindstrom, lopez and lyon seems solid .. we can prob use a bat in the offseason via FA, but some of our youngsters show promise
[rquoter]Rob Maaddi, AP Sports Writer (Yahoo! Sports) "...the Astros, who are the only NL team with a winning record (29-16) against the Phillies since 2004."[/rquoter] Yeah, color me surprised by that one.
I keep hoping he's not Towles redux next year, then I keep reminding myself he's been at it several *months*, not several *weeks*.
Well, he won't hit .320 or whatever, but he has skills; quick bat, stays inside the ball really well. Towles had/has a ridiculously slow bat & that got taken advantage of once he went around the league a bit, that's something you can't really fix. CJ's issues have always been physical (wrist & arm injuries, mainly from playing 3b) combined with a free-swinging approach. You won't know what you have for another year or so, but even if he's not the answer at 3rd full-time, he looks to have a future as a bench player at least (I could see him learning LF/RF in addition to emergency SS/2B duties).
Damn, good memory. Came into the last game of '93 hitting .299, he started & hit cleanup. Singled in his 2nd AB (3rd inning) and was pulled from the game so his avg sat at exactly .300 That was also the final game of Casey Candaele's Stros career. Loved that guy. Bonus trivia: '93 was the only year in Craig Biggio's career he was caught stealing more than he was successful, 15 sb, 17 cs.
I don't think you'll see CJ taking 3 pitches down the middle, a la Ensberg. Also, to be fair, there is/was less expected of CJ. This season is gravy compared to what we all expected of him.
Morgan had 2 really good years, actually, before he bottomed out. But I'd love to get a .283/36/101 year out of Chris.
