They had no choice. Because Schafer was ejected, Bixler was optioned and Lee is out hurt, the Astros are paper thin on the bench today. I'm guessing they are saving Maxwell and Snyder for an at-bat later in the game in place of a reliever who is a lot less likely to get a hit than Lyles was.
Whatever you do, don't let Votto beat you. EDIT: Far too often this season have the Astros been victimized by the opposing team's best player. I understand not wanting to put the tying run in scoring position, but its still only the 7th inning. Even if Phillips ties the game on a single, I'd take my chances with him and runners on base over Votto.
Speaking of him, has this month been his worst ever as a MLB player? No HR's... slugging less than .300? Contrast his month of April vs Altuve's, and you can see how rare it is that a baseball player actually gets paid for what he produces (the highest paid players are often paid for what they used to do...whereas the youngest most productive players aren't getting paid enough for what they currently do).
i'd imagine so, and crazily enough i still wouldn't bet against the guy to end up with .300, 100+ rbis and 30 hrs.
cool we have an altuve header on the astros forum. just noticed. ugh, hate it when mills out smarts himself.
Uhhhh....he definitely had a choice. If he is going to forego pinch hitting for the pitcher, he better damn well let him pitch to the bottom of the lineup. lyles had given up 4 hits to that point and was at a manageable pitch count. Whatever....looking forward to next year when he doesn't have such complicated decisions in front of him.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>According to @<a href="https://twitter.com/brooksbaseball">brooksbaseball</a> 66 of Jordan Lyle's 91 pitches were fastballs with 65% for strikes, averaging 90.98 mph and topping out at 93.4</p>— Bryan Trostel (@The_Batguy) <a href="https://twitter.com/The_Batguy/status/196717445170470912" data-datetime="2012-04-29T21:47:48+00:00">April 29, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Hate to say it but there were times I was like wtf? Team has lots of potential much more so without him coaching
