What in God's name happened? I stopped watching when it was 9-2 and then all hell breaks lose once we release Astacio onto the world. This is what spring baseball is all about.
Glad we won this. That's for wins in a row, and we are now the 3rd team in the MLB to reach 10 wins. Awesome. Oh, and we are currently in first place...yeah yeah, I know. It's a LONG season. But man this has been fun to watch. It was crappy to give up 10 runs 3 innings but I'll take it. A win is a win. The best part of this? Seeing an offense carry this team. It's been so long since we've had an offense carry us, compared to last season with our pitching. Let's go Stros! We rock!
Please, Do not ever put in Astacio. Two guy i never want to see leave their bench. 1. Astacio 2. Trevor Miller.
Well, you'd think a 9-run lead would be safe to hand over to even Astacio, but... I dunno, for some reason teams are hitting the cover off the ball all over the league this April. Maybe MLB decided to juice the balls up. Anyways, there's plenty of time for the bullpen to get settled, especially if Adam Everett and the boys continue shredding cowhide.
Miller has been scary. I don't think Astacio has ever done well coming out of the bullpen. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like anytime he did have any success last year it was as a starter. Actually the bullpen has been an adventure. It seems like there is a blow up each game, at least one of them. I guess the blow ups haven't been too bad, the Stros are still in 1st. I love it when there is a silver lining.
Taking the "glass half full" approach after this crazy game, here are some things I noticed Adam Everret is hitting .327(this is Adam Everret we are talking about) Morgan ensberg is batting over .400 Lance Berkman is being Lance Berkman This 10-4 start is the best start in team history They are currently in first place in their division Lidge has 5 svs in 5 chances Lets just revel in this glory until the next game
A win is a win is a win. I don't want to rag on a team coming off of a World Series berth that is also off to its best start ever. I don't think there is anybody in the National League that is dominant this year, so its all there for the taking again for the Astros. The youngsters are starting to emerge right on time and we still have Oswalt and Pettite to anchor the starting rotation. The Astros also have a good track record in coming up with a solid bullpen over the last few years, so I'm not incredibly worried about that, either. It will all come down to staying healthy and resigning Clemens (or picking up an innings eating starter for the stretch drive). Here's where I have some concerns- Biggio slowing down and Burke not emerging to pick up the slack and Lidge being a lot more unstable this year. Lidge's dominance really gave the whole team that extra bit of confidence it needed to win so many close games over the last few years.
We need another bat. (of course, there's no place for another bat to play in the field...) averaging over 6 runs per game now.
Maybe we could get Abreu from the Phillies. Not that I've given up on Lane, but Abreu is a proven BA hitter with decent pop. Taveras has 4 BBs already (No sarcasm). If he can keep up this pace, the Astros will score a lot of runs. How do you walk a guy with infield power before Berkman and Ensberg? Ausmus and Everett are hitting has really helped get Berkman and Ensberg to the plate more. The Astros haven't exactly faced good pitching, yet, but the entire league is hitting. Either pitchers are were on a drug that helped them recover between starts...the ball is juiced...the world baseball classic messed up spring training....global warming is worse than expected creating less resistant air....Baseball hitters have found the lost shrine to Chuck Norris.
Actually there was a Baseball Tonight segment on this a couple of nights ago. Players polled attributed the production to 2 things; More pitchers with less experience, and they say that the balls seem to be wound a little tighter than they were the last couple of years. IMO i think it is because hitters are back on "The Juice". They know they aren't going to get caught, now that hey have found the "Whizzinator".
Man, we left the game early last night so we could hit up The Wetspot for a bit. It was 9-2 when we left and 11-6 when we got to the bar. I might not ever leave early again. It was so great to be back at MMP. Great night for a ball game. That steak dog is killing me right now. And it killed my DMB shirt as well. MadMax, I almost called you because all game long I thought to myself "If I see MadMax here, I'm going to tell him how bad we need another bat". The chili on my shirt really threw me off.
Funny, I got on this morning to b**** about the same thing. I mean, I realize these things go in cycles and there will be ups and downs, but I'm hoping sometime this year despite McScrooge's cheapness and Poopoora's ineptitude that the Astros begin to hit the damn ball. You can't expect to win games scoring only one or two touchdowns.
I don't know if I have ever had as little confidence in our bullpen as I do now. I'm sure Qualls, Wheeler and Lidge will all improve...but dayum, it is painful to me when Garner walks out to the mound to pull our starter right now.
Here's some statistical fun with Jason Lane: He may be hitting .208, but his on-base percentage is .387 - amongst his teammates, only Ensberg (.541), Ausmus (.442) Berkman (.429) are better. Perhaps Lane needs to be shuffled in the batting order to get an RBI guy in front of him for a while? Then again, although Lane only has 10 hits, he has scored 14 runs. Obviously the bottom of the order is batting him in. Those 14 runs are second on the team only to Ensberg's 15. Finally, Lane's OPS is .804, which among regular players on the team is 4th behind Ensberg (1.480) (!!), Berkman (1.206) (!), and Wilson (.810). It may be a little odd since this guy is supposed to be hitting home runs for this club, but at least give him credit for continuing to being productive in other ways while he's slumping.
You're not watching the same player I am, then. Sets up quietly, little pre-pitch movement; doesn't snatch at the ball, shifts his body well & thus is pretty smooth framing pitches; pretty good on balls in the dirt, good form but needs more work there. Garner's gone out of his way to repeatedly praise him, if that sort of thing holds any weight with you. Saying he's a "non-catcher before this year" is silly; he was a catcher his whole life until he got to Detroit. The one slider he missed was a tough pitch, but he caught the rest of Lidge's nastiness very, very well, and Lidge is an unbelievably difficult pitcher to catch. They'll get work in during side sessions, and should be fine as things go along. The backup catcher is not the problem with the bullpen. If yall want a scapegoat (and history shows that yall need one at all times), look at Trever. As far as Garner leaving O in, some interesting quotes from Roy: He berated himself for going back out to pitch the seventh with the Astros up by nine, five days after throwing 122 pitches trying to complete a game in San Francisco. "That was a perfect game to get out of in the sixth inning," Oswalt (3-0) said. "Let the guys pick up the last three innings. I was trying to do too much, too early in the season. It was a perfect game to get out of. "When you sit in the dugout for 30 minutes between innings, every inning, every inning, you just get stiff. I had my pitch count low enough where there was no sense in going back out in the seventh." Gar gives his vets a lot of leeway, he has to be able to trust them when it comes to decisions like that. Hopefully Roy learned a little here. But yeah, if you wanna blame Munson for Roy's 7th & for "losing the pitchers" (whatever the hell that means), go right ahead.
