I've been really encouraged by Chris Johnson lately, and not just in the obvious sense that he's getting hits. It's his approach. I understand he's never going to be even an average walk guy, but he has to have at least somewhat of an approach (other than hacking at everything) in order to generate the power to offset his weak OBP. Last night, all three of his hits came with two strikes, when he shortened his stroke. Today, with a chance to be the "hero" with a homer and needing a hit to keep his hitting streak alive, he didn't get the pitches he wanted from Loe and simply worked a walk. I was particularly impressed he laid off the 2-0 pitch - which was close - in a typical "green light" situation. Sure, his average will come back to earth, but it's not all a random hot streak... he really is refining his form against major league pitching. Good to see.
I feel bad for Puma, hit into a double play and Yankee fans aren't happy. The twist, Chad Qualls induced the DP...
HUNTER, I am telling you if Hunter can turn the corner from good everyday player to the next level this team will be just fine. There goes CJ's streak but still looked good at the plate.
Game, set and match....good game and nice to see Wright get the win, Wallarus get his first knock and J-Mike with the blast. :grin: Off to St Louis for Wallarus' revenge.
Both Oswalt and Berkman are gonna be in for a rude awakening...going into two very unforgiving environments.
The Astros don't know how to win, and now they dunno how to lose. We are the Pacers of the mlb people.
They were using him as a middle relief pitcher so you cannot really take those numbers and compare them to a starter. They put him in some bad situations. Plus Cooper was not a great manager of the bullpen.
Let's see, Astros 3B, taking pitches in hitter's counts and working a walk in a RBI situation... where have we seen that before, over and over?
ERA is typically not a great indicator of middle reliever success. All it takes is one really really bad outing (e.g. 3 runs in 1/3 or 2/3 of an inning) and the ERA balloons.
Wright has still not been very good. Even his numbers as a starter at RR aren't anything to get excited over. He pitched well today, but I expect that won't be the norm.
That is correct, which is why I included WHIP. A WHIP of over 1.5 is not very good. I was simply pointing out that there have been very valid reasons to send Wright to the minors.
If Wright can keep improving his location and his breaking ball, he has some potential. I was particularly impressed with how he handled himself in the 6th. Wolf hits a 2B off the outside of the bag, Hart goes down and jacks one, Fielder incorrectly gets called safe, then the home plate ump misses a strike 3 on Braun. There was the potential for him to fall apart there but he got out of the inning then pitched another one. I've always liked J-Mike having watched him since he was with the Indians. I am usually the whining type that gets on players who are struggling but I didn't do that with him early last season. I knew he was a decent bench player and occasional starter that was just struggling in limited ABs.
