Well, we won with Roy going the distance. I don't think anyone was ready to see Garner hand this game over to the bullpen - we had to get a W under our belt.
I think it was more a reward for Roy being both awesome and efficient. He was an absolute buzzsaw tonight; he deserved to go the distance.
Gee. Instead he's 1-0 and on his way to his first Cy Young. Big deal. And by the way, Lidge hasn't pitched any worse than Qualls or Wheeler.
Roy O has been the best pitcher in the league the last four seasons combined, IMO. We're watching greatness right in front of us, ladies and gentlemen. The kid has that elusive 'it' factor. Oh, and he deserves better offense and a better closer.
National league, definitely. Major leagues, Johan Santana runs circles around everybody. What he's done over the last 5 years is absurd.
And he added a changeup this year and used it several times this game for outs. Amazing when you're the best pitcher in the NL and you're still striving to improve. Look forward to 08 after he adds the gyroball!
If Roy had a couple more victories last year, he may have won the Cy...every win counts, specially when you have the kind of offense the Astros throw out there. Yeah, Lidge hasnt pitched any worse than Qualls or Wheeler...lol. Thats not a good thing buddy...Lidge is supposed to crap all over those guys, not be on par with them.
The most amazing thing about Roy is his ability to reinvent himself as a completely DIFFERENT pitcher than when he came up. From 2001-2004, he was strictly fastball/curveball, going for the big K numbers... and hitters started catching on to his patterns (resulting in a career-high ERA in 2004). Ausmus starts catching him again after a 1/4th of 2005, and they both agree to start changing some of his patterns, resulting in lower pitch counts/faster outs/less K's. Then, in the 2005 NLCS, with the Cardinals doing nothing but sitting on his off-speed stuff, Roy decides to give them nothing but fastballs... 90% fastballs, all in pin-point location. The results spoke for themesleves. Now, he's almost a Maddux (in his prime) clone... a guy who's super effeicient, works both sides of the plate, pin-point control, movement on EVERY pitch, but yet he still has a strong enough arm to rear back and throw the heater whenever he wants (which Maddux never had). Roy's comment about how that first pitch changeup (which got a ton of first pitch outs last night) is going to help him speaks volumes to how much he's bought into the system. You see so many "flamethrowers" dominate for a few years, but inevitbly start succumbing to injury around year 8-9... Pedro, Randy, Kevin Brown, Smoltz. Roy clearly knows what's better for him (and his team)... stay healthy, but eat up innings. Its why Maddux is still around today. Jesus... these guys have all thrown only 1 or 2 (Qualls) innings so far this season. I'm going to wait till I see more appearences before I declare this the biggest problem of the team. Right now, its not even close... the offense needs to be more consistent, and with Lee/Berkman just getting out of their struggles, I'm more optimistic that they can bring it on any given night as opposed to the last 2 years.
to be fair, I think Jesus still believes in the Astros bullpen. it was rezdawg who had a problem with them.
Loretta in at SS today for Everett... only ONE automatic out in the lineup today (and its not the pitcher). Officially the best Astros offensive lineup since game 7 of 2004 NLCS.
Surprising that Everett gets the day off before Biggio, especially day game after night game. My guess is, Biggio will get pretty much every home start until 3K. Jennings stuff had a lot of action on it in the first, hope he keeps it up.
