Ouch... brianmctaggart The reason it was his first grand slam: it's the first career homer for Whiteside. Wow.
I've been pro Moehler all year long even in his downturn to start the season but his ERA will go over 5 after this start...
He's been solid recently but 10 starts don't make a season. He's also been bad to awful in a number of starts. I know he got injured early in the year so maybe one of those awful starts shouldn't be held against him. Still, if you look at the overall picture, he has been a bad starting pitcher. His VORP is signficantly negative at this point, in the realm of Oritz and Hamtpon.
Oh absolutely - his ERA is over 5, so he obviously hasn't been good for the season. But of all the problems facing the team *right now*, he's not at the top of the list. He's been more than adequate for the last 2 months or so. Starting pitching wise, if we had anyone else to try, I'd give them Hampton's spot before Moehler's. Hampton gives up more runs and doesn't consistently go very many innings.
I pretty much agree. I'd lean towards replacing Hampton first but they are both in similar territory where one bad start by either of them could push the other ahead. I also just checked the VORP stat I referenced above. Moehler was slightly positive after his last quality start (was negative before it) but he'll probably be slightly negative after this one. Having a 0 VORP doesn't mean you are league average either. It's worse. Here's a little discussion about it from a few days ago: http://blogs.chron.com/unofficialscorer/2009/07/astros_am_report_ugly_numbers.html#comments
Moles is a solid 5 but no more then that...if you stick him as a 3 or even 4 he and the team will struggle...biggest problem the team faces is that we have two number 5 starters going out every fifth day. Norris will hopefully be your 3 or 4 this year which still leaves a glaring hole! I like Alyson's take that would should go after Wolf again next offseason and make him that 4 to even out the rotation!
Here is the VORP of all our pitchers, excluding today: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=467771 Notice the HUGE drop-off for our SPs after Roy and Wandy. Again, a 0 VORP doesn't equal league average.
The last two home series have come vs two of the worst offenses and worst road records in MLB... Mets - 22-11 Giants so far - 19-7 Neither Roy or Wandy pitched in any of those games even for argument sake neither did Norris...
Here's the 2008 VORP for our pitchers: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=316274 Notice how good our 3 and 4 SPs were compared to this season thus far.
Good job Michels. Bit much to expect from him to do something there, 1-4 is probably his celiing at this stage.
