So I'm relaxing out on my patio, having a beer; just enjoying a little peaceful time to myself. That's kind of hard to come by these days. Fifteen-twenty minutes pass and I decide to head back inside. Open the screen door and BAM! I walk right into the sliding glass door. Now, granted, I didn't jump through it nor did shards of glass pierce my skin. But still, he's not the only this happens to! So, cheers to you Hunter Pence, I have felt your shame!
"Whatever the reason you're on Mars, I'm glad you're there, and I wish I was with you." - carl sagan, who was hitting .273 at the time. I mean that in the way that we're both patio-in' it up with some beer! Bring on the Jazz bc we will knock them to other planets nnnnn sheet. But no seriously, have you tried Fireman Blonde Ale? I found it in bottles!
Pence drops a pair of bombs tonight, looked great. He's bumped up his average to .260 sitting behind a hot Berkman and an on fire Tejada. Astros are looking good.. if they pitching becomes strong then we have an alright team. It sucks the Rockets lost, really sucks, but now we get to set full focus on the Astros.
haha.. I see more potential out of the Astros if the pitching staff shows up than the Texans have. I'll never miss a Texans or Astros game though.
I think overall the starters have been solid for the most part. If they can give us 4 runs or less in 6-7 innings im happy. The disappointment so far has been the bullpen. A few meltdowns have cost us being a 17-13 team instead of us being 14-16.
It's sad, and it's simply just bad luck, but here's a list of people that reasonably could have been in our bullpen had it not been for last season's stupid trades: Lidge: 0.00 ERA Qualls: 0.00 ERA Wheeler: 1.20 ERA Buchholz: 1.65 ERA Albers: 2.42 ERA Obviously, Albers got us Tejada so that's a bit seperate. The Wheeler trade was questionable. The Lidge/Qualls trades were simply to undo the Taveras trade, which sucked. Had we not made that trade, we'd still have Buchholz, and we'd have a slightly worse Bourn in Taveras (less power, better OBP) and still have Lidge/Qualls potentially (Lidge was traded to get a leadoff CF; Qualls was traded to replace the closer we just traded). Alas.
I agree the Jennings trade sucked. He didn't deliver on the promise he had. And it was a terrible GM who made that trade. But I don't think you can fault him entirely -- the guy had a 3 something ERA in Colorado in 06, and was just entering his prime years. He was very good for his first couple of starts with the Astros, before he had elbow trouble. He came back but wasn't the same, and ended up needing season-ending surgery. If not for the injury, we might be viewing the trade in a very different light.
While he did have an ERA in the 3's in 2006, he had an ERA in the 5's his previous 3 years. And he had been in the majors for 6 years, so it wasn't like he was a young pitcher still learning his way. His peripheral numbers last year were very similar to 2003, 2004, and 2005 in terms of WHIP and BAA, so he basically was the pitcher he had been for most of his career.
