Pued, Lidge is a starter, has been his whole career, this is his first year as a reliever. Now, how is it Bizzare again? DD
da da -- i love how you show up to tell us all how bad the astros are when they lose a series...but are noticeably absent when they take 2 of 3 from the Cubs.
Max, I loved the Cubs series, and was very excited that they had turned the corner...then what do they do? They come out lackluster against a crap team like the Reds. All games count, and you would think a veteran team like the Stros is aware of this....but scoring only 4 runs in 2 games against the Reds whose Team ERA is hovering around 5 RPG is inexcusable. DD
totally agreed...but teams have bad series all the time...even good teams. ask the mariners. but that doesn't mean the entire season is over as of August 25. don't get too high with the highs...and don't get too low with the lows.
Okay, here is what is bizarre. You readily admit that Lidge has been a starter his whole career. Now, others have already pointed out to you that he hasn't had a season without a major injury in a looooong time as a starter (maybe never, I'm not sure). This is the first season in a loooooong time that he has not been injured. What changed? HE'S A FREAKING RELIEVER. Is it better to get 3 or 4 starts out of him than a full season's worth of stellar bullpen work? How can you not look at the last 3-4 years as a failure in the "make Lidge a starter" experiment? Oswalt is a different story. He has had entire seasons (or most of them) of healthy starting. This groin thing is something that just popped up this last season and most of this one. There is no reason to believe he can't get over that one. And as for Carlos Hernandez, considering his troubles with his shoulder, I don't expect him to ever get back to form as a starter OR a reliever, so that's not much of an analogy.
Raven, He has NOT been injured his whole career, just the last couple...just like Oswalt, just like Hernandez etc..etc.. Lidge was a starter all through school, and will be again.....being a reliever is not a break on Jimy's staff, believe me....just look at Dotel as he is consistently being homered off of these days. He should be moved into the rotation, as relievers that can pitch one inning are a dime a dozen... Lidge should be a starter.....yesterday. DD
Lidge was drafted in 1998. He had some sort of injury every year (1999-2001) until late last year. Even then, he had to sit out the last couple of weeks in September due to a sore muscle and had knee surgery in December. That being said, I think Lidge will be a starter as early as next year.
carlos and roy both got hurt involving non-pitching situations. roy strained his groin running the bases and carlos jacked his shoulder up sliding back into second. yes they are both hurt but nothing in the past indicates that pitching has made them injury prone. lidge on the other-hand has shown that his arm might not be able to take the stress of long innings as a starter. maybe he's past that but he's also become one of the best relievers in the league. why take him out of that role now? he's already wearing down from overwork and putting him in a starting role with only 2 pitches doesn't sound like the answer.
just look at Dotel as he is consistently being homered off of these days. 10 appearances this month .. 1 HR allowed. Again, 10 seconds of fact checking and someone actually may consider taking your posts seriously.
Major, Look at July...FOUR home runs allowed and an ERA of 4.97, now look at August 1 home run so far and an ERA of 3.86....and you argue that Jimy is not wearing them out? This is when pitchers should be DOMINATING, not wearing down...at least if they are not leading the majors in appearances. Lidge has given up 4 homers this month so far as well and his August ERA is 8.68. Maybe my move him to the starters role is not so hot right now...but it sure looked good in July 1.26 ERA. DD
Major, Look at July...FOUR home runs allowed and an ERA of 4.97, now look at August 1 home run so far and an ERA of 3.86....and you argue that Jimy is not wearing them out? Let's see... He was much worse in July than in August... Yeah, that's an indication of him wearing down as the season goes along.
No, He is pretty bad for both months...an ERA of 4.00 for a guy who only pitches one inning and at the most 2 is pretty sorry. DD
No, He is pretty bad for both months...an ERA of 4.00 for a guy who only pitches one inning and at the most 2 is pretty sorry. Let's see. 10 appearances his month. 8 times he's given up no runs. 1 time he's given up 1 run. 1 time he gave up 4. Looks more like 1 bad day than a bad month. Take out the one disaster and he has an ERA under 1.00 for the month. I'll take that any day... Compare that to July, when Dotel really did suck. 12 appearances, gave up runs in 5 of them. Of course, the reality is that he has sucked for a grand total of 2 weeks this season - from July 11th through July 25th, during which he gave up 7 runs in 7 innings. Outside of that, he's been outstanding all year - before and after.
In August, Dotel has pitched in 10 games and only given up runs in two of them. As a reliever, one bad game can spoil a whole month's ERA.
Sterling Hitchcock is no better than the crap St Louis already had. If he was, why are they not putting him into their bad starting rotation immediately. But the point was the Cardinals have one of the worst current farm systems in baseball, and they burned 2 of them for a useless pile of crap in Hitchcock. Mike Dejean was the better pickup plain and simple. Am I on the astros payroll? No. But I follow the game, and Sterling Hitchcock is awful. The cardinals gain nothing but a warm body by getting him. His last useful year was 98, and he's drastically worse now. Jeriome Robertson is at least Hitchcock's equal, and he is on a club control contract, not finishing up a 6 mil per deal, as Sterling is. He also is in his mid 20's not his mid 30's like Sterling is. Saarloos is a longshot right now to make it as a starter, but he has potential to develop into a maddux type, although I doubt it happens. I don't see what was wrong with my point. The reason we haven't added a pitcher is you hope oswalt returns fully recovered for good by 2004, then miller is back, redding has earned his spot this year, villone can be kept cheaply and is liked in the clubhouse, robertson is a serviceable back end guy(4-5 starter), and according to all reports Carlos Hernandez's recovery is going well. Plus, we can keep Jared or sign another villone type easily next offseason. And down the road you have saarloos. What is your point about lane? The astros don't know their own farm system? Ask barry zito about Jason Lane, his USC teammate in college: he said the ball jumps off his bat like few guys he's seen. The kid can hit. Still I'll throw out Lane and keep it to Ward/Alou. Ward showed 35/40 homer potential in his limited major league playing time before last year, and Alou was going to command at least 5-6 mil to keep. We had berkman who wasn't going anywhere for good reason, hidalgo who had his huge contract limiting his trade possibilities at the time, and ward, who the Astros brass thought could hit for power and avg. However after the season, they realized Ward couldn't hit a breaking ball to save his life, and shipped him to LA. And Alou was terrible in a Cubs uniform last year. This year he has a solid .847 OPS, which isn't worth his 9 mil contract. If I thought all Ward needed was PT every day to adjust to pitchers and off speed pitchers, why would I resign a declining, aging, Moises Alou when I could have almost as good of an option for 9 mil less? It didn't work out, but it doesn't mean it was the wrong move at the time. I'm sorry but what more do you want Drayton to do. He tried his best to keep Kile, and Johnson, signed Drabek and Swindell to big deals(those failed badly), wanted to bring clemens home from toronto except Roger's agents screwed up negotiations with Gerry in the press, signed Jeff Kent last offseason, the best hitter on the team as of now. He also agreed the deal to bring Moises Alou to houston in the salary purge of the marlins. Plus, of course keeping biggio and bagwell in astros uniforms until they retire. Heck, he granted Brad Ausmus, he of a horrible OPS, his 6 mil option for this year. A team option I might add. He traded Hampton because Mike shot off his mouth, which I don't find his fault. And lost Alou because we aren't the Yankees, ever flowing with money and had a young guy in Ward who needed to play and the organization was high on. I didn't mention agreeing to trade for Mike Williams, and Pedro Astacio in 2001 either, but it must be his fault Astacio got injured shortly after the trade too, right? You can call me an Astros homer, but it's not true. I support them and am an eternal optimist, so it may look that way, but I know the braves and giants are the NL favorites. However if you can find a complete team in the NL, let me know, because even the braves and the giants have major flaws somewhere. Would you like to know something interesting? If I use the phythagorean theorem for calculating baseball wins and losses, the giants and the ASTROS both have 73 wins, with the giants playing one less game. In fact, the same formula shows the braves should have only 78 wins not 84, and if the Astros were playing to their phythagorean record they would be 5 games back. A lot closer than the current standings would indicate, isn't it? This uses squared numbers rather than the advanced 1.83 used by some sabermatricians, btw. It tells me the astros have had some bad luck, while the giants and braves have had some great luck. And neither of those teams have had nearly as many injury problems. Even the giants have lost all of nen, durham, rueter and ainsworth, who they traded to baltimore. Houston has missed oswalt, hidalgo, kent, vizcaino. The first 3 injuries are at least as significant as anything the giants have endured. But hats off to felipe alou. I just want to know why you people think Drayton does not want to win, because his moves as owner of the Astros clearly show otherwise. You have to remember we don't have the revenue like NY does, which comes from our piss poor TV contract. And to expect an owner to lose 10-15 mil every year to go over his budget is a bit crazy, as that still is a large sum of money. But this year our options at July 31st were diluted: it was Suppan(not a difference maker), Ponson: the Orioles wanted the moon for a guy we probably couldn't keep, or Livan: he will cost 6 mil next year, is having a career year in montreal, and I already explained our pitching situation for next year. If you guys expect him to just jump into his own bank account and get our payroll into the mets, redsox, yankee range, I think your expectations are too high. I would love to be able to sign kevin millwood or colon to a 10 mil contract, or beltran, or trade for vasquez, but it's a luxury that our revenue doesn't allow. Especially when you consider it will be a longterm deal, and you have miller, oswalt and berkman who need the big bucks in the future at least. But by all means go ahead and blame the best owner the Astros have ever had for not wanting to win, even though the evidence is stacked against you. Forget the fact baseball is not playing by a level economic playing field and that the astros TV revenue is what holds them back, just blame Drayton for all their failures instead, because that is the thing to do. Just because it feels good, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
I'd imagine the Cards or Cubs would put up a fight. Biggio would wet his pants at the sight of Maddux, Smoltz or a Jason Schmidt.
I agree with DD, this team isnt showing what a contending team should...they just arent that good! This has been a pretty weak schedule so far for the 2nd half.. 2nd half --------- swept 4 at Cinci split 2 at Pitt split 2 at Milw lost 2 of 3 vs Chi lost 2 of 3 at ATL won 2 of 3 at FLA lost 2 of 3 vs NYM won 2 of 3 vs MTL lost 3 of 4 vs CHI lost 2 of 3 at CIN won 2 of 3 vs CHI lost 2 of 3 vs CIN that aint gonna work especially the 9-10 record at home
DaDa, No offense, but I am not going to let my kid anywhere you until I can teach him the finer points of pessimism and optimism.
