Pence and his sore hand sat the game out, but Lance and George didn’t. So Phil put Bruntlett in center, and trust me, he is NOT a better glove than Burke there, and unfortunately this meant that Loretta was back at short and you KNOW that Sampson would be praying a WHOLE lot with Lamb at third, Loretta at short and Biggio at second.
Reminds me of why my doctor told me about not getting pregnant if I had sex without using birth control – prayer don’t work.
Thing is – if you are a GB pitcher, you just HAVE to have great infield defense. And Sampson had all around lousy fielders. Now I agree he didn’t help himself leaving up a fat one to Furcal the first inning for a single to right, then he got small-balled home for the first run. And I have to say that Carlos Lee dogged it to every ball (like he should have followed Luis Gonzalez’ example – and LuGo is 10 freaking years older, too) that Kent hit to almost the exact same spots all night, including the double he hit in the 4th that led to another run. And 4 piddly singles – one that Sampson didn’t field and one that Biggio didn’t, uh, get to, led to 2 more runs.
So Sampson was pulled for a pinch hitter with 2 out and no on in the 6th after 5 innings/74 pitches. Of course, people will say he can’t “last” very long, but obviously, he wasn’t tired.
Of course, it would have helped if the first 4 hitters had, like, hit. Five hits and 3 walks over 9 innings – Billingsly needed 109 pitches for a CG – and in fact, it looked as if he was only going to need 10 pitches an inning. He got a little tired in the 9th and left the 106th pitch up a little and Luke Scott hit it out – or we would have been shut out.
Trever Miller pitched a scoreless inning – whoa.
And of course Brian Moehler got to mopup for the first time in a few weeks and of course he did terrible and threw a nice fat FB down the middle and Houston’s own James Loney sent it over the fence. No I am not criticizing the Astros for not drafting him because he went 19th overall in the first round 2002 and we didn’t pick until #29 (which, in case yall curious, we wasted on Derick Grigsby, who was OOB only a year later.) But I do have to laugh at the Rangers’ writer who are urging the Dodgers to trade him for Boras Client 10 mill a year in his 5th year Mark Texiera.
Anyway, suppose I should talk about news – Backe is expected to start minor league rehab at Corpus in a few weeks and if all goes well, he will be back in the Majors around Sept 1.
And a moment of silence for former Zephyr/Express third baseman Mike Coolbaugh, who was one of those very AAA guys who couldn’t hit ML pitching. He died last night when he was hit on the head with a line drive foul ball. He was in his first year as a coach for the AA Tulsa Drillers. I hope he literally didn’t know what hit him – he died living the life he loved, doing what he wanted.
May he rest in peace.
click here to read Ben DuBose’s piece on Coolbaugh on mlb.com.
pence out four to six weeks. bummer. sad story about former stro. can u imagine how his wife and kids r doing and we get upset over some bad pitching. very sad indeed. rip.
i’m a little, uh, disappointed that lane got called back. that ship has sailed. it’s time to try out either rodriguez or anderson seeing as how the season is long since lost.
it was a sad story about the poor guy. and there’s his wife with no education, no college degree, no ML pension, 2 little kidz and 1 on the way. and she’s only 5 years oldern me too. i hope he left a lot of life insurance.
The Astros have Sampson on a pitch count, which is why he was pulled after 5. He has had the dreaded “forearm” stiffness/soreness. Instead of putting him on the DL, they opted to use the All-Star break to push back his next start. This was reported by Craig Roberts last week and hinted at strongly by the chron bloggers today.
Is the rumor Pence is out 4-6 weeks true??
I wouldn’t assume she isn’t educated. Many of the wives are…in fact, I know one from the Stros with three degrees. However, they obviously chose to follow his career and this will drastically change things. Obvious understatement. He will get “some” money for his ml service time…but will probably amount to pennies. So sad. Anyone with kids MUST get life insurance. The only thing we are assured of is that we will die one day. So sad.
crystal,
yeh, they had said something about the forearm before the ASB, but he was “supposed” to be fine and he wasn’t on any pitch count last start. and he actually pitched fine, but ground balls get through when you don’t have good fielders to stop em…
sam,
almost no baseball wives have the kind of education where they could get any kind of job with the education they got. for some reason it is a serious nono to marry a woman who actually has a life and career.
and life insurance is absolutely important if you gonna have kidz unless you are already really rich or your spouse makes serious $$$$$
and lot of people think maybe they get some later and then it is too late. mrs. coolbaugh can’t get any $$$ from MLB because mike didn’t have even a full year of service time – i am pretty sure you got to put in 5 full years to get anything. and i got a bad feeling about the life ins because they are taking up collections for them at ballparks and from what i read it is not much. i hope she got family to help her because she is gonna need some serious help her being 6 months along and her kidss are 3 and 5.
travis,
yes it is true. but really it doesn’t matter because the season was lost long ago
and i really doubt he was gonna beat out ryan braun for ROY anyhow (the brewers are winning and you know how THAT is)
ah well
what is it the redsox say – wait until next year
I’m disappointed that Lane got called back up as well; there goes Pence’s run for ROY. That … Braun is gonna win it for sure now.
I agree with you about Sampson as well. No way he’s tired after 74 pitches; he’s just getting jobbed by Garner yet again.
But now that his favorite outfielder is back up, I’m sure he’ll be getting plenty of PT, despite not deserving it. It sure doesn’t help that Justice is playing cheerleader for him.
4-6 WEEKS?? I thought it wasnt even broken? one less reason for fans to come to the ball park…
well,
i look at it like this about lane – either call him up and play him or don’t call him up at all. don’t just sit the poor guy on the bench forever. since they called him up they should play him. with any luck both lane and ensberg can get traded and start over. and with any luck we can trade anyone else tradeable from something useful, although truth is i disbelieve mclane is a very good judge of prospects and i am not sure he listens to anyone
as for pence – yeh, the wrist IS broken – the bone is chipped where the tendon is – or something like that. but it should heal – we HOPE. he said he has to change how he slides into second.
and yeh i AM remembering carlos hernandez. what a darn shame…
I checked the stats again; Lane is better than both Scott and Burke in right. Scott has a lot more games there, which might skew the numbers somewhat.
If he’s gonna hit .165 again, he ought to be benched. But if he can actually get some hits, esp. w/RISP and XBH, then why not play him?
So are they going to put him in center and keep Scott in right? Or are we going to see more of Bruntlett in center?
sigh
who knows? phil is muy loco
me i would play lane in center, scott in right burke at second, bruntlett at short, ensberg at third and trade loretta and lamb for whatever we can get. if we can trade any other player for anything decent, then just bring up some minor leaguer and play him, don’t care who. season is long since lost and we just HAVE to rebuild. and i would also put berkman on the DL and let him deal with george there.
I think we should trade Lidge.
Tonight’s lineup has to be one of the worst this season, and that’s really saying something. Six easy outs in a row. Hoo-ha!
Pretty blanket statement about baseball wives and actually quite false. I had the opportunity to work with several over the years for charity functions that had degrees. Lawyers, Marketing directors, nurses, real estate, etc. etc. etc.. To assume because they married someone in pro ball that they couldn’t fend for themselves is pretty ignorant. Or plain jealousy by some. Take your pick. Stereotyping always amazes me. And of that subject I hope they let Lane play if he’s here. Stupid not to at this point.
well andrew, we won with that worst lineup.
and sam,
i am not assuming women married ballplayers BECAUSE they couldn’t fend for themselves, or didn’t want to. i would REALLY like to know which wives of major leaguers actually work (for a living) at a career. that doesn’t get published. you see, it ain’t me that talks about wives as if they are supposed to be just “hot” or posts, uh, unkind remarks about wives who don’t look like the strippers they are/were.
if there is a wife of an astros player who has 3 college degrees i would REALLY like to know who and what her profession is
Lisa, were you expecting perennial whipping boy Biggio to hit that grand slam?
I sure wasn’t.
well, actually, no i wasn’t. but i had a little bet about it with Husband and he won and i had to, uh, pay up
…To assume they are uneducated simply shows that some people believe EVERYTHING they read. Now, I am sure most have to make the decision not to work so someone can take care of the kids…but assuming they can’t or haven’t provided anything financially is a stretch. Again, many of them do more than “cheer” their hubby’s on and look pretty. Many have been with their husband’s since the minors and BEFORE they had money.
- edited by me to remove the names
I think Lisa was just repeating what most people would “think” about wives because every so often you hear about the stripper they marry, etc.. Aka Chipper Jones and the Hooters girl. I, for one, would not want to be married to a ball player because of the time away and responsibility that must be left to them. I thought it was pretty cool for Biggio to take time out to thank his wife so emotionally. It’s true, they raise the kids. Lisa, as a mother, you should know how difficult that would be alone most of the time.
“Aka Chipper Jones and the Hooters girl.”
Funny thing is, I was pretty good friends in high school with a girl whose cousin Chipper divorced for that Hooters girl. He’s a real class act.
Yeah. He is. I remember when that happened. Not all players are pigs, but some certainly are.
sam,
patiently
it is very difficult to tell IF any if the wives have careers because it is never revealed. the media make the wives sound like they are a bunch of rich women with blond hair and fake boobs who spend a few hours a year getting someone else to spend money for charities
does the ballplayer’s wife actually WORK at a hospital or she just got a degree? some people get degrees and never work. and the wives who get the most pub are the mrs jose limas – and for all i know, she is the CEO of general electric, but all that ever gets talked about are her boobs. and of course you hear about the anna bensons, the mrs chipper jones, and the mrs damons etc.
and there are plenty of women in this world whose husbands have money and they have kids AND they have a career. i know. i clean their houses.
- as for raising kids “alone”, i am one of the few grrrls my own age i know who is married or living with a man who is helping her raise their kids. most are single moms. and ML baseball players wives are rich and they don’t have the stress of regular single moms so it is not like i am impressed with them raising kids “alone” never wondering for a second if they can pay the rent and electric.
i know very well that minor leaguers wives usually have to work to help pay the bills. but i know there are a whole LOT of guys who are drafted out of HS. i know that most professional women wouldn’t even date a man who didn’t have a college degree.
it would be real nice, IF a lot of ballplayers really are married to educated professional working women to actually make that known so we can get rid of the stereotype of baseball wives are a bunch of dumb money grubbing strippers and sluts.