I know I keep telling the story of the Cardinals fan who told me last September in the midst of the Cards near fatal collapse – I honestly don’t know why I even bother to come to any game Roy pitches – we just CAN’T beat that guy. It’s wrong, of course, but I just hope Roy is in the heads of the Cards as much as he in the heads of the fans.
Husband had suggested we all go watch Roy tonight – he correctly guessed that with the bad weather and the bad team, we could score dirt cheap tickets. It was true all right – we ran into a woman who approached us before we got to the scalpers and asked us if we wanted some free tickets because the people who were supposed to join her decided not to come. I took this as a good luck sign.
And in fact, the Box was just a little more than half full – the least full I’ve seen for a Roy start and an Astros vs Cards game in a long LONG time. I wonder if Drayton is noticing…
Roy had said he was feeling fine and by the looks of him, he surely was, oh he most definitely was. For a baseball connoisseur such as my own self, watching a master like Roy pitch is an almost indefineable pleasure. He’s just good. (As Barry Lamar said, it’s talent and you can’t teach talent…)
He had said, when he strained his oblique a few weeks back, that something had clicked after the disaster at Wrigley (9 runs over 4.1 IP) and he was pitching the best of his entire career. True – he’s given up 5 ER over 45 IP since then for a 1.00 ERA. And tonight he gave up 3 singles and a double, no walks, and struck out 9 over 7 IP – 95 pitches, 73 strikes.
I don’t blame Cecil for not sending him back out there – I mean, even with his missing 2 games, he’s 4th in the NL in IP with 185.2, and he could easily throw 40-50 more innings in the remaining month and there is no reason to wear out his arm with a 5 run lead.
Anyway, the great thing about going to games with kids is that they are just so happy to even be there and they don’t know how bad the team is, so they are happy to cheer for Uncle grounding into a DP, for each K that Roy got (they wave their K cards happily), for Luke’s homer, for BGO’s 665th career double, which tied him with George Brett all time, for Brad Ausmus’ 33rd career triple, which FINALLY moved him ahead of Jeff Bagwell on the career triples list (in case all yall forgot, Brad made a BIG deal out of him being tied with Baggy for triples when he roasted Baggy in his retirement ceremony on Sunday) and of course, Lance Berkman’s 250th career home run, a no doubter 428′ over the RF bullpen.
And of course, the best hit of the night – Roy’s RBI single in the second. Pitchers hitting RBIs is very cool. And Roy finally got his OBP over his weight with his ROE in the 4th – also very cool.
Actually, I think TLR’s idea of having the pitcher bat 8th, with .300 hitting Aaron Miles batting 9th is actually a great idea and I’m not sure why a lot more teams haven’t tried it out (and yes I know if any manager not TLR or Bobby Cox did that, they media would be all OVAH their butts….) Of course, you need a decent hitter to hit 9th, or you really haven’t improved matters.
Cooper juggled the lineup again – what a surprise – and now he has Pence batting leadoff with Biggio batting second. Not that Pence is an ideal leadoff man – most of his OBP is BA because he seldom walks, but his .350 OBP is still better than Biggio’s .287.
And of course, we all have our Blue Star Hats – happy 80th birthday Milo Hamilton.
I’m so happy that Roy won that I’m not going to mention that we left a man on third with less than 2 outs twice – or that 2 of the 4 hits Roy gave up wouldn’t have been hits with Everett at SS.
Ah well, rubber game tomorrow afternoon – Matt Albers vs Joel Piniero, RHP
Pineiro’s name is vaguely familiar to me – checking him out – he pitched for Seattle for years, was a fairly good starter in 02 – 3.24 ERA and 03 – 3.78 ERA, who saw his numbers rise and his victories fall over the subsequent years – 4.76 ERA in 04, 5.62 in 05, and 6.36 both starting and relieving in 06.
He then signed with the Red Sox as a FA reliever this year and didn’t do very well, as he was injured most of the time and ineffective the rest. He was acquired by the desperate Cards at the July 31 deadline for cash and immediately inserted into the rotation and he’s gone 3-1 in 5 GS with a 3.86 ERA nd a .275 BAA – 6 HR, 4 BB and 18 K over 28 IP. Rightys hit him better than leftys – always have .281 vs .259, and it is even more extreme this year.
I wonder if Cooper wil repeat Phil’s mistake of refusing to check simple stats like these.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB, St. Louis Cardinals
And if frogs had wings they would fly.
Wish in one hand, $&|+ in the other and see which fills up first. But then it aint over till its over. We can only hope for another miracle late season surge to overcome a season of mediocrity. I am afraid this is the first of several seasons to come of dashed hopes. I sure hope they let Burke play a little, after all he did get a $2MM+ signing bonus some years back, they thought he could play once upon a time. Given a shot at some steady play at the same position, he just might live up to expectations. Given a chance that is. There is always next year right!
lets all pray the Stros dont sweep the remaining games with the Brewers and Cards – it will only let Drayton think that this team is competitive and not make the necessary changes we need for next year. They should seriously dump Burke, period. Other than his 1 big-time HR what else has he done to justify being handed the 2B job next year. They should move Wiggy to 2B and play Lamb at 3B. This keeps berkman on 1B where he belongs and they can play Luke in RF full time. I personally have no problem with that lie-up full time. Platoon Brunlett and Everett at SS next year. If they keep Loretta he then moves around the infield except SS as guys need days off. They should think hard about getting a catcher that can hit and call a good game in the off season for 1-2 yrs until Towles is ready (if he lives up to the hype) – Stros should focus on # 2 SP, Catcher and if possible a SS with offensive production. Thats not to much to ask for and they have alot of freed up money next year. 3 players. solid Pitcher, mid-level Catcher and a proven allstar SS – One can dream…
In Arlington, the Rangers are trying all kinds of gimmicks to generate fan interest in the team. Last week they introduced tickets for seats in certain sections that came with what amounts to “all you can eat free food” (well, hot dogs, nachos and soda), and last night the TV guys were stationed in the outfield bleachers, roving around with the camera, giving away free hats & tshirts, getting lots of people on TV, and just generally yukking it up to show what a grand time can be had out at the old ballpark.
Of course, putting a winning team on the field might boost ticket sales, too, right?
BTW, after a few weeks of seeing Salty – boy I wish the Astros could have gotten him. He looks like he’s going to be a fine major league hitter, and he’s not a bad catcher for a young guy, either.
It looks to me like Oswalt finally decided to discard that idiotic advice to cut down on the Ks in order to preserve his pitch count. Seriously – if ever there was an argument against a pitching coach being a manager, it would be this. Who tells one of the best pitchers in the game, “hey, you’re getting too many strikeouts. You have to cut that out”?
Seeing Oswalt pitch like he did last night gives me much greater hope for next season. Now, if only they could SOMEONE to pitch behind him instead of loading our team up with number four starters.
Good point Austin. I remember back in ’02 and ’04 when Roy was just starting out he used to chalk up 7 and 8 K games all the time. I just hope he keeps this going. I know he can be effective without the strikeouts, but with this defense he better get strikeouts. I remember when I first heard about the coaches wanting Roy to pitch to contact, and I thought that for no other reason than this, they should get fired. Unless you are Chien-Ming Wang or Derek Lowe, you should never pitch to contact. Also, some of Roy’s best games, in terms of pitches per inning, have come in his higher K games.
pitching to contact is not a bad idea IF you have great fielders. but every time i look at the field i shudder
loretta didn’t get to 2 plays that everett makes with no trouble and of course carlos lee can’t make bout any play that doesn’t involve an easy popup.
poor chris sampson. the poor guy. he’s gonna look like crud again with no defense and he’s going to rot in the pen
and as for roy – fer chrissakes the guy is ALREADY an ace and is pitching like he did when he was young. why in the name of all that is holy screw with THAT? it’s not like he’s a nibbler kind of guy – and all he did this year was to greatly increase his walks total while decreasing his Ks. what on earth for? it’s not as if he used so many pitches up to get a K that he was finished in 4 or 5 innings
now a guy who SHOULD have been told to quit trying to K everyone was zeke astacio. that was EXACTLY what got his butt in trouble getting ahead 0-2 then trying to throw heat down the middle to ML hitters and that is sort of like me leaving a plate of burgers on the floor then telling my dogz to guard it…
Furthermore on the “pitching to contact” debate, Oswalt has always given up a lot of hits since he challenges people, especially in the last couple years. He usually gives up about a hit per inning. He is good enough for it to not hurt him, but pitching to contact will only increase his hit total. In this “pitching to contact” year he went through the first half of the season with a 2:1 K:BB ratio, where his career is about 3.5:1. If that is what happens when he tries to pitch to contact, I’m even happier to see him starting to strike people out, or at least attempt to. He is getting ahead on the count in his recent dominant run then before, even though he does not always strike them out.
Compliments to Garner on the grace with which he handled interviews after getting canned.
So Biggio has gotten to 3,000, we have a new manager, and he’s still starting against RHP. Has the organization given up on Burke as an everyday second basemen? If not, how do Cooper or McLane justify letting Biggio decide when he’s going to play in road games, as Cooper said they’d do? If Burke’s still an option for next year, why are they not using these games as either development time or to see what he can do when he plays every day in his natural position?
Because Madison – that would make too much sense. Burke isn’t the only one that should be using this non pressure time to develop and show the organization what they’ve got. Big lineup changes to come? Really? Batting Pence leadoff isn’t ground breaking.
because biggio is obsessed with stats and he needs 14 more hits to get into 20th place all time and he’s such a mediocre hitter at this point that he needs to play in more than just the 13 remaining home games to have a chance to get the 14 hits. and drayton backs him up and says the season isn’t as important as biggio juicing his numbers so he looks better for hof and marketing puposes.
poor burke. and by the way, are people noticing how long it is taking for poor adam everett to heal from that collision with our left field moose? it’s been over two months and he’s still not back. this really sucks. watching loretta consistently not get to ground balls and ground into double plays, pop up, and hit lame weak-ass grounders with guys on base is awful.
thought for the day: the astros can sweep the remaining games with the brewers, cubs and cards and be just 3 games out of first.
Wow now that’s a thought.
Long time no rap, how ya been?
Loved the firings.
Rooting for Cooper, but in his first game he started you know who at SS. That is ridiculous.
jdollas,
the rangers have been bad for a LONG time – i guess putting those expensive seats blocking airflow and making it darn near impossible to pitch well have seriously screwed the ballclub. that and no roof – i would bet it would be hard to fill the stadium even if the team was winning
as for salty, the ONLY chip we had to use was lidge, and at the time, they had wickman. it’s what happens when you have no farm.
madison,
looks like they are still into kissing biggio ass. so i guess burke will start at seond no matter what else this year. playing him in right is flat out stupid. shrug. it’s not like sitting biggio would make any difference anyhow. shrug.
steve schramm,
you said it boy. and i was watching everett try to run. the guy should just take the rest of the year to heal right. watching loretta play short is like hearing nails on a chalkboard
glennbo,
well, burke is a second baseman who has hadly ever played there. how is he supposed to justify it when he isn’t allowed to play there? at least, unlike loretta, he can actually field and he has some speed and doesn’t hit into DP all the time. you DO know that loretta hits into a DP 1 of evey 30 PA – he’s barely ahead of Lee, who hits into one 1 every 27 PA.
they are CLEARLY getting rid of lamb. wiggy at second is like loretta at short – a nightmare. check the stats for yourself. we can’t have all terrible fielders and expect to win unless all the hitters hit like arod and manny ortez.
as for getting a good hitting catcher, there aren’t any on the market. we would have to trade and exactly who is it you think we can trade?
and a #2 SP – again, there aren’t any, only old washed up guys and hurt guys.
as for this offensive shortstop – loretta offends me plenty and i would like to see a guy out there who can do stuff like make plays. there aren’t many tulowitskis who exist. you get some hanley ramirez guys who are total butchers and you get adam everetts and as for me, and i bet, the pitchers, i would rather have adam because remember – we’ll have wiggy (shudder) , lee (double shudder) and maybe loretta (gag) and all they’ll be is a year older and slower and you just can’t have ALL your fielders the absolute worst in the NL (which they all are. you do know that the astros without everett are the worst fielding team in the NL, right, and you see how much good that has done the pitchers, right?)
and please remember that the more FA we sign, the fewer draft picks we get again – and of course, if mclane won’ t sign any again, it won’t matter…