Oh Bradley
You so fine
You so fine
You blow my mind
HEY Bradley
HEY Bradley
You waited round all day
Came in and hit it long
I knew Coop had it right
Though some thought he had it wrong
Oooooh Bradley
It’s so lucky that you understand
You had to break the tie
Had to put it in the stands
It’s guys like YOU
Bradley
OOOOOOH what you do
Bradley
- apologies Toni Basil
Yeh, I can hear every male reading this gritting his teeth wondering why on EARTH a guy with an BA lower than Clank’s weight should be deluged with lustful looks/thoughts from bout every straight female of bout every race.
And now our heee ro comes through with a game tying homer in the gloamin (I think that word means at an unexpected time against a good pitcher) to break the 4-4 tie.
Yes, I could say that Ed Romero was really crazy sending Blum from second on Newhan’s hit to shallow right center, but in the end it didn’t matter because even though Bourn walked, Abercrombie hit what would have been a perfect 1-6-3 GIDP.
Anyone besides me wonder why Coop pulled Sampson after 2 innings, 18 pitches, with the score still tied – and not for a pinch hitter?
Randy Wolf pitched sort of OK – 6 innings, 7 hits, 2 HR (both to The Jackal) 3 walks and a WP – he struck out 4, the pitcher 3 times.
Wolf has now pitched 27 games: 7 were 4 or fewer innings; 2 were 5 IP; 11 were 6 – 6.1 IP and 6 were 7 IP. 13 of these were QS: In 8 starts, he gave up 5 or more runs.
He has started 6 games for the Astros, pitching 4.1, 5, 6, 7, 4, and 6 innings starts over 32.1 IP – 38 H, 4 HR, 16 BB, 28 K: 20 R/19 ER: 5.33 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP. This is, by the way, about an 82 ERA+ which, by the way, is what it was when he pitched for the Padres.
In case all yall curious, Wandy has a 103 ERA+ and it was 112 a month ago – he’s had 3 really bad games since…
Tomorrow, it’s Brian Moehler vs Mike Pelfrey.
Moehler has only thrown 29.2 innings vs the Mets over his career started 4 games, relieved in 3 – 3.03 ERA. The Jackal is 9 fer 16 with a 1.401 OPS; Delgado is 8 fer 26 with 4 doubles and 3 HR – 1.187 OPS; David Wright is 4/11 and Brian Schneider is 3/10 with a HR.
I’m actually worried that Moehler might could be getting tired – in his last 4 starts, he’s gone 5, 7, 5.1 and 5.1 IP. AND he hasn’t had his usual pinpoint control. Actually, Moehler has averaged only 5.2 IP/GS – which is, by the way, the same as Wandy.
Pelfrey is interesting – he has a high BAA – .281 and fairly high WHIP of 1.48 to go with his low ERA of 3.86.
He pitched 96 innings in 06 (minors and majors), 152 innings in 07 and 154 innings this year already. He’s pitched an average of 6.2 innings for the past 10 starts with a 3.07 ERA, including a CG his last outing vs the Braves.
He’s had 3 starts vs the Astros, a total of 15.1 innings in which he has not pitched very well. Let’s hope he keeps it up. The suckage, I mean, as well as the baseball…
And please click here to go evaluate the fielding abilities of the Astros players for statistician Tom Tango. Thank yuh verra much.
Tags: Houston Astros, Mets, New York Mets
Why’d he pull Sampson? The same reason Phil always pulled pitchers. It was just their time. 2 innings, regardless of pitch count OR the fact that he’s a serviceable hitter…you pull him, even if it looks like you might be headed for a marathon where you could burn through the pitchers.
Just another reason, by the way, that I don’t like having lefty specialists or other guys like Hawkins who are only good for about 2 hitters at a time. What a waste.
Lisa
why is it you like to beat the drum of this very old player and act like he single handly won this game and not even mention the other old codger ,loretta and the youngster pence who without these two mr. old ausmas would never had the opportunity for his heroics. You don!t mention Hunter!s 2 out 2 run blast that tied the score at 3 all or his crucial walk later that he came around to score on newhan clutch single that once again tied the score at 4 all.
i also think coop did a terrific job with his bullpen, sampson had two perfect innings but he has worked an awful lot of innings in the past two weeks, and besides Hawkins who has been tremendous for the stros since being pickup also had a perfect inning as did closer valverde. I don!t see how you can argue with sucess. I can just see how you and your merry band would of been all over coop had he let sampson pitch another inning and he gave up 2 or 3 runs. Oh that stupid coop should have realized he has been pitching sampson way too much.
Also you forgot to mention erstads 10th inning homer which could have been a very important insurance run. erstad has been very very good for the stros this year with his offense and great defense at several different positions. blum has also been mr clutch for us all year as loretta also has contributed much.
suptor,
- smile
the beating the drum of brad ausmus, a player who is a guy who isn’t much of a hitter, has lost most of his defensive skills and is most definitely on his last legs is kind of a gentle little tease to every male who watches/thinks about hot females even when he is supposed to be concentrating on other things…
i didn’t recap the entire game. should i have?
i was DELIGHTED to see hunter hit a good pitch with authority. i was DELIGHTED to see him take a walk, something he almost never does. I really REALLY hope that hunter works on his hitting problems this offseason – he’s been grounding out to the SS when he’s not strikiing out.
as for the question of relievers, well, if you have a tie game, best to let your long relievers, whuich is what sampson is, eat innings. if he had needed more than 9 pitches/inning, well, then i would have thought otherwise.
as for hawkins, he hasn’t pitched well in years, and i know he has had 10 scoreless appearances since he’s been here, but sooner or later, his luck is gonna run out.
i certainly haven’t said that erstad, blum and loretta haven’t contributed. they have.
and you are correct if, by clutch, you mean that blum has hit significantly better with men on than not on.
- but i will say that just because something happens to work doesn’t mean it was a good idea in the first place. for example, let’s suppose it’s the bottom of the 9th, bases loaded, you are down by 3 runs and you have the choice of 3 pinch hitters against a lefty pitcher: Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee or wandy. you send in the wand-man and he hits a walkoff granny.
stranger things have happened because long shots occasionally DO pay off, but generally, it won’t lead to winning in the long run.
lisa
all i have to say about some of your rhetoric and reasoning is hogwash!
yes pence has had a rough year but if you check closely you will see that he has contributed a lot in many of the stros victories this year with his bat and defense.I know he was leading the NL in outfield assist as of a few days ago and a good majority of his home runs have come in games the stros won., and he still is third in rbis on the team.
as for as hawkins is concerned i could less what he did in the past its what he has done for us that counts and his stuff looks pretty darn good to me . he has what i would rather call a good sinker and a very live heater which i have seen reach 95-96 mph on several occasions and he is striking out almost 2 per inning.
and i notice all year you have given bourn much more kudos than say pence and a few others; and the truth of the matter is that bourn has sucked all year he doesn!t even belong in the majors.
the bullpen relievers did just great the way coop used them i don!t care what you say.
suptor,
are you charles???
WHEN did i ever say that pence did not contribute? haven’t i said he’s had a sophomore slump, has had a tough time adjusting to ML pitchers adjusting to him? that he’s had some baserunning blunders? he’s not an old washed up vet pointlessly blocking a young guy. and yes in spite of his struggles, he has hit better with MOB than either tejada or wiggy (until carlos went down). have you even ONCE heard me say get rid of pence?????
the case with hawkins is different. he’s not a young guy changing teams and responding to a different manager/coach/veterans. long time veterans have trach records and they just don’t go from lousy to incredible and stay that way. there is a reason those prediction systems work well for guys of a certain age with a long track record. ANY major league player can have a short run of excellence. remember ausmus hitting .320 for 2 months at the beginning of 05?
bourn has NOT sucked ALL year. he sucked with the bat in april and may and has improved after that. you can check the numbers yourself. he has made 2 blunders on the basepaths and 3 in the field (not errors) and what i have clearly said is that the guy should either be given the year to play or he should be gotten rid of if they have no intention of having him as the full time CF as he will go nowhere on the bench.
cmon
you can not seriously think that this team, as currently constructed, EVEN if carlos lee was still playing, is a team which could win the WC, let alone anything else.
if you have a team which does not grow and bring up young guys and instead plays other teams old cast offs, what you get is this year’s team, year after year. which is a .500 team.
and i’m not happy with seeing that as the future of the astros, year after year.
Suptor, in Lisa’s defense, she has never laid into Pence the way you seem to think she has. I don’t know why you feel the need to come so aggressively to his defense when all she’s done is acknowledge his strengths along side his weaknesses. But I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say Pence ISN’T a big contributor and asset on this team. And she CERTAINLY hasn’t praised Bourn more, merely come to his defense from time to time. Lisa tends to pull for underdogs. That’s nothing new, and I personally don’t have a problem for it. She tends to defend players being maligned and malign players being praised, and while I don’t ALWAYS agree with her, I think it’s cool to have someone presenting the other side.
I also have to disagree with your suppositions of how we’d react if he left Sampson in and Sampson blew it. I stand up and admit when I’m wrong. I’ve done it many times, including on this blog. If that had happened, I’d say that I disagreed with the call at the time but was clearly wrong. Like I did in the World Series in 2005 when Garner pinch hit with Vizcaino instead of Bagwell. But I definitely agree with Lisa. I’ve seen this team run out of pitchers too many times in extra inning games to think that it’s a good reason to pull a long reliever after throwing only 18 pitches in two perfect innings. The Mets are one of the worst teams in the NL at scoring runs after the 7th, so I’d definitely say it’s worth the gamble.
Sampson should have been left in.
As for Pence, he came up early in the game with a chance to tie and swung at a horrible ball 4 pitch to strike out and kill the rally. A very poor AB.
And after he walked, he should have scored on the double but made two — yes, TWO — base running mistakes on one play! First, he paused at second because he misread the ball and thought it might be caught, and second, instead of picking up his third base coach as he approached third, he looked back over his shoulder to see what was going on.
If Pence had just put his head down and run to second and then picked up his coach, he scores easily. Pence is really struggling with the mental side of the game; he’s worn down and tired since this is the first time he’s ever played an entire Big League season.
Yes, he got redemption with the home run, and that was awesome, and that’s why it’s exciting that Pence is on our team. I just hope that he learns from this season so he paces himself better next years and reduces the mental errors late in the season at the plate, on the bases and in the field.
Lisa wrote: cmon
you can not seriously think that this team, as currently constructed, EVEN if carlos lee was still playing, is a team which could win the WC, let alone anything else.
if you have a team which does not grow and bring up young guys and instead plays other teams old cast offs, what you get is this year
lisa
excuse me but i didn! at all say i thought this team could still win th WC. i did say that all i would like to see is them win as many games as they could and finish with as good of record as possible; so don!t give me this CMON BULL CRAP.
lisa i really need to bow out of this defeatest or negative atmosphere and favoritism you and your merry band have. you guys are a bunch of losers!