Congrats to Brandon Backe for not getting indicted by the Galveston grand jury. Seing as how grand juries indict just about everyone brought before them, it sure nuff tells me that it was pretty outrageous to have indicted him in the first place. And of course, the “inquiry” the cops made about the behaviour of their own cops relieved them of ANY wrongdoing.

uh-hunh

Anyhow, Brandon has just about finished up his rehab work and is ready to join the ML team. He hasn’t exactly shone with the AAA club – 2 GS, 10 IP, 13 H, no HR, 3 BB, 12 K, 5 ER – but he sure nuff is better than Hampton/Ortiz/Moehler. I still have a tough time believing that so many people thought that Moehler would repeat his 2007 stats and that Hampton/Ortiz would pitch like it’s 2001 again.

Interesting how many fans on the radio and in the media blogs want to trade off anyone on this team who can hit for young pitching. Wonder if they are the same ones who were screaming 3 years ago about how terrible it was to have all the young pitchers, who weren’t pitching like Oswalt/Clemens/Pettitte and trade them all for some bats. I also wonder if all the people who SAY they would go and see young players getting their heads beat in really WOULD tolerate a 2003 Tigers season – meaning, they would THEN say they won’t go to a game until the team is good enough to spend money on.

I’m pretty sure they will NOT get rid of Erstad, who this year, has basically either struck out or hit grounders to the first/second baseman and is 7 fer 48 with 1 walk and 1 RBI. He is, you see, this Veteran Leader – not exactly sure who he’s leading or where he’s leading them to, but there you are. Who knows if they will get rid of Michaels, who doesn’t even have Erstad’s glove – and Erstad is the guy who let one of Sampson’s runs score last week – didn’t even TRY to get the runner at the plate, who would have been a dead duck. Some “leadership.”

It took them, what, 6 WEEKS of Jason Smith not getting a single hit for them to send him down and bring up Maysonet, who, at least is actually getting a few HITS. And NO, that was HIS baserunning blunder in the 6th – Dave Clark held up the stop sign and so Maysonet stopped. It was Tejada who overran first and NO, Maysonet should NOT have tried to run home as Hernandez was there, ready and waiting.

I suppose I had better talk about Roy, hunh? His ERA is 4.68 at the end of May. He has 3 of 10 QS. He has given up 11 – that is ELEVEN homers over 59 IP. And yes, he SHOULD have been pulled at the end of the 6th because he had lost any semblance of command. It took him 30 pitches to get out of THAT inning. He had gotten a FO, a single and a swinging K, and then he just could NOT command that ball – walked Gonzalez on 4 straight pitches (and Pudge’s passed ball was ball 2), threw a pitch outside the strike zone that was fouled off then hit the batter, walked the next hitter on 4 straight balls, then FINALLY he threw a strike, and luckily got the hitter to GO with bases loaded on a 3-2, and THAT pitch wasn’t in the strike zone.

I don’t care if he was at 64 pitches, 74 pitches 94 pitches or 140 pitches. You can’t throw a strike, you need to come out.

Period.

I don’t know wassup with Roy – if he’s just getting old (it happens) and not every guy can make adjustments, or if it has anything to do with him throwing to Pudge instead of Brad Ausmus, or if it has anything to do with Dewey Robinson being the pitching coach (who Roy wasn’t exactly fond of last year.) Ken Rosenthal thinks that the Astros should trade Roy NOW (that is, IF he will even agree to be traded, seeing as how he has a complete no trade – unlike in fantasy ball where you can move anyone at any time) but I don’t know who would take him, expensive as he is, with him pitching as mediocrely as he is. OR what we would even get back. Yeah, I know, “young players” but as we ALL know, sometimes even the toppest of top prospects can’t hack it in the majors, and now WHO is it wants to see Russ Ortiz back in the rotation instead of Roy-O? And, again, I’ll remind all yall that the days of the Haren type trades are LONG gone (you wonder if the Cards regret that one – remember? Mark Mulder for Danny Haren and 2 other guys who haven’t been all that…)

Bud Norris? At AAA, he’s started 9 games over 53 IP (so here is yet ANOTHER guy who isn’t averaging at least 6 IP/GS) with 45 H (VERY good), 29 walks (bad because if his command isn’t good enough to fool AAA hitters, what is gonna happen when he has to face ML hitters? Remember Stephen Randolph???) and 54 K (good) for a 2.55 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP.  Now it might could be that he pitches ala Clamens, and he uses what he has to get out the guys he can get out, and he’d rather walk one guy who won’t go fishing and get out the next guy – I wish I could get game logs for minor league games.

I will note that we do happen to have 3 relievers at AAA who are doing quite well -

1 – Chad Paronto: 19.2 IP over 16 games – 16 H (1 HR) 5 BB, 14 K – 1.07 WHIP, 2.55 ERA. He’s finished 14 games, so looks as if he’s being used somewhat as the closer, a job they wanted Sammy Gervacio to take over, but Sammy hasn’t been doing real too well…

2 – Brendan Donnelly (yeah, the ex-Angel who had been hurt/ineffective the past few years)  13 IP over 12 games: 11 H, 4 BB, 12 K – 1.15 WHIP, 2.08 ERA

3 – Casey Daigle (yes, the husband of that hot blond softball pitcher who never could get out ML hitters) 20.1 IP over 16 G: 20 H (1 HR) 8 BB, 15 K – 1.38 WHIP, 2.21 ERA

Unfortunately, they are all rightys and I’m not sure that Coop will agree to send down Wesley Wright, who isn’t pitching well – bad location, too many walks and homers, too many games in which he’s given up at least 1 run.

Geoff Blum’s hammy is still bothering him and now Kaz has some sort of hammy owie – gee, what a surprise. I hope to heck they don’t call that worthless Jason Smith back up – I’d rather see Matt Kata, hitting .250/.318/.361/.679 at Round Rock take Maysonet’s place as the bench guy who basically does nothing while Maysonet plays second. Tommy Manzella is doing fine – .290/.349/.409/.758 – yeah, I know, nothing extra-ordinary, but I’d still not want him to sit on the bench gathering splinters for 2 weeks.

Tags: Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 1:57 am and is filed under Bandon Backe, Roy Oswalt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.