Wesley Wright wasn’t BAD, but unfortunately, although he only walked 1, gave up 8 hits over 5 innings, 4 of the runs scored, so he lost.
The real problem was that the Astros hitters (and I’m lookin at YOU, Clank, Lance, Pence!!!) didn’t drive in but 2 – Lance drove in 1 in the 1st and Pence drove in 1 in the 7th). In fact, every hitter except for Keppinger left at least 1 on base.
Bourn has picked it up, Angel Sanchez is still hitting well, Chris Johnson is still hitting well, and Jason Castro is struggling. Maybe we should move him to the 2-hole.
We face Ted Lilly tonight – sorry, I thought it was last night, instead of Silva.
And posting will be pretty sporadic this week – life is interfering with baseball and writing, sorry.
1 week left till the deadline. Haren was traded yesterday, and Oswalt is the only ace left. I have heard from multiple sources that many teams are inquiring about Myers, Pence and Bourn AND that Fast Eddie and Drayton are, to put it VERY mildly, extremely difficult to deal with. Gee, what a surprise. Sort of reminds me of the girl won’t agree to be with any man unless he looks like Brad Pitt age 30 (and has his $$$ too) or any guy who refuses to touch any female unless she looks like Beyonce (replace with your particular hottie of choice) and ends up with no one.
Tags: Cubs, Houston Astros, MLB
I am extremely doubtful you improve this team’s medium to long term future by getting rid of either Pence or Bourn. Unless you get a Justin Smoak or Ben Zobrist type, and that’s not likely to happen.
Lisa and Sceptor, thanks for your comments on Castro. Sounds like what I’d expect — a work in progress. Plus arm, too early to be calling games, working on defense, struggling with hitting but with glimmers of bright spots. I’m glad to hear he is not swinging out of the strike zone and is framing ok (with room to improve). It may take until 2012 for him to step completely into the role, though his hitting should come around sooner if it is going to come around.
Looks like we’ll need a first baseman next year, so they might try him out there — although it would be a shame to lose his arm from behind the plate…
And marmer, we already had Zobrist and gave him away. Too late. We haven’t been making trades that bring folks like that IN to the team. Although Lidge for Bourn is a good trade IMO.
marmer,
depends who you get for pence/bourn
pence is going to start getting expensive, and i havn’t seen any real improvement in his game since he came up, so i think that what you see is what you get – a solid major league RF, but not a supaSTAH and not richard hidalgo 2003 neither. a lot of good teams could definitely use pence (like the angels who have 3 absolutely VILE fielding OF) and we NEED young players
thinking about drayton/purpura throwing away talbot and zobrist for basically nothing does very bad things to my blood pressure
steve,
castro doesn’t hit near enough for a 1B. but IF his hand heals, i wouldn’t mind trying towles out there. or at 2B
Steve, yeah, I know we gave Zobrist away. Would hate to see us give away MB like that, but I’m afraid it could happen. Lisa, I agree about Pence, that he’s probably peaked though may stay productive for a while. Still, I think there’s at least a 50-50 chance that any young players we get would wind up being worse than Pence after a few years.
marmer
yeah, i know and that is the trouble with trading. ESPECIALLY when it is ed wade + drayton doing the trading. i don’t trust either one of em
and i don’t want us to turn into the A’s where billy is a compulsive trader and trades almost constantly – and over the past 5 years, hasn’t done anything worth a darn
Zobrist has fallen way off his numbers of a year ago which makes me think he just shot his wad in that one year, and before last season he had not put up any real numbers. I would much rather have pence who also is 2 years younger and is having a better season this year then Ben.