Oh yeah – and he Pujolsed a Lidged slider into the upper deck in RF, too. His third 2 homer game this YEAR. Amazing how healthy legs are good for a player’s hitting.
It was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL night – sweater weather (really) with the roof open and – what can I say – I absolutely HAD to go, especially because I had a chance to get there early for batting practice and get a look at Lance up close. He isn’t that much thinner, really – believe it or not – and his stance is definitely different than it was last year when he was hurt – it looked that way on TV, but I can really tell in person – knees bent more, more weight shifted back.
Stadium was pretty empty – it had been about half full the previous 2 nights – lots of Cards fans AND lots of Berkman fans. Me, I went old Skool and wore my Ausmus t-shirt. Of course, after the 3rd inning, I had to wear it OVER my sweater. Is that kewl or what – here it is April 28 and it is GOOD weather for outdoor baseball, not Drayton McLane is too cheap to close the roof and we have to all die sweating – outdoor baseball.
Tonight, Nelson Figueroa did a very good job – remembering he’s the 5th starter – and this time, the ump pretty much called strikes strikes, and didn’t call them balls. He gave up 3 walks (only one of em was a problem with getting strikes called strikes), got a nice 4-6-3. And speaking of 4, Freese singled to left in the 4th, Figgy tried to pick him off, the throw went into left, Hall picked it up on the RF line about 90′ down the line and threw a bullet to CJ to get Freese, who ran thorough a stop sign, out. GREAT throw. He had 3 of 5 1,2,3 innings.
He gave up a run in the 5th when Lance doubled on a bullet down the line into the LF corner, then scored on a Laird single up the middle. Figgy gives up walks and singles, seldom gives up extra base hits, I’ve noticed. But you sure nuff can lose getting singled to death. As he could tell you.
And speaking of which – the Cards did the Baseball Bugs conga line (you’ve seen that cartoon) in the 6th. Figgy gave up a 3-2 single to left to Freese, then Uncle blooped one to right, then Holliday singled through the 5.5 hole to drive in Freese.
With Lance coming up, Brad Mills decided to pull Figgy – although he was still actually throwing just as well – and send in lefty Abad to face Berkman. As much as Figgy is no ace, he’s STILL better than Abad and all I said was OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. And sure enough, he hits the 1-0 curve off the wall over the Crawford Boxes for the go-ahead 3 run homer (and this time it WAS the game winning hit – but I’m getting ahead of myself….)
And the singles kept on coming – ABAD gives up a single to Rasmus, a walk to Gerald freaking Laird (Arnesberg goes out – it does NO good) a slow roller to short to Green that goes for a FC, then a single to the PITCHER on a 3-2, then a sac-fly.
Abad out, Fulchino in. And Fulchino gives up 4 straight singles without getting an out.
Fulchino out, Valdez in, who FINALLY gets the last out on a grounder.
NINE runs in 1 inning.
My GAWD. You talk about el sukco bullpen – they made Figueroa look like Clemens. Husby called – asked if I was coming home early. He got hung up on – not that he wasn’t expecting that…
And that was it for Cards runs except for that 467′ upper deck homer by Lance - Aneury Rodriguez threw a hanging slider and Lance hit it further than the one Uncle hit offn Lidge. Only homer I’ve seen hit further in the upper decks was the one by Dontrelle Willis 5 or 6 years ago – and no, I do NOT believe whoever “measured” that shot at only 450′ – please.
Astros hitters hit the ball QUITE well, thank you, and reached on error twice.
Brett Wallace continued his absolutely torrid hitting – he hits leftys just as well as rightys, and sprays line drives all OVAH the place – left, right, middle. Doesn’t seem to be a home run hitter and he’s way too slow a runner to hit triples, but he’s hitting essentially the same as he did in the minors. Even in his prime, he’s no Berkman (in HIS prime) but of course, Lance wasn’t appreciated when he WAS here and he’ll be disrespected now that he’s gone as “fat” or “not a leader” – he seems to be “leading” fine with the Cards – oh yeah, that’s the complaint.
where was I?
Oh yeah.
Michael Bourn hit lots of balls to opposite field, including one to the LF bullpen off Kyle McClellan – who didn’t exactly look ace tonight – 5 runs over 5.1 IP. Michael has reached base in all but 1 of his last 20 games, and that was a PH appearance (against the same *(%*#%! closer whose stuff he couldn’t see the night before – with the same result). He didn’t have any great plays or stolen bases tonight. And no weird stuff like forgetting to go to second on a PB.
Angel Sanchez grounded out a few times, turned a DP, drove in a 2 out run, flew out to deep right. Right now, he’s 31 for 105 with 5 doubles, 1 HR, 1 GIDP and 6 BB – oh yeah, and 16 RBIs FROM THE 2 HOLE – same as Carlos Lee hitting cleanup.
And speaking of Carlos, he finally got a few hits – reached on error E1 – hit a dribbler up the 1B line which the pitcher dropped – an easy out. He hit an RBI double down the LF line – juuuust inside the 3B bag which hit the stands jutting out at a funny angle and he hit a bloop to right. Which is more than he had done with all those popups, especially with MOB!!!!! for the past few weeks.
So anyway, Sanchez is gonna get benched for Clint “A-Rod” Barmes (or is it Tulo redux) and Mills is keeping Clank hitting cleanup because he “is confident that Carlos will get out of his funk” – has NOTHING to do with the fact that he almost certainly has no choice in the matter seeing as how Carlos is making 19 mill.
Hunter Pence – being aggressive is good and bad. It’s good when he runs through the stop sign at third and scores on Carlos’ double to left that takes that funny angle off the wall when the throw home is offline. It’s bad when he swings at 2 pitches waaay out of the zone then stares at the one down the middle with bases loaded when the Stros are trying to come back 6 runs after the Cards 9 run top of the 6th. It’s even worse when he is out at the plate trying to score on a pitch that didn’t bounce far enough away from the plate with bases loaded, 2 out in the 8th (and yeah, I know Hall was up and you shouldn’t expect miracles twice in 1 series)
CJ had a 430′ homer off the LF wall – hit in between the 99 and 01 flags for a 2 run job. He hit the ball very well every AB and hit 3 of them to opposite field – the last one fell for a double, but he was stranded. This is good – he doesn’t look lost. Of course, I am considering who was pitching. The Cardinal’s bullpen is almost as bad as ours. Bet TLR wishes he wasn’t so quick throwing Chris Perez away. Well, no he doesn’t. TLR is NEVAH wrong (see how Scott Rolen has failed everywhere he’s been since he and TLR got divorced 4 years ago…)
I guess that last year was The Year Of The Pitcher, This Year it is The Year Of The Bullpen Suckage.
Hall went 1 fer 4 with a single and run scored. AND he had that great assist to get Freese at 3rd.
Quintero went 1 fer 3 with a reached on error E5 and a run scored. He also made another throwing error – was trying to throw out Rasmus stealing and the throw hit him and bounced into CF and Rasmus went to 3rd on the throw. Other than that, very solid fielding tonight from everyone, including Carlos. Yes, Carlos, who caught a long fly ball at the LF bullpen that he wouldn’t have gotten near last year. Or the year before. Or the year before that, neither.
The guys went 5 fer 18 with RISP and left 24 MOB. It’s not that the Astros aren’t hitting (for once) but that the pitching has been teh sukc. And so has the fielding. To be nice about it – 27 errors over 25 games. Uck.
And tomorrow night, the Brew Crew is in town and we face Shaun Marcum again. And Corey Hart is off the DL and ready to lust after the Crawford Boxes…
Oh yeah – and when I got home, was Husby-doo watching The Draft Report? Heck no, he was watching Astros Live. Why yes, Alyson Footer WAS on tonight. HowEVAH did yall guess?
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB, St. Louis Cardinals
*sigh* Your bullpen HAS to be the worst in the majors. Wade had better get his ass moving to pick up some relief help.
JD and Brownie mentioned that the Astros had the 2nd worst ERA in the NL. I’ll bet they’re the worst now. It’s not like this is an isolated incident. Our Astros scored a bunch of runs in this series and still only have one win to show for it. The bullpen is a joke. If putting together a good relief corps is Wade’s strength, then he just ain’t too strong.
What amazed me is that the Astros still had a chance in the 8th until Pence ran them out of the inning. Having played a lot of baseball myself, I won’t be too hard on him. He knows what he did, and I guarantee you he’s being harder on himself than any of us could be.
Two good things: The Astros are putting some runs on the board, and they aren’t rolling over when they get behind.
That should be 2nd worst bullpen ERA in the NL.
Funny to see that since the offense finally doesn’t look like an AAA line-up anymore, the pitching stuff begins to collapse. Well we obviously can’t have both good pitching and good hitting at the same time, don’t we?
Fulchino had a bad outing, but he is still not bad as a reliever. Melancon is a good set-up guy. Now let’s hope that Lopez will be alright, then we’ll have three solid RPs. Lyon is ok as a 7th or 8th inning guy, but not as a closer. Maybe Wade should ask the Phillies to give us Ryan Madson, but LOL that’s not going to happen.
Your poor Astro-widower husband!
Think Mills is glad to be in Houston? His press conferences are marshmallow soft. The bullpen will be all-right, just have to get them more rest! If he was in Boston or New York, he would be crying. Everything is hunky-dory-and just give us time, we will right this Titanic! No one asks him why he keeps sending Abad out there. Geez, I need a tylenol
Well the Astros have the worst pitching staff in the majors with a 5.24 era and are the worst fielding team in the majors, Not so sold on the offense. They hit but as seen in this column, the hits are not very timely. They will be lucky to win 60 games.
mark,
here it is almost the end of april and we ahven’t been shut out yet – and THAT is really hard to believe. unless he!! has frozen, ed wade will STILL be trying to trade keppinger. he really thinks that barmes and hall will be the 7-8 mill difference maker in offense. he had a budget limit from drayton and 25% of that budget went to clank. but only AAA guys for the bullpen – well, youneverknow, and so far, looks like they are ALL pretty bad
elmer,
the phils like ryan madsen just fine – but they don’t want him to close because his youknowwhat is too small or something
charlie,
don’t feel sorry for husby – he had to feed the kidz, get them to do homework, get them to bed AND find time to grouse about The Draft with 8 zillion other guys (men don’t gossip. nope.)
most of mills job is to say what tal/ed want and make it sound good. i do NOT believe that orders to keep clank in the cleanup didn’t come from above – because if that is mills’ decision alone, i would have lost respect for him – and so would the guys on the team. no REALLY? shirts in sight. he sends abad out there because there is no one else to send. same thing with the other lousy relievers – and seems can’t NONE of em go more than 1 inning
I don’t blame Mills for the Astros’ struggles. A manager can only play the hand that an incompetent GM like Ed Wade deals him. All too often, the manager gets the blame when things don’t go well. The problem is that Tal Smith and Ed Wade aren’t man enough to take the blame or admit when they make a mistake.
Mark in Rockwall…..when you’re spending the OWNER’S money, you had BETTER be playing that “hunk of junk” you just signed for $3.25 million.
You can guess I’m talking about Bill Hall. AND……if Hall and Barmes BOTH
start looking like Pedro, and Kaz Matsui……..HEADS WILL ROLL!!
What a waste of time Bill Hall is. Uggggggggggh!!
Lisa – CBS Houston is reporting that McLane has granted Jim Crane an exclusive window in which to close a deal. If true, this is horrible news for Astros fans. Aside from being a jerk (see “Transferring Assets” on Google) and a possible racist and sexist (see Maury Brown’s recent report), Crane’s net worth is maybe 20% of McLane’s. Crane has “McCourt” written all over him.)
ann,
jim crane would have to leveraged as much as mccourt to buy the astros – AND he doesn’t have the 700 mill that drayton is demanding. bud ALREADY has his hands full with mccourt – i wouldn’t be surprised if he turns down crane – due to the having insuffucuent $$$
Lisa – Yesterday’s news seemed very strange. Just last week, news reports were saying Crane wasn’t close to having the needed cash or financing to buy the ‘Stros. Now, a week later, Crane and McLane are allegedly in an exclusive negotiating window (although McLane, from his quotes to MLB.com, didn’t seem overly excited or optimistic about it, unless he’s still in poker-game mode).
I wonder if this is sort of a desperation move on Crane’s part — i.e., perhaps Crane is trying to strike a deal before having the needed money in place in the hopes investors and/or banks will be more inclined to join him if he’s already been anointed the owner-in-waiting rather than just a bidder.
As someone who’s loved the Astros for over 25 years, I hope the news is false (or, if it’s true, that the two sides fail to consummate a deal). Based on what I know about Jim Crane’s finances and personality, he’s the exact opposite of what the Astros need in a new owner.
ann,
from what i can find out, crane does not have the needed cash or financing to buy the astros. he can’t match the highest non-leveraged bidder’s price, let alone the 700-800 mill drayton is still demanding
Lisa – That’s very interesting. I’m not surprised at all that Crane might not have the money — if he AND Mark Cuban didn’t have (or want to spend) $580 mil for the Rangers 9 months ago, then Crane ALONE spending $700 mil for the Astros seems farfetched — but I have no clue why McLane would grant an “exclusive window” to anyone other than the lead bidder. Seems like a strange sale process thus far.
Have any clues on what the high non-leveraged bidder has on the table right now?
ann,
i don’t know about the “exclusive window” thingy but i think it is just a ploy to get the other bidders to up the ante. the other bidders KNOW all about crane and his finances and leverages – they are NOT stupid
i am not positive but i think that the highest bid without a lot of parking lot -type collateral is around 500 mill. drayton should grab it n run
the sale process seems strange because drayton keeps demanding 200 + mill more than anyone is willing to pay – and it is 200+ mill over the forbes price. AND this team is gonna be bad for a long LONG time unless we get a zillionaire who hires larry beinfest and gives him a HUGE payroll too