And Sean Forman (the math professor genius who invented baseball-reference.com) said on record in the NY Times that Michael Bourn is the best baserunner in baseball!!!!! And Michael went 4 fer 5 tonight, scoring 2 of the Astros 3 runs!!!
And Pence drove in 2 of em – 1 with a solo homer high off the wall above the CBoxes and another with a bases loaded walk!!!
Isn’t this exciting!!! They Are Our Astros!!!!!
Unfortunately, the rest of em are too. JA is making Us Fans Un-HAPP-y with his continued suckage. He’s like you know like the LAST guy who should evah face Bahstin – that team won’t swing at crap and that is what JA throws. It’s not like Bud, whose pitches have some serious movement goin on – Happ is just a nibbler who either bites off more than he can chew or misses the sandwach altogether.
He started off by spotting them 3 runs in the first. 6 pitch walk, 2 pitch single, 2-1 RBI single, 2-1 single to load the bases (you notice there are no outs), 7 pitch walk to lefty David Ortiz, (reminding JA how icky it is to ride buses instead of charter jets with hot stewardesses), then a 1-2 run scoring GIDP, 3-1 flyout. The ump missed only 1 pitch (called a strike1 a ball) and they didn’t swing at pitches out of the zone – except once and that was borderline and went for a hit.
It’s not like their pitcher was ace – it’s that Clank and Jason Michaels went back to being Clank and Jason Michaels. Clank did nothing with MOB – including grounding out with bases loaded and Michaels GIDP with 2 on 2 out.
As for the bullpen – well, the game was already lost when Millsie-poopoo threw Abad to the wolves in the 8th. I guesss he told him he was gonna finiah that inning no matter what. He came in to face lefty A-GON-Y (who is killing the baseball in Bahstin, just like he did in San Diego) and had nothing – gave up a solid single on a 2-1 curveball in the zone, gave up a single to righty Youk on a 2-1 FB pretty much mid-plane, then threw lefty Reddick a couple of crappy curves – got one as a gift strike from ther ump, then 2 meh FB outside the zone which were fouled off, then another single on a cruveball that diudn’t curve much – bases loaded, no outs. He got NO stuff – this is not bad luck bloop hits or stuff that dribbles in the infield or one of those off the end of the bat/bad swing thingys. No. These are sold hits off crappy stuff.
But Millsie-poopoo just sits on hands. No Brocail neither.
Next hitter is switch hitter Saltalamacchia, who hits better lefty than right, and he hits a nice solid deep sac-fly to left.
What, no righty pitcher to dace the righty Darnell McDonald? Hitting .115 in 52 AB over 31 games? Abad throws a change in the dirt, another crappy inside curve, then a nice meaty belt high FB on the inner third which aforementioned crappy hitter sends over the train tracks. Scutaro somehow gets himself out on a FB down the middle and JD Drew grounds out on an outside curveball – the same crappy pitch Abad has been throwing all night.
Sometimes I wonder if managers do stuff like this so GMs will be forced to get rid of guys with high ERAs.
Tomorrow, it’s Jordan Lyles vs Josh Beckett, who had a terrible year last year, but has come back this year with a vengeance – a 2.20 ERA, 0.93 WHIP and a .178 BAA over 98 IP. NOT a good omen for the worst team in the majors.
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB, Red Sox
They WANT that first draft pick.
What does this represent? 3 3 3 1 1
Those are the number of runs given up in just the FIRST inning by Happ in his last five starts — all Astros losses. You have to go back an entire month to find a start where he did not give up a run in the first inning — and that was San Diego, where all hits go to die.
This is a fatal problem and needs some sort of major change to get started more cleanly. A starting pitcher cannot continually give the opponent runs immediately and expect to have any success. Maybe it’s the pitching coach’s fault — perhaps he has a bad game plan. Or maybe he just can’t execute due to nerves, or being overly pumped, or whatever. But he’d better fix it soon.
both these guys deserve to be picked for the allstar team, unfortunetely only one will be chosen.
Yes, managers appear to do that from time to time. (ie 11 runs in the first inning).
the HR given up to the Bosox dude just called up from Pawtucket really spoke to me as to just how bad the BP is,,,goes 3 – 0 on the guy and then serves it up …all the rest is just the usual Astros BS,,
Being on the worst team in MLB also hurts Pence and Bourne,,Pence has great offensive numbers and I want to say He is top 5 in all outfielders in MLB, He is all we have…
How Drayton, Tal and ED look at Houstonians with a straightr face is beyond me, I read a qote on another blog and a guy wrote that Ed Wade could’nt “organize a two car funeral procession”.. killed me..so true..
Hey, Ed Wade traded Brad Lidge (all star, but injured) for Michael Bourn (all star). Phillies have paid Lidge $40M; Astros have paid Bourn $7M.
Lidge was awesome in 2008, not so much in 2009, okay last year and out all of this year — but they don’t need him, it seems.
Anyway, Lidge wouldn’t have done the Astros any good since they almost never get to the ninth with a lead, and Bourn plays every day, unlike Lidge who appears for an inning every three days or so. I like this trade.
Richard Justice just said on Twitter that today was likely Drayton McLane’s last home game as owner. Since the next home game is July 15, that seems like crazy talk. Unless Justice has some huge scoop that he hasn’t bothered to put into print form, everyone else says the Astros sale is on hold until at least late July (because of the Dodgers and perhaps because of Crane’s sordid past).
Forget about a new owner. What Houston really needs is a sports columnist who has a clue.
If this team was a race horse it would have taken out and shot aboutvtwo months ago
Ann,
unless Bud let Richard in on something, he knows something that I can’t get any other source to verify.
Charlie,
sigh
yeah, I know…