I think that this is only like the 4th series that the Astros have won all year and yes I am pulling that number out of my, uh, memory, but I AM sure that we haven’t won a series since beating the Dodgers back in June. No, May – maybe April. It was a long LONG time ago.
What is even more shocking is that pinch hitter Jason Michaels drove in the winning run in the 11th and that the bullpen didn’t cough it up between the 7th and the end. Lopez pitched 2 innings for the W, but he came in to start innings, no men on base – he does better that way.
Yesterday, J Happ, as usual, sukt. It wasn’t entirely his fault as the HP ump squeezed him tightern a boa – the worse a pitcher does, the more he gets squoze by umps, but he got almost no calls at the knees or on the black. Deshaeis said more than once that Happ looked almost nervous or even uncertain up there on the mound – he was, but both times he got the out with MOB, game on the line. He gave up two 2 run homers. Watching Michael Morse, I’m still wondering why Seattle gave up on him.
I particularly remember him because he’s the guy who had a badly injured leg and took off a year and used (all together now – SHUDDER!!) anabolic steroids while not playing, to heal his leg. Fortunately, he had never hit home runs, so people forgot about it quickly. Still took him a couple of years to heal his leg and regain his strength. Good thing he plays for some team don’t nobody important in the media know about or I’m sure they’d be saying how he’s a steroid creation. Or some such nonsense.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. Anyway, J Happ-less managed to last 5.1 innings – impressive – he left with a man on first, who stole second and came in to score when Froddy couldn’t get the last 2 outs right off. But he left with the Astros still leading 7-6. Micahel Bourn and Clint Barmes knocked in 6 of those runs, too.
And I guess someone in the media DID ask Millsie-poo why on earth he benched Brettsie against a leftie and he said that Jason Michaelsie was 7 fer 10 against Marquis – the usual small sample size silliness. So he went 1 fer 4 with 3 Ks and left 3 on base.
Mellie came to pitch the 9th – got 2 outs, then had a HBP, then a walk, and FINALLY got the last out.
Hitting? The kewlest was Quintero’s squeeze with 1 out in the 4th with CJ on 3rd – it was a safety and not a suicide – CJ didn’t take off until he saw that the bunt was down right and Q laid a nice one to the first base side of the mound and the throw was too late to get him out. Which let Happ lay down the usual sac bunt. And with runners on second and third, Bourn hit an opposite field double to drive em both in. Maybe we should hit HIM 3rd.
Jose Altuve debuted – had 2 shallow flyouts, 1 flyout to deep center, one swinging K and his first ML hit, a single to right. Lets root root root for the lil GUY!!!
Day off tomorrow, then we’re off to face Big Z and one of our main competetors for Last Place in the majors, the C*bs. They’ve fallen bout as fast and hard as we have. It is, by the way, all Carlos Zambrano’s fault – you disbelieve me, check the fans/media. If he pitched like Pedro 1999 or Roger 1997 then they would have won the Series. Or something. Anyway, Bud Norris faces him Friday night – and Bud better be VERY careful if the wind is blowing out…
So, 8th inning, score tied, Pence on second, Lee on first, no outs. New pitcher, right handed. Wallace up, left handed. AND MILLS DOES WHAT????!! He tells Brett to sac bunt. STUPID. He gives up an out for free, which is bad enough, but he takes the bat out of Brett’s hands, and WORSE, he takes the bat out of Johnson’s hands because they IBB him. So that means it’s Barmes or nothing.
We want to see the young guys get experience. Give Wallace a freakin chance! He’s a lefty. He’ll either get a hit to score a run and start a huge inning, or fly out and probably get the runner to third anyway but not take the bat from Chris, or ground out and move the runners. All good. The only bad things are Ks and DPs. Yes it could happen, but both of those still give Johnson a chance.
I hate hate hate this conservative, defensive, try to eek across one run with a sac fly strategy. It’s lame, it’s boring, it’s bad percentages, it doesn’t help the young guys get experience and succeed — it’s bad on so many levels i’m tired of typing
i wasn’t exactly thrilled with that – and he obviously thinks that barmes is a better hitter than wallace. i’m getting VERY tired of brad mills.
Well folks, I’m as about depressed as a woman can be. Ed Wade is GOING TO TRADE HUNTER PENCE! Ya know, I gave up my season tickets two years ago, and now if Hunter really DOES get traded…….I’ll never step foot in MM park again.
I thought last year was the worse time to be a fan of this club, but trading Pence
will most certainly be suicide for EITHER ONE of these jack a$$es, who currently
own, or WILL own this team. I’m dead serious here. I will NOT spend one more minute watching this team, winning, or not. I could not believe my eyes when I saw it on paper, but it is…….. and I’m gone. Becky
It’ll be interesting to see who gets traded. Trading Pence would be a completely idiotic move, given that he’s under club control for two more seasons. He’s only 28, and he could still help the club quite a bit. If they’re still bad in the season before he can leave as a FA, then yeah, go ahead and trade him.
I’m hoping that Pence remains an Astro and that Ed Wade won’t be around to trade him two seasons from now. Looking at his FA signings and his first round picks that were wasted on Jiovanni Mier and Delino Seshields Jr, I can’t imagine that he’ll have a job with the Astros much longer.
One thing that might be GOOD about Jim Crane owning the team–He actually played college baseball, and he should have a better idea of what he’s looking at than Drayton McLane ever did. I don’t think it’ll take him long to figure out that Tal Smith, Ed Wade, and Pam Gardner aren’t the best people to be running a major legue baseball club, and he’ll probably get rid of them in pretty short order.
becky,
i know exactly what you are saying. but we all know that ed wade has done a terrible job rebuilding the minors, no matter what richard justice says, and we all know that drayton is tired of losing – like it’s not his fault, and he doesn’t eant to spend any more money. so bourn, pence, wandy and the ol WB are gonna be gone if possible. not that wade can be trusted to get anything good back.
but fact is that IF crane gets the team, he would get rid of them too because they cost $$$ and he is not gonna spend money on the team – he said so himself.
and as for never setting foot in the park, i don’t blame you a bit. but mclane and crane don’t care because you STILL make millions owning a ball club even if it is mostly empty – see the marlins – because the $$$ comes from the corporate seats and revenue sharing and MLBAM.
us real fans don’t matter one bit. having a losing team year after year is no big deal – see the pirates – you don’t think that the nuttings make their 20-30 mill a year? every now and then you might get lucky and things click for your team one year. but what is important is that bud selig will make sure that the yankees/redsox are in the playoffs every year and that is the only thing that matters, teams wise.
mark,
trading hunter pence would get a better return this year not next – not that i trust ed wade to get a GOOD return. same with bourn.
it is BAD that crane played college ball – he’d be MORE likely to think he knows how to run a ML team. it was bad enough that drayton pulled that…
I’m probably not in favor of a big contract extension for Pence, but the Astros would be dumb to trade him unless they get a huge return of players who are ready for the major leagues. Trading their best player for a couple Double-A players would be dumb for all sorts of reasons.
I have to agree with Lisa. The best thing for them to do is trade Pence now while the market for him is high. You know he’s going to get traded before his contract runs out so you might as well trade him while you can get the greatest value for him. What we should all hope is that we manage to get a decent return for him. Ideally I’d think you want to make the trade with the Braves, pick up an MLB ready pitcher (Minor?) and then a couple of other players that look to either peak in AAA or have some minor value at the major level in a couple of years. Anything more than that is probably just wishful thinking. What I’m afraid is going to happen is that Wade will end up trading Pence to the Phillies for a handful of players that we all know will never be used for anything other than filling out the rosters at AA and AAA.
Don’t forget, Wade could also trade Pence for some crappy AA pitchers AND some retread, er, Proven Veteran like Pedro Feliz or Bill Hall or Clint Barmes or Jason Michaels or, even someone like Miguel Tejada 2006 who actually had a few drops left in the tank. I know I keep beating a dead horse here but I can’t imagine ANY scenario where we wind up with more WAR from whoever we get in the trade, even five years later, than we have with Bourn and Pence right now.
I would love to ask Jim Crane “How does cutting payroll make this team better in any way?”
andy,
i’m afraid of that too.
marmer,
apparently jim crane is NOT interested in making this team better. he doesn’t HAVE to – he can earn plenty of money keeping the team in last place/close to last place for years. and it might could be to his advantage to do that, especially if there is some secret deal with bud selig to move this team to the AL west – they won’t be fans left so no one will care. he thinks that the team might get better all by itself if we just get rid of all the high priced dead weight and wait for CHEAP young players to magically appear from the system. promoting players when they suck (jiovanni mier) doesn’t make them better.
too many people are thinking – anything BUT drayton. but it CAN get worse.
and, according to crane’s OWN press conference, he IS gonna reduce the payroll even more and he is NOT going to spend money on the ML team.
While I was sitting at yesterday’s game watching Brett Myers predictably implode in the sixth inning (though he did come out relatively clean), I came up with some radical, probably completely impractical, baseball ideas that I think should be given a try on this Astros team (nothing to lose!). I just posted the first of these ideas at my blog: http://www.nathan-miller.com/some-crazy-baseball-ideas-part-i/
I’d welcome any comments! Naturally I think these are crazy, as noted by the title, but desperate times…
Crane’s investors want a quick return for their money. I highly doubt if the club
losses most of the fans, and the sponsors pull THEIR money……..he can weather a storm like that. Crane KNOWS he has to be competitive, or suffer through the investors pulling out of the “deal”. There are TOOOOOO many big
name backers, to allow Crane not to show a profit. This team has been in Drayton’s rear view mirror for 5yrs. so he could care less what Ed Wade does.
But since Crane is gonna be bullied into switching leagues……it’s a moot point.
nathan,
nothing wrong with crazy ideas. but i can see 2 problems with yours:
1 – the pitchers would have a FIT
2 – they would have to pitch every day and not even relievers can do that. also some guys have a lot of trouble coming in in relief – it’s a mental thing
becky,
sponsors won’t pull their money because the team is losing – sponsorship is for tax reasons and same thing with corporate seats. most people who are FANS are in the cheap seats and we don’t count. crane would take some hit on the concessions if the stands were empty but then again i don’t know what the contract with ARA is. they don’t pay the concession people/beer man a bucket or warm spit
crane won’t suffer his 20 investors pulling their money out – they have agreed to put in their $$$ for the purchase price only and will not be contributing any further $$$ to the team – they will get their cut of profits from the revenue sharing/MLBAM/TV contracts – and they will most certainly make FINE profits even if the stands are mostly empty. see the marlins
Since yesterday’s “crazy idea” sparked a little discussion (negative, but I expected that, because I recognize that these ideas are pretty radical and not necessarily practical) here, I figured I’d link to the second idea. – http://www.nathan-miller.com/some-crazy-baseball-ideas-part-ii/
I like the idea Nathan, i think its worth a try.
Well, Nathan, that’s a pretty small sample size, for one thing. But the biggest flaw is the assumption that Myers gives up the runs because it’s the first inning of the game. That’s not where I put my money — he gives up the runs because it is HIS first inning. It takes time for a starter to settle in and find a rhythm. He can’t do it this year, at least so far.
If you employed the strategy you suggest, I’m pretty certain he’d give up runs in the second inning just as he’s doing now in the first.
I’m of the opinion that Brad Arnesberg was not the problem with this crappy team. Mills Magoo and Brocail sure are proving that they can handle a pitching staff….. Groove fastballs down the middle. And how did the firing help the pathetic batting? This team does not know what a walk is
Lisa……Wandy was FABOULOUS today!!!! I was VERY impressed!! Becky:)
I was impressed too, Becky. It’ll really raise his trade value… . Jeez, this team has a real good shot at losing 110.
becky,
first good game he’s had without towles catching. hopefully, he’ll get to a good team.