Before I forget:

1 – AAA OF Justin Ruggiano and his .924 OPS were traded to the Marlins for 20 year old rookie ball catcher Jobduan Morales, who is recovering from surgery, has not played this year, and will report to the rookie leagues after going to extended Spring Training – where, best I know a few top Astros Prospects who have played very poorly have disappeared to – like Brad Dydalewicz.

Why, you ask? Because Astros catching prospects, including Chris Wallace (at AA) and Ben Heath (at Lancaster) are not doing very well and the Astros are having to take other teams discarded ML or AAA guys who didn’t make it to have someone actually, you know, catch the gosh darn ball. Mike Kvasnicka, the 09 first rounder, did so poorly at 3B that he has been switched to catcher, where he is batting well below the Mendoza line and making Chris Wallace look like Piazza. Something about catchers – as well as the little problem that catchers who can really hit well are almost always moved to some OTHER position, usually in the low minors, or even after the draft.

Brandon Barnes and his .944 OPS were promoted from AA, which, I’m sure, disappointed both Jake Goebbert (.804 OPS) and Austin Wates – hitting for average, but not power and we already have a guy just like that at AAA who has proved he can hit ML pitching, JB Shuck. This will give TJ Steele, currently hitting .141 in pinch hitting/part time, his last chance to prove he can at least hit AA pitching.

Only other guy on the AA team who is hitting is Jonathan Singleton and his .995 OPS. He leads the team in walks – and now that barnes is gone, bet he’ll get walked even more because no smart pitcher would worry about any other guy.

Will be interesting to see if they even send Singleton to AAA as they’ve got Brett Wallace and his .640 OPS and AAA lifer Mike Hessman and his .943 OPS already playing there. If Carlos gets traded, I wouldn’t be surprised if Singleton gets promoted straight from AA. On the other hand, maybe not, because he’s not on the 40 man and we wouldn’t want to get his clolck started too early, would we?

2 – Fernando Abad pulled a muscle in his side and was put on the DL. Abad, by the way, has pitched very well in May – 11 appearances, 5 of which were the entire inning, and 6 of which were LOOGY. He threw a total of 7.1 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs (his runner was allowed to score) 1 solo HR, 1 walk, 7 K for a 2.45 ERA. We won’t mention i his dreadful April – either the 2 games before he was sent down or the 2 games after he was called back up.

Adjustment Disorder, I believe they call it.

They called up lefty (natcherilly) Xavier Cedeno, whose 1.2 innings with the Astros last September are best forgotten, has been at AAA all year. He has thrown 21.1 innings over 17 games, but his 0.42 ERA is deceptive because of his 8 runs scored, only 1 is earned, so his REAL number is 3.38 – I mean runs scored/9 IP. He’s given up 16 H, no homers, 8 BB, 20 K and has a 1.13 WHIP.

The ER vs R look like that because Jimmy Paredes has 11 errors and Angel Sanchez has 7.

Tags: Houston Astros

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2012 at 9:25 am and is filed under Fernando Abad. 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.