Another Day, Same Story
Written by Baqqs on 7:55 PM
Another day, another spring training game, another spring training disappointment. Over the past couple of weeks it's been made quite clear what will work for The Astros and what won't. Unfortunately, I am a strong advocate for pitching, speed and defense. This Astros team wold appear to lack in most of that. I am not the type to write about doom and gloom situations and when it was said early this spring that we would see alot of 8-7, 8-9 games I was slightly skeptical. To my dismay this is what seems to be happening. Out offense is incredible, we to hit off almost all pitching(Including today with Verlander) and have a dynamic mix of speed and power which we haven't had in recent years. We have scored more runs than any team in spring training but also have just about the worst pitching staff or at least they have performed that way.
Vs The Tigers (March 24)
Chris Sampson got the start today against possibly the toughest lineup in all of baseball. All of Detroit's regulars played (minus Granderson who is on the DL)and that alone would leave an opposing pitcher to hope just to limit the damage. But Sampson looked very good early on. He got through the first very quickly with two strikeouts and no damage. Just as the first, he looked sharp in the 2nd innings yielding no runs and notching another strike out. The only negative so far was that his contact outs were by air and not by ground ball, which is concerning for a ground ball pitcher. In the 3rd, he has hit by a "comebacker" off the bat of Miguel Cabrera. Soon after Sampson got into some trouble. He gave up a solo HR to Pudge but was able to escape any further damage that inning. In the 4th he really struggled, giving up three more runs. So after he was replaced by R. Hernandez.
Later Sampson mentioned that initially after being hit by the ball he felt ok and that the adrenaline had taken away most the pain. He then explained after the half inning of rest while The Astros were hitting he tightened up and felt the effects of the line drive and that may have been a cause of his sudden poor performance.
After Sampson the pitching staff did little to hold on to the lead that was given to them. Important pieces to our bullpen Villarreal and Valverde combined for 5 runs (4 eraned) in the eventual loss.
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