Houston Astros Baseball

A HOUSTON ASTROS BLOG

Blame This One On Coop

Written by Baqqs on 4:46 PM

Wednesday April 30




This loss was hard to swallow. Today The Astros were given a victory and series win from the best team in baseball on their home turf and just gave it right back. This sums up why we are not a playoff team and The D-Backs are. Yes, they have lots of young talent, but if you look at their lineup, they are very similar to us. A few sluggers who are hitting for average and a bunch of players who will be great in a couple years but are still hitting in the .245 range. But The D-Backs are a team that can focus, and work at clawing their way back into a game. This would explain why they haven't lost a series since their very first series of the season.

At the end of Wednesday's game The Arizona broadcast showed a graphic that displayed their lineups individual performance. Every single D-Back contributed with one or multiple hits (Minus Chris Burke, haha). They are a team that takes what they can get when they can get it. This drew me to question our teams performance minus our big 3 (Tejada, Berkman, Lee). Going into todays game:

Big Three Batting Avg.: .301
All other Astros Avg. : .186

Wow! Outside of our offensive nucleus we just simply stink. Now, this offensive drop off wasn't necessarily to blame for Wednesday's loss, but if this continues, Coop can draw up whatever lineup he wants, but we will still lose.

As for today's game. It's really hard to even think about it, I still can't believe we let this one get away.

A brief summary:
We get to Randy Johnson early and score 6 in the first two innings. Chacon bends but doesn't quite break as he gives up 5 in five. Now, this is were it gets interesting. Wesley Wright comes in, he gives up a hit, but gets the K on the next hitter. The ninth spot is up for the D-Backs and Micah Owings (Starting Pitcher) comes up to pinch hit. Coop challenges with a righty in Borkowski. This move cost us the game. Wright has looked good, he is much more capable of getting outs in these situations than Bork is and yet Coop decided to play the righty on righty odds. At this point in the game we are up but 2 with a runner on. First pitch from Bork to Owings is an opposite field 2 Run HR. Next batter blasts a ball less than 5 feet from a HR in deep center (About 405 Ft). The D-Backs score one more in the inning and take an 8-7 lead never to be surrendered.

Let's talk about this move. Coop made three bad mistakes today and this is one of them. How can you take out a pitcher who has shown this season that he can get outs in tough situations? Were you not impressed when he struck out the side to hold a one run lead against Utley, Howard, and Burrell? If Borkowski ever did that we all would have fainted. Maybe Coop was worried about Wesley's health. He has been working him a whole lot (Too much in my book, and in bad situations) but that's not it either, it was simply the right vs right match up.

Mistake numbers two and three. How could you start Jose Cruz Jr. over Bourn and how could you bat him in the 6th spot?

Defensively, there were a couple of balls that Bourn would most likely have gotten to that came back to cost The Astros. Was this move to give Bourn some time to think about his bad batting average? Then what about Cruz Jr's abysmal .074 batting average? That warrants a start over an excellent defensive outfielder and stolen base king? Then I thought, maybe he worried about Bourn's leg. If that was the case, he wouldn't have pinch ran him late in the game. Next, how could he bat him after Carlos Lee? Arguably the worst hitter on our team right now being placed in an important RBI spot baffles me. This move came to haunt The Astros as Cruz Jr. made it look easy to not produce i nthe ninth with two on and effectively complete his 0 for 9 in this series. Cruz Jr. hasn't had a hit since April 16th.

Positives: Positives of the series would be that valverde looked amazing on Tuesday night and he has put together a nice little slew of scoreless outings to instill some confidence in his manager.

Brocail also looked very good Tuesday night by making quick work and racking up some K's in the 8th.

We are all witness to a absolutely spectacular pitching display by D-Backs prospect Max Scherzer. Although he was on the other team, we will all be able to say someday that we were first to witness this special talent. The downside to that is now the rest of my fantasy team now knows what I knew and I am 9th in the waiver line.

Side Note: It was nice to see some Ex-Astros in Chris Burke and Chad Qualls. Apparently Arizona just loves Chad Qualls by the comments of the Arizona broadcasters and why shouldn't they. He has yet to give up a run in about a dozen innings and it clutch in key situations. Burke on the other hand is their Jose Cruz Jr. Someone who dazzled in Spring Training and Fizzled when it count in the pros. Anyway I hope them both the best and remind them to count their blessings, they have inadvertently landed on the best team in baseball.

Up Next: We go home to take on division rivals Milwaukee who has been pretty good on the road this season just after they finish up with The Cubs on Thursday. Oswalt takes the mound for The Astros as we look to quickly climb The NL Central ladder against the 3rd place Crew.




Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Streak Ends, Astros Decide Not To Play Sunday

Written by Baqqs on 4:45 PM

Sunday, April 27




The Astros 6 game winning streak was ended yesterday(Sat) as The Cards squeaked out a victory to even the series at Busch Stadium. Today, the Astros faced off against The Cards in the rubber match at Busch trying to win this series and even up the season series versus The Cards. Unfortunately, the Astros decided they didn't want to play baseball today. Simply from a fans perspective The Astros looked careless and tired, even though for a second straight game tensions ran high. The Astros didn't get outplayed, but looked terrible as a mediocre pitcher made them look awful at the plate. Mark my words, The Cardinals are not a very good team. In every game in this series The Astros just looked confused and beat down by a clever Dave Duncan (Cardinals pitching coach). In each game of the series the Astros had fewer hits, and maintained very low walk numbers. The Astros should have easily won yesterday. How often are we going to get 3 HR's and lose the game? It is absolutely pathetic that all three of the HR's hit were solo shots considering who hit them. But that fact seemed to be the game plan for this series, "The fewer the base runners, the better"

I know I may sound a bit upset, but that's because I am. At the plate we were simply out smarted and left dumbfounded as our hot-hitting streak was abruptly cut short. What makes this loss even more sour is the fact that we now head to Arizona to face off against the best team in baseball, we will be lucky to walk out of Arizona with a win. Keep in mind, that isn't because of how bad the Astros are playing, but more of respect to The D-Backs.

Positives and Negative of Cardinals Series:

Positives:

Lance Berkman remains extremely hot, and seeing as he is our more important hitter, if he is on we always have a chance to win. However, he may cool off when we face some good pitching in Arizona.

Shawn Chacon showed some heart in his past start. He obviously didn't have his best stuff on Friday, (the rain delay likely responsible) but he was able to limit the damage with some quality pitches at some pivotal times. He is clearly trying to earn himself a paycheck this next off-season.

Valverde looks to have turned a corner. In his last 4 appearances he hasn't given up any earned runs and has either a save or a win in those games. Just as important he is striking people out with both his fastball and his splitter.


Negatives:

Our offense is dead! I know that you can't expect teams to stay hot forever, however, all three of these games were very winnable we just continued to have bad at-bats. By that I mean, we didn't work the counts as a team, and allowed average pitchers to to dominate us and work deep into games. It's always been my philosophy that if you can't hit the starter, at least make him thrown more pitches to you and pray you can get into their bullpen.

Because of the lack of baserunners, we were unable to steal a single bag during this series. (Keeping in mind were leading all of baseball in SB's going into St. Louis)

Carlos Lee has been pretty cold. Minus his first pitch jump on an Izzy fastball on Friday Lee has been cold at the plate. Luckily for us, the hits he is getting are almost always for extra bases, but for Lee standards he is having a typical April, but bad at-bats. My theory remains that most of his struggling has to do with his spot in the order. However, I don't think that moving him anywhere else would really benefit the team positively. He is in a similar situation with Albert Pujols in the fact that he has little protection behind him (for now) and isn't seeing as good of pitches as he is used to. The difference is, although Albert will rarely get a fastball over the plate considering how unbelievably often he gets walked, he capitalizes on those few hittable pitchers and maintains his slugging. Carlos on the other hand seems to press, meaning he is too anxious and wants to hit the ball hard almost too much.

Bourn is slumping. I honestly believe that Bourn is going to be a very good overall player. Has a chance to win gold gloves in the outfield and set the bat in stealing bases. The problem becomes, what do you do when he can't get to first to steal any bases? Do you move him down in the order, maybe try some bunting, or platoon him with Erstad in favorable match ups? For now, I believe that this is a slump the Astros as a team will have to weather. Seeing as The Astros plan on him being in CF for years to come he will just need time to work things out himself, and I think he will. his season reminds me alot of Spring Training. He started out hot and gradually declined. I don't believe this is because pitchers have found a weakness, but more so that Bourn isn't working as hard. It's a weird thing to accuse, but as a fan we can kind of tell when a batter is really focused. Bourn was this way to open Spring Training. He watched every pitched into the glove of the catcher, he ran out every ball, he worked most counts and seemed visibly upset when he didn't succeed. This was the same during the first two weeks of the season, he wanted to impress and worked his tail off. Now it seems like their is less urgency, less focus, and less intensity. I could be wrong, but either way I do believe he is our CF for the next 5 years and he will hit around .275/.350. (Which would be acceptable)

Pence looks bad at the plate. He has been hitting better recently and has significantly raised his batting avg. but the fact remains that he isn't seeing pitches and because of that, isn't driving the ball. It's hard to believe, but his walk's are down from last year and his strike-outs are up. The most telling stat is his ISO (isolated power). Last year Hunter's ISO was .217 against this years .135. As reference, Berkman's 2008 ISO is .407 and Tejada .240. The effect Hunter has on this lineup is quite clear. When he was hitting last week the rest of our lineup was hitting, when he isn't our lineup isn't. His importance is based on the fact that when he hits, Lee has protection and hits better, their are runners on for Towles, we get back to the top of our order fast, he provides pop at the bottom of the order, putting continuous pressure on the pitcher, and he hits for extra bases.

In the end, I still believe that if our pitching staff is able to maintain their team avg ERA of 4.30 and 3rd best in The NL in Quality starts we can compete for the playoffs. I just hope to see more of a sense of urgency and focus in the batters box, even though it's only April. My fear is that we get buried by June and we label 2008 as a lost season. I know this was alot of writing and it may seem like I am over-reacting for two loses, but I am only upset because our Astros continue to show little consistency and that worries me.


Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Astros Make It Five

Written by Baqqs on 1:12 PM

The Astros have rolled their way into a 5 game winning streak combining for 41 runs over that span. Those 41 runs have more than doubled the opposing run total during the same period.



Why are The Astros so good? It's pretty simple, we are scoring runs and lots of them. Our offense has been consistently hitting starting pitching, which increases their pitch count, which dives into their bullpen faster. Also, we have generally been leading and thus faced the other teams "mop up" bullpen arms over their solid set-up men. However, this isn't always the case as we saw when we hit The Padres Jake Peavy and elite set-up arm Heath Bell.

What's the difference from a week ago? It's hard to narrow the change down to any one thing. As Matsui has recently joined, Pence has starting hitting, and Coop shuffled the lineup. It's fair to say that all of those things combined to give this new offense a jolt. One major plus that I've noticed this past week is that we aren't doing ALL of our damage in one inning. Typically our offense has been a "one and done" type team. We have a big inning, which usually consisted of at least one HR and called it a day, hoping the bullpen could hold on. This isn't the case lately and I think that can be attributed to Coop's lineup. Just yesterday the Reds announcers noticed that very detail and mentioned "There is no easy out in their lineup". This was without Bourn and Wigginton as well.

Can this roll continue? Probably not at the same rate. We have been hitting above expectation's individually and have been riding Berkman's hot streak. However, there is no reason to beleive that 5-6 runs isn't possible on a daily basis. After all, we still have a few player who are actually hitting under their normal range. With this offense, if our starters can regularly put up quality starts (Which we currently rank 3rd in the NL, with 13) then there is no reason why we can't win 60% of our games.

Negatives: The only real negative I see is that Shawn Chacon isn't likely to continue his beyond impressive starting pitching. he has been just about the best Astro starter so far and that isn't likely to be continue. Hopefully, if he implodes it's on a night where we score some runs.

Carlos Lee still doesn't like hitting 5th. It's understandable that he doesn't want to hit 5th, and even though he has seem to quiet down his displeasure with the situation it's clear that he prefers to hit with a slugger behind him. The reason being pitches. When Carlos bats with a slugger behind him he gets better pitches to hit and Carlos has said "I Like To Swing The Bat". Unfortunately, with Carlos batting after both Lance, and Miggy he sees less fastballs over the plate because opposing pitchers aren't as worried about walking him since there isn't a major HR threat behind him. The difference is pretty clear. Last year at this time, Carlos was leading the NL in RBI's, this year he isn't even the top in any stat just on The Astros. He is getting less opportunities to hit for power and although he will most likely see an increase in On Base Percentage, that isn't quite the reputation he would want. Batting 4th (69 AB's) Carlos walked once, batting 5th (17 AB's) Carlos has already walked 3 times. All of his HR's have come as the #4 batter, and although his batting avg has gone up, along with his on -base-percentage, his slugging has gone down and that's the reason he doesn't like hitting 5th. However, as a fan, I would say that it seems to be working and I definitely wouldn't change anything now.



Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Wade Deserves Some Praise

Written by Baqqs on 8:43 PM




In the third week of regular season play the offense Ed Wade hoped for arrived and did so in a very exciting way. Today (Tuesday) the Astros faced off against Cy young Winner Jake Peavy in what should have been a low scoring game. Instead The Astros decided to forget Peavy was a great pitcher and score some runs. For the second straight night, The Astros scored 10 or more runs and had 14+ hits. The Astros got to Peavy early with a couple of runs in the first few innings, lead by Miguel "25 not 33" Tejada, who again had 4 hits. All Astros contributed in some way offensively (Minus Bourn who sat out due to groin strain). Backe pitched pretty well until giving up a huge 3 run Hr to put The Padres up. However, that lead wouldn't last as Hunter Pence finally looked comfortable at the plate as he hit a go ahead 2 run HR to left. the offense continued as Kaz Matsui delivered clutch hits and again stole a base as The Astros took a 4 run lead into the 8th inning. This brought ex-Padre Doug Brocail into the game, despite my displeasure for that move. It has always been my personal belief that pitchers struggle against their former team the first time they face each other again and tonight was no exception. Brocail gave up 3 runs and a runner on third before even logging and out. this awful performance called Coop to pull Doug in favor of Astro Closer Valverde.

Although Valverde has struggled, he looked magnificent tonight. He struck out 3 of the 4 batters he faced an eventually was awarded the win. this coming after The Astros again rallied in the bottom of the 8th, scoring 4 more runs.

I think now it is quite clear Ed Wades idea of what this offense is capable of. Even with a cold Carlos Lee and the absence of Wigginton The Astros we able consistently threaten offensively, something Astro fans haven't seen in a while.

Overall, this was a great win for The Astros. We found a way to win, again using Wade product Matsui and Tejada as a spark to this offense and hopefully carry some momentum into Cincy and pull out another series win.

Side Note: I have watched Brad Lidge the during his last couple of appearances and I have to say that he really looks good. I don't what it is, but his command is excellent with both his fastball (which is slightly slower than normal) and his slider, which still has considerable bite to it. To be fair, I would definitely prefer Valverde to Lidge, but it is nice to see a good guy like Lidge succeed in a place that would rip his head off if he didn't.



Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Ed's Offense Puts On A Show

Written by Baqqs on 12:30 PM

Finally it looks like the offense that Ed Wade intended on carrying The Astros towards NL Central contention has shown up. Matsui recently joined the Astros and has acted as somewhat of a spark for this team. The Astros have won their last two games by a combined 16-7 margin and in those games Matsui has multiple hits, a couple RBI's, a SB and excellent defense. What's even more telling is Wades plate-setter concept. That Bourn and Matsui get on base for the big boppers to drive in. Well, in these past two games, Matsui has been on base 4 times and guess what? He has scored 4 times. The key to this offense may very well be Kaz and his ability to get on base.

Still The Astros rank 28th in all of baseball in Batting Avg and just as bad in On Base Percentage. However, if our pitching staff can limit the damage until all The Astros show up to hit we will be headed in the right direction.


TAGSAstros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Astros Hard To Watch

Written by Baqqs on 12:41 PM

Being the huge Astros fan that I am, I really, REALLY want to be positive. However, after these past two games it's getting pretty hard to do so. The Astros just came off a two game beat down against the Phils and The Rockies. The Philies game was a collective loss. We didn't pitch too well, and that's what happens. However, the Rockies game yesterday was a completely different story. The Astros had EVERY advantage possible going into that game and still found themselves on the losing end of another massacre. The Rockies were tired, short staffed, without their three best hitters and pitching a green youngster who hasn't had much success this year. Leave it to The Astros to help see them through their difficult times.

As far as what's wrong, I can't pin it down to one thing. Almost everyday one of the bigs parts of the game we stink at that day. Either we pitch well and can't score, we score but have bad defense, or we score but can't pitch, it never seems to come together for us. I watch other teams, teams with (in my opinion) worse players beat teams that we struggled against and I can't figure out why. How is it that we have the same record as The Giants? We have arguably 4 hitters who are better than their best hitter yet we don't produce any more than they do. I know what you are thinking, they have excellent pitching. Their team ERA currently sits at 4.90 compared to The Astros 4.80. Both bad no doubt, but how does the team with a lower ERA and MUCH better lineup fall into the same category as one of the worst teams in baseball?

I will spend the rest of this homestand trying to answer that question and hoping that maybe this teams gets fired up and wins three of the next four.

I'll leave you with this interesting stat.

Astros 2007 Team Batting Avg. (.260)
Astros 2008 Team Batting Avg. (.232)



Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Astros Look Good!

Written by Baqqs on 7:01 PM




One day after a heart wrenching loss to The Phillies The Astros took the field behind ace Roy Oswalt and demonstrated that they had put the blown game the night before far behind them. With questions surrounding Oswalt and his unusual terrible start to the season he went 7 solid innings yielding just one run. Talking to buddies and other on Astros forums I said after Roy's first start that there had to be something wrong with him because he refused to throw his curve ball. This trend was in full effect in his last start against the Marlins where he gave up four HR's and collected his third straight loss. If you go back and watch that game you would see that Roy looked fantastic the first two innings. He got his fastball up around 95 and threw his curveball effectively and was rewarded with quick effective innings. After that something strange happened. Roy continued to shake off Towles calling for the curveball the rest of the game. The result was batting practice for The Marlins. How hard is it to hit HR's when you know a fastball is coming? He did throw a few sliders, but the Marlin batters were ALL sitting on fastballs.

Today, Roy made it clear that he had his curveball. He threw it much, MUCH more than he has in any outing so far this year. The result was a great start. To this day I am still unsure as to why he wouldn't throw "The Hammer" in his previous starts, but I will take credit for noticing and for predicting a quality start if he threw his curve.

In addition to Roy having a great game, Bourn made a point to excel as he faced his old team by getting two hits, one of which a go ahead Hr. He also stole a base and logged both runs scored by The Astros. Bourn was given the Player Of The Game award.

Maybe even more impressive today was the performance of Rule V pickup Wesley Wright. He came in the 8th inning against the heart of the Phlliy lineup with a one run lead and struck out of the side in 12 pitches. He faced Pedro Feliz, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard. He deserves something special for that performance.

Lastly, Doug Brocail came in 9th to shut the door in a very positive performance. Brocail struck out 2 and worked a scoreless 9th to pick up his first 2008 save and did so in only 14 pitches.

Overall, the pitching deserves all the credit for this win today. If our staff can come close to producing games like this on a regular basis, The Astros will make a run at the playoffs.

In an early game 3 of this series on Thursday, Brandon Backe will face Brett Myers.


Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

That's What I'm Talking About!!!

Written by Baqqs on 8:27 PM

Finally! It seemed as though The Astros would never put together a winning series. Our team seemed to not want to click as a whole. One day the pitching would be good, but we couldn't hit (well, maybe more than one day), or we hit but got blasted ourselves. These past two games have really shown what these Astros are about, and what we could hope for from here on.





Today went like clockwork. This was just as good as it gets for us Stros fans. One of our "Roy and pray for rain" starters pitched great through the 7th, Brocail looked great in a perfect 8th, and Valverde finished with an "iffy" yet scoreless 9th. To top it off, we got production out of everyone in the lineup offensively.

So what was the difference? How did we go from losing three to winning two? Unfortunately a large part of that was the pitching we faced. The Marlins starters were hardly vet's and we took advantage of pitching that is far less proven than anyone else we will face this month. Not to get discouraged, but this beating of The Marlins green arms may be just the spark this team needed. 48 Hours earlier I was ready to skip a week of games out of disgust. Our Ace was throwing batting practice and our bullpen had yet to inspire any confidence. But now, it seems like our team is rejuvenated and ready to win.

I think alot of this has to do with two things. Lance is swinging a hot bat, and our new players. Berkman has been said to be somewhat of a downer, a cumbersome professional athlete. Rarely does he get fired up, and maybe that attitude effects the rest of our team. However, one thing is for sure. When Lance is on a roll, he has smiles for miles and in my opinion wakes up this team.

This past off-season we were blessed with something new to this team and I feel will have a significant impact over the course of the season. The play of guys like Tejada, Valverde, Backe, and Towles seems add a sense of urgency and intensity this team desperately needed. At the head of that effort is Miguel Tejada. have you noticed the difference in cheers as he enters the box now as opposed to 5 days ago? He gets some of the loudest cheers and that's because we (fans) realize how much he cares, and how badly he wants to win. That attitude is inspirational, and to a team with youngsters who we are counting on to perform, essential to success. It almost seems that he doesn't tolerate losing and he is unafraid to express it. Which I think is great and very much needed. He looks to be the leader we have been looking for since Baggy left.


Other Notes: Pence continues to struggle at the dish and visibly upset with himself. His problem isn't really cut and dry and would be hard to diagnose. Although it's fair to say that he may be getting a little fooled on those sliders. Is he going suffer the dreaded sophomore slump? It's worth noting that another major sophmore is going through the same thing. Troy Tulowitzki,is struggling quite a bit as well. The answer, wait it out! Although all the stats I have found would show hunter normally excels during the first month of the season (roughly .350 Minor league April Batting Avg) Hunter is player is has shown an ability to adjust and overcome. I would expect nothing less this year, although it may take longer on major league pitching. I think the move to the 6/7 spot in the order will only help him, and I believe that when he breaks out of this slump, he will REALLY break out!

Some bright spots: Our defense has been very good so far. Although we currently have backups starting at 2nd and 3rd base. When Wiggy and Kaz come back the overall difference will be small.

Our starters have exceeded expectations so far, but count me as cautiously optimistic. Remember, our starters were pretty good last April too.

Outlook: If our starters can regularly put up 6 innings with limited damage 3/4 runs, when this offense really starts to kick on all cylinders, we should win alot of games. The fate of this team may lay in the hands of Roy Oswalt and Jose Valverde.




Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Why Can't We Score ????

Written by Baqqs on 10:50 PM

There are two VERY important things to keep in mind as we watch our Astros in what seems like a free fall into failure.

1) Geoff Blum isn't going to have the highest Batting Avg. We have a good offense, in fact we have a really good offense. They just haven't really shown up yet. Our key players haven't quite caught up to their normal and that's why we can't score runs.

Player/ Current AVG/ Last yr AVG

Berkman .241/ .278
Lee .278/ .303
Tejada .273/ .296
Pence .179/ .322
Towles .238/ .375 (40 AB)

2) Pitching and defense wins games. So far our pitching has been very good. We have 5 Quality Starts so far which has us tied for 4th out of all of baseball. Also, we could have had more if certain starters were not pulled for pinch hitters. My main concern is that this pitching won't hold up, which it most likely won't, then we would have wasted these great starts (just like last year).

It seems that in recent years this team has had slow starts. This year seems to be no exception, I just hope that we aren't too far back when we start to get going that we lose our motivation.

Another positive would be that we are tied for 2nd in all of baseball in fielding percentage(.994).

A negative would be the comparison between our starters and relievers in terms of ERA. Out starter were suppose to struggle while our bullpen would pick up the slack. So far it would appear the opposite is true.

Starters ERA 3.83 (8th in NL)

Relievers ERA 5.73 (13th in NL)




Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Tejada Wants To Win!!!

Written by Baqqs on 12:10 PM


Over the past two seasons The Houston Astros have been missing a vital piece of their team. Since Jeff Bagwell left the team there has been no player who has taken the leadership role on and off the field. Biggio was close, however didn't seem to inspire his peers. Many thought this year would be Lance Berkman's breakout year as the team leader, yet we haven't really seen him step into that role. It's unclear if he ever will, but what we do know, is that he may have some competition for that role.

Miguel Tejada has made is abundantly clear that he thinks The AStros can win and he desperately wants to win. This has been made very clear over the first week of regular season action. We have seen an energy on and off the field we haven't seen in years, Tejada has looked great on both sides of the ball and is a leader by example so far. These traits are exactly what The Astros have been looking for.

If you watch during games, you can see Tejada frequently approaching his pitcher and assuring the pitcher of the defense ability behind him and their positioning. Doug Brocail has said that Tejada made it clear on left handed batters he will more than likely be up the middle so lay off balls hit their. Tejada has also gotten rid of any doubts in his defense during this first week. After several errors during spring training on what was considered a "Wal Mart parking lot" infield, Tejada has shown a strong range and ability to handle his glove. During the home opener Tejada made an amazing play up the middle to save a run. On the way back into the dugout you could see the energy on his face and the passion he has for winning. About 3 minutes later Tejada had hit a game winning walk off two run HR. So far Tejada has made himself the leader of this team and has backed it up in every way imaginable. With his help, these Astros should win more games, have more fun doing it, and be alot of fun to watch. So far so good!


Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

At A Wedding

Written by Baqqs on 3:45 PM

This weekend my little sister gets married. This means that I won't be able to post any new info until probably Monday. See ya then.



Astros 2008 Schedule

No Comment comment  

Game 2 Vs Padres Preview

Written by Baqqs on 1:02 PM

The hard-throwing right-hander(C. Young) hopes to prove that he has overcome the injury Tuesday night when the San Diego Padres host the Houston Astros in the middle game of their series.

Young went 9-3 with a 1.82 ERA and 114 strikeouts in 118 2-3 innings over his first 20 starts last season. In the final game of that stretch and the third after he pitched in his first All-Star game, the 6-foot-10 hurler injured his oblique and never quite recovered. He lost all five of his decisions since the injury, posting a 5.96 ERA while fanning 53 batters in 54 1-3 frames over his final 10 starts.

He will try to put the injury behind him and continue his success at home, where he went 4-2 with a major league-low 1.69 ERA in 2007. He has won both of his career starts against the Astros (0-1) with a 3.75 ERA and 10 strikeouts in 12 innings, but hasn't faced them since June 25, 2005.

Young hopes to gain some inspiration from watching reigning NL Cy Young winner Jake Peavy throw a gem in Monday's season-opening 4-0 win. Peavy and relievers Heath Bell and Cla Meredith held the Astros to only four hits, while the Padres (1-0) produced 14 in getting to Houston ace Roy Oswalt.

Tadahito Iguchi is looking to build on an impressive debut for San Diego, going 3-for-5 with a run scored on Monday to improve to 9-for-23 (.391) with three homers in six career games against the Astros. The second baseman signed a one-year, $3.85 million contract in December after hitting .304 in 45 games with Philadelphia last season, helping the team to an NL East title.

Iguchi is seen as a solid No. 2 hitter in the Padres' lineup. He excelled in that role with the Chicago White Sox in 2005, helping them sweep Houston to win the 2005 World Series.

The Astros will counter with Brandon Backe, who is still trying to recover from having Tommy John surgery in August 2006. The right-hander underwent another procedure before the start of 2007 and did not pitch until September, going 3-1 with a 3.77 ERA in five starts.

That was enough for Houston to sign him to a one-year, $800,000 contract in January and assure him of a spot in the rotation.

"My understanding is he's 100 percent healthy," Astros general manager Ed Wade told the team's official Web site. "I know that when I served as general manager of Philadelphia, we tried to acquire the healthy Brandon Backe numerous times and couldn't get him.

"I'm excited about having Brandon here. I hear people talking about how he's a big-game pitcher. Every fifth day's going to be a big game. He's going to have a significant role in our rotation."

Backe is 2-1 with a 2.45 ERA in three career starts against San Diego. He has only started once at Petco Park on Aug. 2, 2006, allowing one run and seven hits in 7 2-3 innings to earn a 7-1 victory.

(Houston Chronicle)

Astros 2008 Schedule
Tags:

No Comment comment  
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)