Houston Astros Baseball

Astros Look Good!

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.


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