Houston Astros Baseball

Blame This One On Coop

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.




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