Houston Astros Baseball

Astros Blow Sweep

Thursday May 8th




Do not be fooled by the final score in the finally between your Houston Astros and the visiting Nationals. This game was very winnable and if I was Coop I would be upset that it wasn't won.

Now I know what you are thinking, that's a five run difference, no easy task for even the hottest of offenses. The truth is, the game was 2-1 up until the 6th and even then after Backe fell apart we were only down 4-1. This was an incredibly sloppy game by the Astros and isn't the best way to end a home stand and head out on a very long road trip.

The word of the day was "opportunity". The Astros were able to muster 10 hits in this game yet only scored three times. We had countless "opportunities" to score yet couldn't pull the trigger. Before tonights game, the Astros were 2nd in The NL is batting avg with runners in scoring position, which is strange considering our regular batting avg is pretty bad as a whole. But for the past couple weeks when were did get runners into scoring position, we were able to come up with clutch hits and score. Unfortunately today, that was not the case.

The middle of our order (3,4,5) held up their end of the bargain with 6 of the 10 hits. It was our right handers that followed that didn't come through. Pence, Wigginton, and Towles combined to go 2-11 while leaving 9 runners on base. When this happens we deserve to lose the game. What makes this even more disheartening is that we faced a pretty straight forward left hander tonight, the type of pitcher that Pence, Wiggy, and J.R. hit the best.

The other negative to take away from tonights loss was the lack of base runners for our "BLT" sandwich (Berkman, Lee, Tejada). This inefficiency was due to Bourn and Matsui going a combined 1-9 with 3 K's. When those guys don't get on base, our power is pretty useless. Berkman can't carry this team everyday. An interesting stat I found is that in May, Kaz Matsui has 6 hits and 7 runs. This stat leads me to believe that when he gets hits, he is later driven in. A big part of this offense will lye in the hands of Bourn and Matsui.

As for the pitching, Brandon Backe pitched very well. He had a similar outing as Oswalt had the night before. He made a couple mistakes and was taken deep, from then on he stayed focused and gathered the strikeouts. Unfortunatel, in the bottom of the 5th inning, Brandon got a hit and ran the bases a little bit. In the top of the 6th it appeared that the heat and lack of rest in between innings got to Brandon as he became a little wild, and left the ball up the zone.

Back to the word of the day, in the 8th inning Oscar Villarreal was brought in. the first batter he faced (Zimmerman) he got ahead in the count 0-2. Instead of throwing pitches to get Ryan to chase, he left his pitch up in the zone and Zimmerman was able to get on base with a hit. Villarreal's poor pitch would later come back to haunt him as he gave The Nat's an "opportunity" to pile on some runs. Oscar was able to get two outs that inning unfortunately advancing Ryan to third. Then on a wild pitch Zimmerman scores. Remember, Zimmerman was able to score because Oscar couldn't get him out at the plate when he had an 0-2 count. Next Austin Kearns gets on base (walk) and and brings up Mackowiak, all with two outs. Mackowiak then hits a huge 2 run HR. Three runs come in all because Oscar couldn't get Zimmerman out when he had an 0-2 count. I know I may sound a little angry, and you may be thinking it's only one loss and what's the big deal, we have been winning. Well, I get frustrated when the other team doesn't beat us. When we beat ourselves it spoils team chemistry and momentum, something we really needed as we head off on our road trip.

The last thing I will discuss this evening is Coop's use of Wesley Wright. Coop brings Wright into the game in the 9th inning to face Guzman, Zimmerman, and Johnson. Johnson is the only lefty out of that group and besides, we are losing 7-3. My problem, or concern is that why would Coop bring Wright in now during this game? We are behind substantially and a lefty - lefty match up isn't really going to effect the game. Wright is arguably our best run stopper. He is pretty much the only guy that we have been able to count on when the game is late and close. These are the times when pitchers like Dave Borkowski enter games, yet Coop's moves would indicate that Borkowski is more reliable and Wright is more expendable. In my mind, I would give Wright the day off, save him and his very young arm for a much more important outing. This appearance by Wright has me worried that Coop's leaning more towards Borkowski as the go-to guy when that clearly shouldn't be the case.


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