The Astros have played 31 games, 32 if you count the unfinished game against the Nationals. Let’s have a quick review:
– The bats have come around a little bit. Miguel Tejada hit a couple of home runs, Ivan Rodriguez has his slugging percentage up near .500. Lance Berkman hasn’t started hitting yet, and obviously he has this wrist problem now. The guy with the wrist injury leads the team in home runs with seven.
– Carlos Lee has been raking. His contract is still heavy, but he’s playing the way he plays with an OPS of .950. Hunter Pence has had a good year.
– Michael Bourn has played well enough and gotten on base enough to take the leadoff spot, and Cecil Cooper won’t give it to him. Instead the primary leadoff man has been Kaz Matsui, who has been the worst hitter on the team. One reason the Astros are still near the league bottom in runs scored.
– Defensively the Astros are about average. The pitching has been near the league average in walks allowed, home runs allowed and strikeouts. It doesn’t seem like it, but it’s true.
– No days off for Miguel Tejada yet.
Categories: Houston Astros
Cecil Cooper has moved Russ Ortiz out of the rotation and Felipe Paulino into it, based on Ortiz’ four starts and Paulino’s three.
Ortiz hasn’t been very good, but he hasn’t had that much opportunity. He has walked too many guys, 20 in 21 innings. Cooper’s decision reminds me of his decision to bat Ivan Rodriguez second, which lasted two games. He announced a decision, it didn’t work immediately, and he made an adjustment rather than giving it a chance to work.
Paulino has never pitched more than 126 innings in a season, so it seems unlikely he would make it through the season as the fifth starter. Maybe Cooper ought to rotate them in that slot.
Categories: Houston Astros
IP HR BB IBB SO FIP
Wandy Rodriguez* 45 0 15 1 37 2.56
Roy Oswalt 38 7 12 1 24 5.28
Mike Hampton* 33 3 15 1 26 4.17
Russ Ortiz 21.1 1 20 0 15 5.24
Brian Moehler 9 1 4 0 6 4.64
This table shows the performance of the Astros’ starting pitching to date. I’ve left out Felipe Paulino’s three spot starts. FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is a statistical way of creating a number similar to ERA but based entirely on things pitchers can control — walks, homers and strikeouts.
Not much doubt who the star of the staff is at this point, and it’s not Roy Oswalt. Oswalt had an ugly start last year, too, remember. He was on pace to give up 7,000 home runs for a while, but after the first seven starts, he stopped giving up home runs, allowing only 14 for the rest of the year. In fact, Oswalt’s first seven starts last year were quite similar to his first seven this year, and he was excellent for the rest of the year. So there’s some hope there.
Wandy Rodriguez has been one of the best pitchers in the league, though. He did a near-perfect job against the Padres, going eight innings with no walks, no homers and seven strikeouts. It also makes clear that the gap-plugging job that is the starting rotation needs some improvement quickly.
One of Brian Moehler, Mike Hampton and Russ Ortiz needs to get better. The best bet is Hampton, who has been within an out or two of turning in a strong starton a couple of occasions only to see the game unravel in the sixth or seventh inning. He’s had only one dreadful start. He’s walked a few guys too many, and he’s had only one really good start. But you can see how a pitcher coming back from an injury might need some time to figure things out again.
Categories: Houston Astros
I haven’t seen how close Michael Bourn came to catching the fly ball that fell for a bases-clearing triple that decided the game in the first inning yet, but the game did come down to that one play. Bourn catches it and the inning is over with no score. Instead, it’s 3-0 Cubs. They added a fourth run on the passed ball by Ivan Rodriguez.
Scoring three runs is usually not enough for victory anyway. The Astros’ chance of victory never rose above 23 percent, and that was when Ivan Rodriguez bounced into a double play.
The starting pitching was identified as a weak point before the season started, and that’s about how it has turned out except for Wandy Rodriguez. The Astros are last in the league in innings per start at 5.3. The rain delay in Atlanta that forced eight innings out of the relievers is now taking its toll.
Categories: Houston Astros
Maybe it wasn’t the worst defensive inning of the year, but only because the year isn’t over yet. The Astros entered the bottom of the sixth inning with a 5-2 lead and their best pitcher, Roy Oswalt, still in the game.
Twelve batters later, they were down 8-5, Oswalt was out with a bruised thumb, and … let’s just go to the play-by-play.
Cristian Guzman goes to 3-1 and then singles to center. Nick Johnson draws a walk on nine pitches, a very nice at-bat for him. Ryan Zimmerman takes a strike, then singles to center to drive home a run. After a groundout, it starts getting ugly — three walks on 13 pitches, two byOswalt and one by Chris Sampson. There was an error by Miguel Tejada. Tim Byrdak hit a batter. By the time it was done, there were six runs for the Nationals on two hits, both singles, with five walks, a hit-by-pitch, and an error.
My nominee for ugliest defensive inning of the year.
Categories: Houston Astros
The Astros have won two out of three in Cincinnati and two out of three in Atlanta. They have two in Washington before coming home to play the Cubs again — the schedule since interleague play began is still weird to me.
But a lot of impressive performances, especially from the runs-allowed standpoint — 20 in six games. They have scored only 26, so it’s not like you’d say they’re hitting well. But they’re giving themselves a chance.
Some notes at the 26-game mark:
– Michael Bourn is having a fine season, with an obp of .376.
– Jason Smith doesn’t have a hit yet — 0-for-21.
– Lance Berkman is one of the few players who can be reasonably productive while batting .170.
– Miguel Tejada doesn’t have a home run yet.
– The third-base platoon combination of Geoff Blum and Jeff Keppinger has been effective.
– Wandy Rodriguez hasn’t allowed a home run in 37 innings. If Rodriguez pitched to Tejada, no one would want to sit in the outfield bleachers.
– Jose Valverde’s performance and injury have been very damaging. Two saves in four chances. Both the blown saves wound up as losses, so without them the Astros are 13-12. If he comes back from the injury and pitches well, the Astros might be able to trade him for some prospects. Still a mystery: why this man is making $8 million a year.
Categories: Houston Astros
Lance Berkman is batting .162. Should Astros fans be worried about him?
In a word, no. He’s still drawing walks, he’s hit five home runs. His line-drive percentage is a little down, and his fly-ball percentage is a little up. I interpret this to mean he’s getting under the ball a tiny bit, which is a problem solved by adjustments. This is just a slow start that’s magnified because it’s all the statistics he has this year.
Categories: Houston Astros
Wandy Rodriguez had another great start last night against the Reds — 7 IP, no homers, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts. That’s 32 innings without a home run for him.
Rodriguez has been primed to take a huge leap forward for a while now, with improving peripheral numbers every year obscured by his injury last year. The big difference I see in his stats is that he’s getting many more ground balls. His groundout-to-air out ratio is 1.87. Last year, it was less than 1.
Here’s better information from Fangraphs. Rodriguez line-drive percentage is 15, the lowest of his career. His infield fly-ball percentage is 13.3, also the highest of his career. He is also throwing even more curveballs than before, and now he throws only three pitches — fastball, curveball, changeup. The curves I’ve seen look nasty, too, combining a big loop and a bite down. He’s throwing more first-pitch strikes.
So, keep it in the park, don’t walk anyone, strike out some guys, and when they do hit it make sure they put it on the ground. You can win a lot of games that way.
Categories: Houston Astros
I have no idea what the Astros management is thinking about Michael Bourn. Before the season started, Cecil Cooper said he was going to hit Bourn low in the order to take the pressure off after Bourn’s difficult 2008.
Then Cooper put Bourn into the leadoff slot in Game 7, with the Astros 1-5. In the next five games, Bourn’s on-base percentage went from .348 to … .348. His OBP during those five games was .348. The Astros scored 20 runs, which isn’t a lot but they’ve scored 43 runs in the other 13 games. So, 4.0 runs/game with Bourn at leadoff, 3.31 in other games. In those games, Bourn drew six walks and scored six runs. Oh, and the Astros won three of the five games, outscoring the opponents 20-10. One of the losses was the 2-1 job to the Reds that Jose Valverde blew with a walk and a homer. So, winning percentage with Bourn batting leadoff = .600 vs. .231 in other games. All I can figure is that he didn’t get many hits in those games.
In Game 12, Bourn was back hitting eighth. He didn’t start the first two games against the Dodgers, then he batted second in the first two games against the Brewers. His OBP is a more-than-acceptable .371 now. Let’s take this model for an extended test drive in the leadoff position, OK?
Categories: Houston Astros
I’m watching the game, which should have just ended on a Hunter Pence ground ball. Bill Hall fielded the ball and made a dreadful throw into the dirt for an error that allowed the game-tying run to score.
Pence always hustles down the line on grounders, which opponents have to know. This time that hustle paid off.
Categories: Houston Astros
