The Astros followed up that dreadful opening loss at Colorado with a couple of impressive wins. A few notes:
— Wandy Rodriguez really has it going this year. 52 innings, no home runs, 15 walks, 48 strikeouts.
— Geoff Geary went on the disabled list, and not a moment too soon. After he couldn’t finish the ninth inning with a nine-run lead Tuesday night, I looked at his stats on Fangraphs, and a bunch of stuff jumped right out. He normally throws fastballs 66 percent of the time; this year, it’s 48 percent. The fastball speed is off a couple of miles per hour. My quick and uninformed guess is that the fastball was getting hit and he started throwing more curves, and they got hit, too. It’s interesting to me how often a player’s stats will suffer for no obvious reason and then it turns out there’s something physically wrong.
— Michael Bourn stole home. That was the third steal of home in the majors in a very short period. Jacoby Ellsbury got one, Jayson Werth got one and now Bourn, although Bourn’s steal was almost easy, since he took off on a throw to second by the catcher. It was more a matter of alertness than daring. Still, stealing home is the new black.
