Another series win, but it could have been a sweep had Jose Valverde held the Detroit Tigers in the ninth. With the NL Central struggling, the Astros would have climbed into fourth place and just three games back of first with that win that got away. Instead, the Astros are holding steady in fifth place after Valverde allowed a walk and a two-run bomb to steal the victory. Call me impetuous, but it might be time to dump Valverde and his 8 mil salary. LaTroy Hawkins can, and has gotten the job done for less this year. Valverde has blown two saves in six tries since coming off the DL earlier this month. For the year, he has blown four saves to just six saves while Hawkins' numbers aren't great, but are better at 10 SV with 3 BS. With Hawkins making less than half of Valverde's money, I say we give him the job and get a young pitcher or two out of Jose before the deadline.
After belting his 300th home run earlier this month, Lance Berkman reached another milestone. Berkman became the third Astro to drive in 1,000 RBIs during his career with the team. He made them count, too. Berkman plated four on Thursday to help the Astros to a 5-4 win over the Royals, avoiding a three-game sweep. Now with 1,003 for his career, he's in the company of Killer B's Craig Biggio (1,175) and Jeff Bagwell (1,529).
The Astros showed veteran-starter Brandon Backe the door, designating him for assignment. He has no minor league options left with the team, so they must either trade or release him. Apparently, Backe had bad apples about having to work out of the bullpen. So did I, but baseball is about maximizing your opportunities. Nerves and rythem are not good excuses for running up a 10.00 ERA in relief. Just look what Russ Ortiz did with his relief load. Now 'ol Russ is in the rotation. Backe went 30-28 with a 5.23 ERA over six seasons with Houston. We'll always have your nice '04 and '05 post-seasons, kid!
(Jeff Chiu/AP) Speaking of former popular 'Stros, have you set your watch to Lima Time lately? Phil Taylor hasa nice Point After in the newest Sports Illustrated. Revealed are the whereabouts of Houston's former 21-game-winner and Casa Ole singing pitchman.Lima sings! -video found on YouTube-
Despite allowing a mess of hits, Roy Oswalt had surrendered just one run and Houston's struggling offense had given him just enough run support to earn his fourth win of the year.
That was before a ninth-inning debacle that one might associate with Chicago Cubs' and Boston Red Sox curse phenomena struck Minute Maid Park.
Only this is just a mid season contest for a losing team.
With one out and the bases empty and Jose Valverde on the mound, Lance Berkman, playing close to the line at first, let a routine grounder go through his legs. Score an error. The next batter then hit a fly ball to right field that was caught by Jason Michaels. Or was it? Replay showed that the ball glanced off the outfield wall prior to it's arrival in Michaels' glove. Now runners at first and third. A subsequent base hit would tie it and send the game into extra innings where the Astros would ultimately lose.
Tonight, Brian Moehler will face Brian Bannister and hopefully the Astros can avoid a spirit killing sweep. To the Royals. At Home. Let's get the bats out guys! Pitching can only get you so far, and based on Moehler's output this year, we'll need to plate four or five to get the win tonight.
So Greinke was back on for the Royals. He gave up 8 hits and no walks in 8 IP to hold the Astros' bats in check. Despite four straight losses and 15 ER's, Greinke's sub-2.00 ERA coming in was proof enough that the Astros might need to muster more than a solitary first inning run. But despite the Astros' tepid offense, cagey old Russ Ortiz looked sharp, allowing just 5 hits and two walks in 7 IP, his longest outing of the season. Gotta love the fight.
Lineup notes: Cecil Cooper sat Lance Berkman yesterday, moving Miguel Tejada to fifth in the order, while Hunter Pence moved back to the three hole, from where he scored Houston's only run. Pence's improved patience at the plate has been evident this year. His OBP is over .400 behind 33 walks. He's just seven free passes off his previous season high of 40 from last year. That coupled with his ability to hit .300 and his 20-plus home run power makes him a legitimate No. 3 hitter. Ah, to see the young hitter's bloom. It might just be that Berkman will be settled in a five for the rest of the year - and perhaps the rest of his career. Berkman's .245 BA is the by far the lowest it's been since his rookie year, but he's still walking at a good clip, on pace to break 100 for the fourth time in his career. It's likely that age has slowed his swing, but Berkman still has his pop leading the team with 14 homers. Plus, having a five-holer who gets on base, gives the lower lineup more RBI opportunities going forward.
This just in: Tejada isn't getting any younger. Mier just might be the heir apparent at short for the Astros, or, sadly, trade bait for Drayton McLain to acquire an aging veteran. *Sigh*
Climbing the division stairs. Destination Attic. And a better metaphor.
Not that overtaking Pittsburgh is a feat. They just traded away their best hitter (Nate McLouth) to Atlanta for prospects, which signals the start of their annual packing-it-in plunge to irrelevance. Too bad their ownership neither buys reliable (but expensive) free agents or is savvy enough with the saber metrics to assemble a cheap young talent to contend at least in spurts.
But it's not so much the slipping Pirates as it is the Astros' ascendancy that has them thinking second-half run - only five games back of the Cardinals, today.
Finishing their road trip 5-4, Houston took two of three at the Metrodome for their sixth series win of their last seven.
Hunter Pence has hit 10/22 since being moved to the sixth spot last week. His success should help Berkman see better pitches ahead of him.
With the reeling Royals coming to Houston tonight, I'm betting the 'Stros will give fading Cy Young contender Zack Greinke a punch to the gut. If they pull out this first one, a three-game sweep might just be in order. When it comes to playing losing teams, you have to beat 'um not to be 'um.
The ever-evolving Astros rotation will feature 31-year-old righty Brandon Backe in for tonight's series finale at the Texas Rangers.
Backe's opportunity presented itself because of Mike Hampton's trip to the DL, not because of anything Cecil Cooper or his coaches are seeing in Brandon's shoddy 12.00 ERA in just nine innings of work since coming off the DL last month.
Chris Sampson, who has 33 major league starts under his belt, should have earned the start with his shiney 2.31 ERA in 39 innings of relief this year. But the Houston Chronicle reported that the 31-year-old is experiencing dead-arm and will be unavailable for a few days. Lucky for Backe.
Backe is still running on the fumes of 2005 where he was 10-8 with a mediocre back-of-the-rotation ERA of 4.76, but had a nice post season as the Astros advanced to the World Series. This may be Backe's last chance to become a consistently decent pitcher. Even Drayton McClaine cuts ties with local boy fan favs after so much.
On a side note, Houston may have the oldest pitching staff in the bigs. Oh, wait I mean the oldest team in general. Just keep 'em healthy, doc!
With two straight losses to Texas, the Astros will lose their first series in the past six. Hopefully just a bump on the road to playoff contention. The rest of the division is languishing in .500 ball, so the Astros are missing a chance to gain ground. Sigh. Grimace. On the road to Minneapolis to finish the trip.
In last night's loss, Cooper shuffled the lineup again, putting Hunter Pence behind Berkman at sixth and shifting Miguel Tejada to third while inserting third baseman Jeff Keppinger in the two-hole. Pence had been batting third since late May when he and Berkman were switched due to Hunter's higher rate of contact and overall OBP. Me thinks this just an inter-league shuffle by Cooper and that we'll continue to see Pence back in the three spot behind Tejada. The emergence of Pence in the top of the order has given Houston a deeper lineup with slugger Berkman in the middle of the bats. After Michael Bourne leading-off, you have to respect a two through five made up of Tejada, Pence, Carlos Lee and Berkman. That's no pitcher's picnic.
Also, Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez celebrated passing Carlton "Pudge" Fisk in games caught by commiting a pair of throwing errors. That's what squating for 2,227 games will get you. Just jokes Pudge, just jokes.
Following-up back-to-back 2-1 wins over the Cubs last week, the Astros pitching staff disappointed last Friday as they dropped the opener of a three game set to the Diamondbacks in Arizona 8-1, as starter Mike Hampton was shakey walking five in 5.0 IP giving up three runs while Brandon Backe imploded, giving up five runs in 3.0 IP. While Hampton has been serviceable, Backe may be out of a job soon, given his 12.00 ERA over 9.0 IP since coming off of the DL in late May.
But why focus on the negative when Astros bats made a positive out of the weekend series?
Victories Saturday and Sunday proved the Astros are better than their current NL Central-basement address might suggest. Just four and a half games behind the first place Brewers, the Astros extended their series win-streak to five.
Sweetening the opening leg of the road trip were the achievement of milestones by Miguel Tejada who knocked hit 2,000 and Lance Berkman who went yard for the 300th time in his career. Look out Bags, with continued health Berkman might yet supplant you as the franchise's greatest power hitter.
The article by John Vincent, Ph.D diagnosing and prescribing treatment for the ills of media sports coverage seems to have been conceived of in a vacuum of academic studies. Judging simply from this paper, one might assume an egregious breach of civil rights, that men have yet to let women outside the kitchen of athletic subordination.
That the coverage of womens' athletics in the media is secondary to that of mens' shouldn't surprise anyone who reads the sports page of a major metropolitan paper. On that platform, professional and revenue driving college sports take precedent. In this respect Vincent's citation of political economy makes sense in that the paper seeks to cover what they perceive as their readership's top interests. Given the long endurance of self-sustaining male professional team sports in our country - and the lack thereof in womens' team sports - one has to give some credence to contemporary taste in the consumption of athletic competition. But, with the curve of women in the professional workforce trending upward over the past 50 years, so too have professional athletic opportunities for women. Is there equity? Certainly not. The NBA's decade-long effort to promote it's sister league, the WNBA, is testament to the struggles that come with attempting to manufacture public interest in a new sports league, male or female based. But Fledging independent womens' softball and field hockey leagues show that the grassroots desire to build wider national audiences for women team sports exists.
The feminist and cultural studies arguments cited by Vincent stereotype the sports media as much as it accuses the media of stereotyping and reinforcing said preconceptions to subjugate women in sports. Despite the juvenile tendencies of some sports pundits to write off womens' sports simply based on their popularity, it seems condescending to assert that male dominated sports media view women in athletic competition as anything less than strong and skilled competitors. That second-rate professionals such as Anna Kournikova grab more endorsements because of their perceived "Euro-centric heterosexual femininity" is a simple reality of advertising effectively packaging their products. No one would suggest that Venus or Serena Williams or Maria Sharapova have won major tournaments based on their looks. More likely the stories about them centered on their ability to beat down and dominate their opponents, just as if they were men. Ditto Anika Sorenstam of golf and your Lisa Leslies, Sherryl Swoopes and Rebecca Lobos of the WNBA. Are they women? Yes, empirically they are. But they are not seen as wayward housewives ala Thelma and Louise, but as athletes. Vincent seems to be looking to place blame for disproportionate coverage rather than to observe that it has improved and continues to do so as womens' athletics gain popularity among the consuming public who dictate what is on their newspapers' front pages.
Vincent's recommendations seem reasonable, but consider that news stories are placed and promoted with prominence to the reader's interests in mind, not a suggestion as to what the reader should want to read. That being said, coverage for all sports within the readerships' area should receive coverage, well written and - where space permits - well illustrated - in order the build the readership of those interested in the sport. This is the same treatment given to minor male sports like indoor soccer and lacrosse, not as a matter of gender but of prominence in the public consciousness.
Another game, another Geoff Blum walk-off single. Another series, another two-of-three for Houston, making it four straight series wins, their longest run of 2009.
Like Wandy on Wednesday night, Russ Ortiz held Cubs hitters in check, allowing just three hits and no runs while striking out five in 5.1 IP. Too bad he's still issuing walks (three yesterday). But his ability to buckle down and get outs strand those charity baserunners extended his modest scoreless streak to 17.2 innings.
With Felipe Paulino on the 15-day DL, Brian Moehler is still in the rotation. Let's hope he takes a cue from Ortiz and gets his game right - or at not a liability.
Let's see if the Astros can take their winning ways on the road as they begin play in Arizona tonight.
Tonight's game against the Cubs will be Russ Ortiz's chance to reassert himself as a starting pitcher for the Astros after nearly a month in the bullpen. The veteran righty owned a 110-82 record over 11 seasons in the majors before joining the Astros in early April but has made just four starts this season.
Out of the bullpen, Ortiz has compiled a streak of 12.1 scoreless innings in his last five appearances bringing his ERA back under 4.00 while allowing ten hits and just four walks to roll his WHIP under 2.00.
With continued success, Ortiz should supplant fellow veteran Brian Moehler, who has been less than stellar in the back of the Houston rotation. To date, Moehler has posted a 6.95 ERA and a 2-4 record over nine starts, which is just not cutting it if the Astros want to stay in ballgames.
This year clutch hitting may be something Astros fans have become more accustomed to seeing the opposition pull-out in a pinch. Last night with the bases loaded and one out the bottom of the ninth and journeyman Geoff Blum at the bat, I was waiting for the ground ball to second and the 4-3 spirit-killing double-play. That's what righty Angel Guzman and all of Cub-dom were waiting for as well. But Blum laced a fastball into center field to plate Miguel Tejada for a walk-off win. Astros win? Astros win! I'm still blinking.
Anyone notice who just came back from their unannounced effectiveness sabbatical? Wandy Rodriguez was back in form last night after a rough three-game stretch. He allowed one run on five hits and two walks over seven innings while striking out six Cubs. A relieving performance for the lefty after allowing 18 runs on 29 hits over his last three starts - all losses. Though he didn't pick up yesterday's win, the Stro's did in large part due to his efforts.
Given another sharp pitching performance and timely hitting, the Astros will look to win tonight's rubber game against the Cubs for their fourth consecutive series of the year.
My name is Lars Headington, a naturalized Texan and fervent supporter of the Houston Astros. Over the next several weeks I'll be following the ups and downs of the 'Stros as they try to turn around a 25-31 start to the 2009 baseball season. Of course, other teams and personalities will cross into my purview, so expect a take that also provides a broad context for the Astros' grand adventures(and misadventures) in Major League Baseball.
