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.
The Stars at night are big and bright...
Night baseball at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas.
Whistle while you work...
Am I small or is the pencil big?
2 comments:
Hey you have to feel pretty good about your season because I think the Astros have been the best 2nd half team in baseball in the past 5 years. You guys have come back from double digits in the division standings, so 4 games is nothing!
BTW you have to be happy with Hampton being on the DL, he just isn't that good. Once you pitch for the Rockies, your confidence is shattered.
How do you feel about Pudge 2.0? He's an obvious hall of famer...if he didn't use. I have a feeling that he did, but there's never been proof. His numbers just jumped so dramatically that year in 03 with the Marlins that it makes me wonder.....
Oh, heck yeah. Second half, here we come. Our two best players have yet to come on yet. Berkman will fight for more singles to go with his blasts and Roy-O will start getting ahead of hitters consistently again. Plus, Pence seems to be maturing and Tejada should keep going at least to earn a decent contract next season. Plus Wandy is solid and Valverde is healthy again to close. I'm optomistic.
I like that he's a vet there - but we have too many vets! I want young arms out there! Too bad we're short on those. I'll deal with it for now.
Yeah, the rumors are unsettling, but I'll take him for what he's doing now as a 'Stro - which isn't bad so far. He's given us an entire season of Brad Ausmus offense already - and it's only June! (But I admit I was a big "Aus-ome" fan).
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