At the beginning of the season, the Astros rotation consisted of Roy Oswalt and a bunch of crossed fingers. I've since uncrossed my fingers about Wandy Rodriguez, Houston's best pitcher in the first half of the campaign.
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Rodriguez (8-5) pitched a complete-game shut-out, the second of his career, to lead the Astros over the Pirates on Wednesday. In all, Pittsburgh had just two at bats with a runner in scoring position. The 30-year-old lefty fanned 11 Bucs while walking just one and scattering five hits.
The Dominican Republic native leads the 2009 Astros in wins (8), ERA (2.96) and strikeouts (106) and is second among starters in WHIP (1.28).
Wandy has been a big part of a successful Astros pitching staff, ranked 6th in the NL with a 4.15 ERA, that has carried an offense that has struggled, scoring the fewest runs in the NL Central.
Following their ninth series win out of their past twelve, the 41-42 Astros should finally get over the .500 mark this weekend. They entertain the 24-58 Washington Nationals who stumble into Houston on a 3-7 stretch behind the worst pitching staff in the National League.
Odds & Ends Dept
Let's play two! (Or at least finish-up the last game we started with Washington). A suspended game between the Astros and Nationals origianlly played May 5th will be completed prior to the start of Thursday's regularly scheduled contest. The Houston Chronicle's Jose de Jesus Ortiz details this and other Astros goings on.
Winning both the suspended and regular game tonight, will net the Astros their first winning record in a while, a fact not lost on the Chronicle's Richard Justice.
Remember how embarrassingly bad Michael Bourn was last year at getting on base? He's gotten better. The esteemed HighLeveragePerformer at The Crawfish Boxes compares Bourn with Boston's own speedy centerfielder, Jacoby Ellbury.
If you appreciate the nuances of each player's approach to hitting, you might enjoy this YouTube posting mimicking the batting stances of Astros, past and present. I'm a bit disappointed that they left out Jose Cruz, Alan Ashby, Glen Davis and Ken Caminiti...
1 comment:
Wow, that was an awesome video. I'm impressed with how many players and how obscure those guys went pretty far back. For naming all those players and how far in the past they went, I agree that they should have included that roider Ken Caminiti.
Taking it to a broader viewpoint, I wish I could see some Griffey, Craig Counsel, Gary Sheffield, etc. Good youtube video, I was happy.
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