Rights and Wrongs: Well, at least I don’t root for the Tigers
With today’s win, the Stros are 5-8. Wandy thinks he’s Sandy Koufax, which is all good, but there’s still something wrong with Roy. So, after a little hiatus from the blog, here’s this week’s edition of Rights and Wrongs.
Rights: Offense:
Lance: Oh yeah, no first half power slump for the man this year. And, just to prove he doesn’t have old player’s skills, he has 3 SBs, as well.
Tejada: Who knew? Except for everybody but me. I am still extremely skeptical of his ability to produce, but he’s making me look like a total dumbass…which is fine.
JR Towles: He could be here under the premise of “Not Brad Assmass” alone, but he hit his 3rd bomb of the season today and drew his 6th walk. The average may suck, but that doesn’t really matter when you are hitting for power and drawing walks.
Carlos Lee: Three bombs to start the year. Yummy.
Pitching:
Wandy: Wow. I kinda called this one, based on his K-rate spike last year, but he has been outstanding this year. In addition, he’s going deeper into games. He’s had some helpful matchups, but this start has the smell of legitimacy.
Wrongs: Offense:
Hunter Pence: Nuf ced.
Michael Bourn: OK, my bad: I jinxed him. After seeing some considerable improvement in his offensive game, he had a crappy week. Frankly, I think I know part of the problem: he’s the most dead-red hitter I’ve seen since Vinny Castilla. If it ain’t a fastball, he can’t touch it. The 2 XBH in 42 ABs doesn’t give me warm fuzzies, either.
“Proven Hitters” Loretta, Wiggington, and Erstad: Loretta was once a good hitter, but he’s pretty much done. Erstad and Wiggington never were good hitters, and they are getting too many ABs.
Pitching:
Backe: What? How can I say that a guy with a 2.25 ERA is a Wrong? For the simple fact that his PeripheralERA is a lot closer to 6.00 than 2.25.
Chacon: More BB than K. I know it’s only two starts, but there’s no reason to expect that ratio to change.
Roy: Wow. 30 HA in 16 IP. 5 HR. After getting ripped by the Marlins (the MF MARLINS!!!) on Friday, it’s officially time to panic.
Summary: You may think I’m seeing the 5-8 record half empty, and you’re right. Here’s what I see (all stats through Saturday).
Our offense is 3rd to last in AVG, 2nd to last in OBP, and 11th in SLG. In other words, we really are a slow-pitch softball team with a bunch of guys too fat to run all the way to first in a sprint (like me!).
As for pitching, we’ve given up the most hits, we’re second to last in WHIP, and we are in the lower half in ERA. What that says to me is that we still have a considerable way to go to catch up with our WHIP, which means we look worse in runs given up. AND, considering the relation between hits and defense, we really may not improve in this area.
I guess I’m kinda hard-wired to not be overly optimistic. I tend to look at things from an objective viewpoint. And, right now, I see a pretty shitty team, and I see no reason to think that extending our 5-8 start to a 100-loss season is unreasonable.
Posted under 2008 Season, Astros, Like getting fucked by a clydesdale, Rights and Wrongs, RoyO, The Bourn Identity
April 13th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Man, you’re cynical.
Backe didn’t really have it together in his last start, but he still managed to give us five scoreless. I’ll take that. And I know it’s early, but before they ran into us the Marlins were leading pretty much every offensive category.
And Loretta is doing a great job filling in right now. Probably better than Kaz will do when he gets back from his anal fissures. Since he’s been in the two-hole, our offense has really shown flashes of brilliance.
Let’s just be thankful all of our starters (besides Roy-O oddly enough) are giving us a chance to win. We’ve gotten five innings from our starters in all but one game so far. And I’m still not sure why Sampson got pulled so early last time.
The only real problems I see at this point are Pence, Villarreal, Valverde, and Oswalt. I expect two of those to fix themselves within the next week. The jury is still out on Villarreal and Valverde though… If those guys turn out to suck, we’re going to be very thin in the bullpen.
April 14th, 2008 at 8:48 am
You’re right, Nash. You really are.
I just don’t see this team improving. I think the roster management is a joke and our pitching is horrendous. We’ve got little to nothing to dip into on the farm, and I’m afraid Wade’s more likely to try to “win now” rather than objectively look at this team in its current state.
Article this morning:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bb/5697952.html
Fortunately, Justice isn’t bad at covering baseball - as opposed to his complete lack of knowledge of football - and he says that Roy’s working on his arm slot. He’s really my biggest worry. As well as Wandy has pitched, Roy is our anchor.
When you add that our pen has several guys on pace for 80 appearances, we need our starters to go deeper into games.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:17 am
@BFD - It’s Ed’s approach to the farm system that has me the most worried. I live with a Red Sox fan so I’ve had the (unfortunate) chance to watch a LOT of their games over the last two seasons. They built from within and that’s the only way to go. The Yankees are switching to that model as well. When you get to pull up players like Papelbon, Lester, Pedroia and Ellsbury - you have a chance to win EVERY season.
I see nothing down below and I don’t see a young nucleus in the clubhouse right now. I’m really worried about the future - and since we aren’t going to “win now” I’m not sure what there is to get excited about.
Aside from my fantasy team sitting pretty in 3rd.
April 14th, 2008 at 10:33 am
True, but that only screws us for the future. I would have definitely preferred to just bite the bullet and rebuild, even if it meant unloading Roy, Lance, and Carlos. But I don’t think it really effects us this year. If a starting pitcher goes down midway through the season, we still have Nieve and Paulino to work with.
And I’ve actually been impressed with Coop. Do you remember how long it took Garner to switch anything up? Just five or six games into the season, we were all talking about how Loretta should be in the two-hole. A couple games later, Coop makes it happen.
And last night when we had the bases loaded with two outs and Wandy at the plate, I’ll bet that Garner would have pinch-hit for him there, completely ignoring the fact that he looked great and had only thrown 85 pitches or so.
And I do think we’ll improve offensively. We have a bunch of guys batting around .200, and I seriously doubt they’ll finish the season there. And unlike most teams, we don’t have anybody on the roster with a grossly exaggerated small sample size BA. Berkman, Lee, and Tejada are all batting right around where they’re probably going to finish the season. Pence, Towles, and Bourn (I’d like to think) are all about seventy-eighty points below what they’re capable of.
The pitching though, probably won’t improve.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:15 am
JR Towles is the second coming of Ron Gant. I have a slight mancrush on him, just because I dig pull hitters.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am
@Nash: the reason Sampson didn’t go further in that start was that he was battling the flu. Even though he was effective, he didn’t have the gas to go out for another inning.
I hold out some hope for the bullpen getting more stable, because if it doesn’t, all the improvements by Wandy, Backe, et al won’t amount to jack shit.
Watching Wandy’s curve this year has been a sight to behold. Reminds me of Carlos Hernandez, pre-sandy vajayjay. He’s also keeping his head in the game a lot more, not getting into ruts or distracted by questionable calls.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Chacon to bfd: You are a two-bit whore.
I have to agree.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
He is looking good. He’s also getting some help from the Phils swinging at some truly awful pitches.
Also - who said Tejada can’t play D? That throw from deep in the hole was a rocket and absolutely perfect.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
I sure as shit hope bleach mixes well with vodka.
Thanks for blowing a 3-run lead, you worthless p.o.s!
April 15th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Just rewound and watched that about 11 times. He was out at home.
/shoots self.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Valverde sucks. I hated the trade from the beginning, and I really hate it now. The closer’s role is so over-rated, anyway.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
What a fucking joke.
Our GM should get Berkman’s opinion before pulling the trigger next time. At least he knew Valverde was a fraud… I hope a fist-fight ensues. At least Valverde will be sufficiently maimed for the rest of the season and we won’t have to deal with watching him blow more saves. Seriously, is there anything more frustrating in all of baseball?
April 15th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Jeebus. Just…jeebus.
At the bar I was at, people were pointing and laughing at me. More than normal.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Finally, Roy O looks like his old self again. I’m liking how the top of the order is seeming to gel, but until Towles gets back, pitchers are gonna get an inning off from our 6-9 spots.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Yup. And until Pence gets it going. I really think the different between him batting .150 and .300 is about two runs per night, because our 6-8 hitters just get so many chances with runners on the corners and whatnot.
On the bright side, how awesome has Wesley Wright been? He just struck out the heart of the best line-up in the NL in twelve pitches. Looks like we finally have a lefty reliever capable of pitching a full inning.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:19 am
File this under “Color me shocked” - Miggy is 33 not 31!
April 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Oscar Villarreal has already given up as many HR’s this year as last. Tell me why after we traded Josh Anderson for him, we signed him through next year?