5/30 Recap: Well, it looks like I was a little too prescient.  Backe gave up three bombs in just 5IP, and our top three hitters went a combined 1-14 with 4 Ks.  Bourn, all by his bad self, left five on base.  If we are going to continue to get Bourn the most PAs on the team, then we deserve to lose ignominiously.  I think Bourn has proven he can’t handle the lead-off spot.  Matsui is down to a 685 OPS, and his OBP is down to .347.

5/31 Quick Preview: The Stros have a tough match-up today with Scuffy Moehler going against Ben Sheets, who has been one of the best pitchers in the league this year.  Puma has an 1100+ OPS off Sheets, and Matsui and Pence have well off him, as well.  In only 5 PAs, Tejada has struggled.  Scuffy has done well for us so far this year, and he’ll need to going against Sheets today.

5/29: Brad Ausmus. Brad. Fucking. Ausmus. Why?

Also, Rick Ankiel’s incredibly accurate throws to the bases remind me of why he switched to the OF in the first place. I just hope the Cardinal mascot stays far away from the field when the Cards are on D.

Quick Preview 5/30: The good guys have Brandon Backe on the mound tonight against the Milwaukee Rampaging Alcoholics. Backe has been awesome in May, going 3-2 with a 3.73 ERA and 1.24 WHIP. Most importantly, and the key to his success, has been much improved control along with an increase in his K rate. Backe has 26 Ks in 31.1 May innings, and only 10 BBs in that time. In his last three starts, he’s given up only 2 BB in his last 19.2 IP (with 14 K). If there’s one big concern, it’s Backe’s long-ball tendencies as he has given up 11 HR in 11 starts, and the Alcoholics are 10th in the majors in dongs. And I got to type “dong.”

Manny Parra, who threw a perfect game against Round Rock last year, takes the mound for the Alcoholics. He’s got nasty stuff, but the big lefty has struggled against righties this year to the tune of a 1.86 WHIP and .310 BAA. Considering the Stros are right-handed heavy, it’s a good matchup.

And if Coop hides Ausmus’ uniform so that he can’t take the field, then all the better.

5/28 Recap: Mmmmmm, yeah, that wasn’t real pretty. Wandy, predictably, struggled in his return, and Adam Wainwright dominated the lineup.

Interestingly, Kaz Matsui, who was supposed to harden the keystone defense, made his 9th error last night and has a downright poor .947 fielding percentage, which is easily worst in the league. According to the numbers, he ranks below average in both range factor and zone rating, as well. His OPS has dropped from 785 on May 19 to 711 after last night’s 0-fer. And that 711 OPS? Right at his career average. If Matsui stops drawing walks at the highest pace of his career, he will be a net loss at the position. But as bad as Chris Burke has been this year…

5/29 Quick Preview:

RoyO goes against Kyle “Somebody, for the love of Jeebus, please sign me!” Lohse. I’ve said it before: We need Roy to start pitching well, the sooner the better. Game starts at about 7:15pm tonight, so I won’t be able to watch this one at work. There are a couple of afternoon games, at least, including the worst possible match-up I can imagine: Washington at San Diego. *shudders*

Wait a minute.  Did I see that second part correctly?  Ed Wade did something I like?

Errrrr, yeah, he did.

Look, Jorge Sosa ain’t gonna set the world on fire.  After all, he got kicked to the curb with a 7.06 ERA and a 1.89 WHIP.  And, nope, he ain’t gonna suddenly overcome his control problems at 31 yo.  But, he is better than most of what he have in the pen today, and anything this side of Les Sweetland is an improvement in our rack-tacular pen.

Well done, little Wade, well done.

And, as an added extra bonus (with the caveat I have no idea what this sounds like), here’s the Puma Song (courtesy of my sister)!

Dave “Molotov Cocktail” Borkowski was released today to make room for Wandy.

And, lest you feel too sorry for him, he made $575K last year and will make $800K this year.

There’s a good chance he’ll clear waivers, but there’s no word on whether he’ll accept an assignment to Round Rock.

Source: rotoworld.com

Recap from 5/27:

More offense from the league’s best offense in the month of May as the good guys trounced the Avian flu carrying flying rats by 8-2. Giving credit where it’s due, Shawn Chacon actually earned a decision - obviously a win - and was awesome against everybody but Albert Pujols (which happens). Hunter Pence went 5-5, Kaz Matsui had two of the weakest singles you’ll ever see, and Miggy Tejada went deep off losing pitcher Braden Looper. Rick Ankiel’s wildness didn’t help in a losing cause, either. Too soon?

Speaking of Tejada, it’s his hackiness that has worried me throughout the season. So, I finally took the time to look at the numbers, and I was blown away:

Career Pitches/PA: 3.78

2008 Pitches/PA: 3.82

His ABs in the 1st and 9th, which combined for four pitches and a strikeout, were horrific. The AB in the 2nd only saw three pitches, but the other two ABs were solid.

Now, let’s put that in perspective. Hunter Pence has seen 3.70 pitches/PA so far this year, and Lance Berkman, that icon of patience and all things I love, has seen…only 3.76 pitches/PA?

Dammit, it looks like I broke Joe Morgan Rule #1: Don’t use stats to disprove your (mis)perception.

5/28:

We get Wandy today as he goes against former World Series hero Adam Wainwright in a battle for 2nd place behind the eventually doomed Cubbies.  First pitch sometime around 7:15 PM CDT.

Pujols is just 1-12 with 2BB against Wandy, but hopefully we won’t get any reversion to the mean, again, tonight.

As long as Sampson and Scuffy are in our rotation, we are hurting. Wandy’s only rehab start wasn’t bad, but he also failed to K a AA hitter in 6IP. The increase in his K rate has been the key to Wandy’s improvement over the past couple of years. We’ll give him a “gimme” tonight, but it sure is nice to have him back.

Fascinating post by Josh Kalk at The Hardball Times today talking about the aging curve of fastballs (and, wow, does this intro look like pingback spam or what?).

Even though he has plenty of necessary disclaimers on the data, for those of us who watch baseball, the trend shouldn’t be surprising.  What Josh has done is quantify that which we all kinda figured: pitchers throw harder sooner and slower later.  The peak at 29 and subsequent steep drop-off aren’t really surprising, either.  I mean, it just seemed like this happened.

It’ll be hard to fully quantify the aging curve drop-off, though.  As pitchers get older, they rack up tons of pitches on their arms.  As they get older, they become pitchers instead of just throwers.  One can put in a lesser effort versus the Patron Saint of Outs Neifi Perez than they can Lance Berkman.  What role does the weather play?  Situational pitching?  Number of pitches?

But what does it all mean?  Harder throwers tend to get more strikeouts.  Can this be used, for example, when you are up by two runs in the eighth, but the other team now has guys on 2nd and 3rd with no outs?  Wouldn’t this be an opportune time for a strikeout?  Can we use pitch counts along with the curve to better predict performance?  You gotta think Nate Silver, inventor of PECOTA, drooled on his keyboard when he saw this.

Being a geek, it’s fun to get geeky with information like this.  And it’s also fun to think about how much Joe Morgan’s head exploded when he saw this.

The Stros kick off a heee-uge series tonight against the somehow miracle of miracles second place St. Louis Cardinals.  Shawn Chacon and Braden Looper match up in what is a battle between two extremely similar pitchers numbers-wise.  The good news is that Chacon has handled Albert Pujols in their matchups, holding Pujols to a 3 for 16, 1 HR line.

Chacon hopes to earn a second win on the season after finally earning a decision - a win over the Fuzzy Cubbies last week - which broke his no-decision streak.

I, personally, hope to streak tonight.  WHEE!!!

It was another above-.500 week for the hometown heroes, but the first thing that catches your eye is:

Runs Scored:  30

Runs Against: 40

Sure, most of that differential was Sunday’s blowout craptacular, but that’s still a ton of runs to give up in a single week.

Good news first:

Carlos Lee: 12 RBI in 25 ABs on the week?  That’s like *mumble to self for a moment* a whole shitload of RBI for one week.  Puma deserves man-crush status, and there’s been a lot of love for Pence and Matsui, but Lee has been dead-on tough all year.  RBI is a team stat, but driving in 12 out of 30 runs for the week is uh-mazing.

Puma: 880 OPS on the week, but five runs scored.  He’s starting to come down from his high, but he’s still playing extremely well (though, and is it me?, or is his defense at first sometimes adventurous?).

Hunter Pence: Three bombs and five runs.  He’s recovering from his first month slump well.

Michael Bourn: An 800 OPS?  Five SBs with no caught stealing?  But even with this week, he had only one BB with seven strikeouts.

 Ty Wiggington?:  Seriously?  Is that six doubles and nine hits in just 17 ABs?  It did seem like he was on 2nd most of the week.

Brandon Backe: His best season is coming after a TJ reconstruction?  Should we goon him up over the winter (kidding!)?

Chris Sampson: He hates him some Cubs, but he got lit up in his second start of the week.  His ERA is 6.04, and he’s only striking out 4.5/9IP. We need to do something about his slot, and quickly.

Shawn Chacon: Wow, what can you say?  He hates the Cubs more than Sampson.  His WHIP and ERA don’t match up well, but I am truly surprised Chacon has been this effective after being lit up like a Christmas tree for most of his career.

Scuffy Moehler???: And then you get two nice starts from Scuffy.  It was a good week to be a Stro starting pitcher.

Wait a minute!  We gave up almost 6 runs a game over the week.  What happened?

The bad:

Roy: Another rough start, giving him 22 HA in just 12 IP in his last two starts…which look a lot like his first couple of weeks of the season.  It’s the hits that worry me the most, which is adding to an atrocious WHIP.  I’m still worried about his health, whether it’s just his hip (last week), his groin (chronic), or something different.

Wesley Wright: Wright in April: 4.15 ERA, 5 BB and 11 K in 8.2 IP.  In May?  7 BB and 3(!) K in 9 IP.  He pitched so well in April that it was hard to remember he’s a Rule V pick, but he has been struggling pretty badly.  In addition, even as bad as his numbers are belie the fact that he’s missing spots.

Dave “Molotov Cocktail”  Borkowski and Fernando”Boom Boom” Nieve: I think it’s safe to say that Nieve needs more seasoning, and Borkowski is done.

Miggy Tejada: 680 OPS.  His power is disappearing, and he still doesn’t draw walks.

Kaz Matsui: 427 OPS, but the silver lining is that he drew four walks.  His huge uptick in walks has kept him valuable.  We need him to sustain.

JR Towles and Brad Ausmus: Dear Mr. Coop, Please either play Towles or send him to AAA.  Either way, keep Ausmus the fuck off the field.  Thank you for your patronage.

Summary:

One of the biggest knocks against Ed Wade when he was hired was that he didn’t know how to piece together a bullpen, and that problem is glowing loudly for the 2008 Astros.  The bullpen is pathetic except for Doug Brocail and Jose Valverde.  Even Oscar Villareal, who I thought would be a great pickup, has sucked ass.  We traded away a ton of our minor league depth in the off-season, and we’ve got almost nothing to tap on the farm.

My first suggestion would be to replace Sampson in the rotation and move him to the pen.  And, if we could, get a second pitcher and move Chacon to he pen, as well (I have this playing with matches feel about Chacon).

Could Roger Clemens be an answer?  I think, if we are serious about making a run, he should be considered.

Why, who is this delightful young lady and the goofy looking dude behind her?

You know, I’m not normally wont to post junk like this.  I just think Hunter looks damn goofy in this pic

For more Terrie, click here.  And, I hope it’s common sense, but the link ain’t safe for work.  In fact, you might want some alone time after clicking the link.

h/t Deadspin.