I had grandiose plans of getting some content up today. However, I’m nursing an absolutely epic hang over right now - so I’m going for a bit of a cop out and just dumping some interesting baseball links here. Forgive me!

• Jose de Jesus Ortiz (who is one of two writers I will actually read at the Chron) seems to think the Astros should sign recently released Sidney Ponson. I am 100% behind this idea because it would make the ‘Stros the fattest baseball team ever. Also, every team should have an Aruban Knight.
• Jack Wilkinson has a good piece on Griffey’s 600th homer over at SI.com. I get kind of depressed anytime I read/see/think about Griffey - mostly because of the “what if.” What if this guy had stayed healthy? Bonds-Griffey would have been the ultimate good versus evil - and could have been the greatest storyline/spectacle in sports. Alas…
• Lesbians and baseball. (I know this story has already gotten a lot of traction, but I reiterate my initial point - lesbians and baseball.)
• Pujols strained his calf yesterday, probably while standing at home plate admiring his own homer - likehedoeseverysingletime. Wait what? Oh - Joe Strauss at the Post-Dispatch tells me it was while digging out a grounder. He also says a DL trip is imminent and the Flying Red Rats have already called up Chris Duncan. When reached for comment, Backe told me “He’s just scared I’m gonna whoop his ass.” You sure are, Brandon… you sure are.
• Zlatan Ibrahimovic unleashed an absolute cracker of a goal in Euro 2008 action yesterday. (Third video down) Ok so it’s not baseball related - but I just wanted to share because (a) I’m a huge soccer fan, (b) the guy’s name is ZLATAN!, and (c) it’s my post.

Alright that should be enough to keep you kids busy for a little bit. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have my lunch of advil, water and prayer.

Super quick-hitter today.

Recap: I remember you now, Roy.  Puma a One-Man Wrecking Crew on offensive.  6-1 good guys.

Preview: Manny Parra versus Brandon Backe.  Parra is the dude who threw a perfecto against Round Rock last year.  Backe now thinks he’s a strikeout artist.  Milwaukee torched Backe for 3 HR in just 5 IP the last time they faced Backe.  I don’t know what it is about this match-up, but it looks fun.

Congrats to Ken Griffey, Jr., for hitting #600 last night.  I was able to watch the game with one eye, and it was exciting to see that.

6/10 Preview: The Rampaging Alcoholics and the Stros have swapped home sweeps this year, and the Alcoholics start a three game stint in our ‘hood tonight.

Tonight’s matchup is Seth McClung versus Roy Oswalt.  Roy’s been so bad this year that McClung has both the better ERA and WHIP.  Which is depressing.  The Stros get a bit of a break as Rickie Weeks was put on the DL last night.  The Alcoholics, of course, will get a break is Brad Ausmus is anywhere near the stadium at game time.

My favorite player growing up was Craig Biggio. I modeled my little league-self after him. Contact hitter, 1^st or 2^nd in the line-up, playing solid 2B. And boy did I love playing baseball. But then me and baseball had a nasty falling out. Try explaining to a 10 year old that his favorite sport is on holiday because the players he loved watching wanted more money – it doesn’t compute.

So then came my experimentation phase. Football, basketball, hockey, racing – you name it, I started watching it. And this all contributed to the sports fan I am today – a fanatic. There is practically no sport I wont watch (except NBA basketball) and I spend large portions of my day scouring the internet for information on everything – from F1 and IRL results to NFL training camp news to European soccer transfer rumors. Shit, I’ve even watched cricket… and enjoyed it! (With the assistance of about six pints of Stella.)

But you can never deny your first love – and that’s baseball, and that’s the Astros. So when the blogging masterminds of BFD, Matt, Tim and crew crafted this small corner of the interweb to muse, bitch and blog about baseball – I was tres excited. And since I want to see this site keep churning out nonsense and build its own little baseball community – I’ve offered up my services.

So what can you expect from me? Well, I’m not 100% sure yet. I’m guessing an initial burst of content fueled entirely by my general excitement of having an outlet and an (I think?) audience. Hopefully after that – settling into a stable and consistent routine. Geographic and financial factors (I live/study/work on the East Coast now) have conspired to limit my ability to actually SEE the Astros, so there may be a lot of just general baseball musings. Oh and definitely some fantasy (NEEEERRRRRD!) jabbering – since for the first time in my fantasy life, I’m in first.

That was a long way of saying hello. I’m DisplacedTexan. And I’m a sports-aholic.

PS: Bonus points if you get the reference in the title.

We are in, shall we say, a bit of a funk these days.  The team is struggling offensively and defensively right now, killing some surprisingly good pitching from most of the staff.

A couple of transactions during the week:

Jose Cruz Jr. could no longer rely on nepotism, and he got cut in favor of Reggie Abercrombie.

Bye bye, Jack Cassell.  Welcome back, Geoff Geary.

And, my personal favorite: JR Towles is optioned to AAA while Brad Ausmus remains on a major league roster.  Humberto Quintero was called up to sit on the bench in Ausmus’ incredibly large shadow.

For the week, the offense was an empty as a Simpson sister’s head.  Sure, we hit  over .300 for the week, but with only 12 BB and 17 XBH in 200 ABs, good for only a .349 OBP and .360 SLG for the week.

The Good:

Geoff Blum, Mark Loretta, Ty Wiggington, and Brad Ausmus: Seriously?  Yeah, they all pulled in OPS over 900 for the week in a remarkable display from an unremarkable foursome.

Hunter Pence: Does he have a nickname worth using yet?  With four XBH, he had a quarter of them for the team.

Kaz Matsui: An empty .417.  But, you say, he hit .417!    No walks, and only two runs scored.

Wandy Rodriguez: The new staff ace?  5:1 K to BB ratio, and 10 Ks in 12.2 IP.  Wow, is he ever something these days.  If you saw this coming, raise your hand.  Those with your hands up?  You are liars.

The Almighty Pen: 1.76 ERA, .79 WHIP.  As a *group.*

The Bad:

Puma: Had his worst week of the season.  He was bound to slow down at some point, but you can see the impact he has on the offense this year.  Not that a 825 OPS is necessarily bad, however.

Miggy Tejada: Hey, he *did* walk three times this week, which gives him 11 for the season.

Darin Erstad and Michael Bourn: Bourn did hit an empty .352, but had a rough week in the field.

Carlos Lee: The prime offender on offense could only manage a 496 OPS.

Honestly, it wasn’t a “bad” week for our offensive, but we’ve got to get more guys on base in order to score runs.

Brandon Backe, Shawn Chacon, and Roy Oswalt:  Combined for three losses, 7.41 ERA, and 2.00 WHIP.  Poor Roy.

A full week at home with the Milwaukee Rampaging Alcoholics and the New York Yankees in town this week.  At home, we are 16-11.  Away, we are 16-21.  This would be a good week to play a little catch-up.

Recaps: I can’t say it any better than Shake:

That’s right. We got a shutout from Wandy (& Co.) ON THE ROAD, and got burned the next day w/ Roy on the mound.

Pigs are flying.

Wandy didn’t look awesome, but he did well with what he had. The un-sexy threesome of Chris Sampson, Doug “Choppin’” Brocail, and Jose Valverde closed it out (hey, Diehard Chris, I think he needs a new nickname).

Last night, former Astro Raul Chavez wore us out, driving in three of the Ass Pirates five runs home. Roy gave up 9 H in just 6 IP.

For the year, Roy’s Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) against is .297, well above his career .258. His seasonal numbers have been creeping upward consistently, and even though I’d like to invoke the reversion to the mean doctrine here, there’s little evidence that his BABIP will inevitably decrease.

6/5 Preview: Got a meeting, so this’ll be quick

It’s the last game of a nine game road trip, with the Stros posting a 2-6 record on the journey. We send Brandon Backe out against Paul Maholm. The two are posting very similar numbers on the year, with Maholm giving up a higher BABIP but issuing less walks than Backe. With Maholm a lefty, the RH heavy Astros should have an advantage, but we didn’t exactly pound Phil Dumatrait around in the first game of the series.

This skid has sent us to just two games about .500 and 7 in back of the Fuzzie Cubbies.

…for making the “big screen!”


Busch Stadium Fan Battle - video powered by Metacafe

I especially love those little orange shorts, and you pull the whole thing off so well.

(h/t Deadspin)

Quick Preview: After going 1-5 last week, we need to take advantage of six games versus two mediocre teams in the Ass Pirates and the Red Flying Rats. The Ass Pirates have been atypically close to .500 this year, but how? And the Red Flying Rats have been playing over their heads all year.

Today’s matchup features Wandy Rodriguez for the good guys against Phil Dumatrait. Dumatrait, who has a pretty good arm, came up through the Red Sawx system before jumping to the Reds last year and the Ass Pirates in 2008. His downfall has always been mediocre control, but with the Astros third-to-last in walks drawn, we aren’t in a great position to take care of that. Dumatrait has not faced the Stros in his career.

Wandy brings a 2-3 record, 5.65 ERA, 1.56 WHIP in his career against the Ass Pirates. Interestingly, he has struck out more than a man/IP against them.

This should be a real interesting match-up between two guys with good stuff but control problems. And, not unlike the Stros, the Ass Pirates are RH dominant. This should be a fun one.

Remember when I wrote this post and everybody thought I was being too harsh on the offense? Well…

Name, Projected OPS, Reality, +/- OPS (+ is good)

Michael Bourn, 700, 577, -123

Carlos Lee, 849, 794, -55

Miguel Tejada, 796, 814, +18

Kaz Matsui, 682, 679, -3

Ty Wiggington, 813, 800, -13

Brad Ausmus, 597, 447, -150

Hunter Pence, 852, 808, -44

Lance Berkman, 901, 1.219, +318

This isn’t everybody, but we can draw two fairly plausible conclusions:

1. PECOTA has been pretty dead-on-balls accurate.

2. Puma = God.

This little exercise was just for fun. I’ll be re-visiting this topic a couple of times over the course of the season.

Edit: Fixed my error (h/t Lee), and changed the title to better reflect article content.

After thinking about the title, is there a pretty 1-5 week? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Rights: OK, this’ll be pretty quick.

Puma: A one-man wrecking crew. He put up a typical 1.125 OPS - which actually dropped his season OPS - and scored four of the team’s 14 runs for the week. Just full of awesome goodness.

Ty Wiggington: Huh? Really? Ty continues to heat up, putting up a 909 OPS for the week in which he homered and drew four walks in just 22 PAs.

The Bullpen: For the week, the pen put up a line of 14.2 IP, .61 ERA, and .86 WHIP. Only Oscar Villareal gave up a run. Oops, outside of Jack Cassel.

Wrongs:

The rest of the offense. The Cards and The Alcoholics stymied our offense except for an 8-run outburst against Looper. Outside of Puma and Wiggy, the offense was held to an OPS below 500 by some very mediocre pitchers. Brad Ausmus “led” the way with an 0-7 week (but, hey at least he gets to hit in clutch situations!), Miggy was at 360, and Carlos Lee, Kaz Matsui, and JR Towles were all below 500. Offensively, we were downright offensive.

The Starting Pitching: As good as the relievers were, the starters were the opposite. Chacon followed his nice outing on Tuesday by getting blowed up on Sunday, and only RoyO kept his weekly ERA below 4.

One week is a small sample size, but it was a tough week. We’re off on Monday before heading to Pittsburgh for a three-game set, then back to home cooking against the Cardinals.

As a special note, I had a rough bike accident (not my fault) on Saturday, and I am kinda screwed up for the time being. I will post as I can.