Real life has been real busy lately, and this will be a quick edition of rights and wrongs.

Rights:

Carlos Lee, Darin Erstad, and Miggy Tejada all put up OPS better than 900.

Brad Ausmus and Michael Bourn both had OPS over 790.

And that’s about it.

Wrongs:

Team batting line for the week: .263 avg, .306 OBP, .351 SLG, for an OPS of 657.  Hunter Pence was 2-23 for the week.

Worst of all, and I harp about it constantly, is our inability to draw walks.  In 206 PAs, we drew the grand total of 12 walks.  To put it in perspective, the “normal” season for a starter is a little over 600 PAs.  As a team over the course of a season, we would’ve had 36 BB and 114 Ks.  That’s downright NEIFI!-esque, and it’s why we are struggling.  As nice as it is to hit home runs, you’ve got to put people on base.  Out-making is not a viable offensive strategy, but it’s what we are doing.

Speaking of out-making, Friday’s game deserves the ole’ pink highlighter treatment thanks to all the caught stealings (CS).  For the week, were had 8 SB and 5 CS, which, in reality, is just below the steal break even ratio of about 67% (in other words, you must be successful on 67% on your steal attempts for the steals to be worth it).  But that doesn’t include a huge out by Hunter on the bases in Saturday’s game.

And the pitching?  For the week, we had an ERA of 7.01 with a WHIP of 1.65.  *We* walked 29 BB in just 54 innings, which gave our opponents a net gain of 17 baserunners.  That’s three baserunners per game via walk alone.

Roy, who had his best start of the season earlier in the week, got lit up on Sunday.  Shawn Chacon had the only other quality start for the team with his outing.  For almost everybody else, it was fuggly.

After failing to take advantage of a week of home-cooking, we again hit the road where we’ve struggled with a 16-21 record.  We kick off the festivities at Baltimore, and we wind up the week with one of the surprise teams of the year, the Tampa Bay Satan Worshippers.  They’ve been my second favorite team to watch this year, so I’m excited about the match-up.

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.

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.

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.

In the last Rights and Wrongs, Casey mentioned, more delicately than I, that my harshness of Tejada is undeserved and that we are better off with him than we were with what we gave up.  I hope to revisit this shortly, but I still think the Tejada trade is going to come back to haunt us, but I also understand this is my admitted bias against Tejada and my belief he’s over-rated.  Anyway, to the pitchers…

Roy Oswalt, 5.00 ERA, 1.30 WHIP (numbers from 5/1 - 5/18)  - Undoubtedly, Roy is doing considerably better, but he’s still struggling.  His harsh start against the Rangers tweaked his numbers during the hot streak, but he is still getting hit at a high rate for him.  We are not yet two months through the season, and we aren’t yet seeing attrition problems in the pen.  We still need Roy to pick it up as I still think he’s our staff’s only hope to keep us healthy.

Brandon Backe, 4.50 ERA, 1.33 WHIP - About the same numbers that Roy is putting up, but Backe is doing something he’s never done before: he’s striking people out.  His control, or lack thereof, is probably helping increase his K rate, but if he can keep that rate and lower his atrocious walk rate even 1BB/9IP, he’ll be the poster child for Tommy John quick recoveries.

Jose Valverde, 0.00 ERA, .50 WHIP - Dear bfd, you suck.  Love, Jose.  After struggling for the first three weeks of the season, Valverde has walked only one over his past 11 IP, and he’s been almost unhittable in the meantime.

Geoff Geary, 0.00 ERA, .95 WHIP - Geary has been a solid pickup so far and has been hot over the streak.  Of course, he now has a strained groin and will miss some time.

Brian “Scuffy” Moehler,  2.70 ERA, 1.40 WHIP - He pitched well in a couple of spot starts, and he’s about the most WYSIWYG pitcher in the majors aside from Paul Byrd: good control, lots of hits against, and the occasional foreign substance (and, no, that wouldn’t be Matsui’s anal fissure salve).  Scuffy was hit harder in his last start, which will be a trend as he goes around the league and they see more pitches off him.

Doug Brocail, 4.32 ERA, 1.08 WHIP - Still pitching very well, but still on a pace to appear in over half our games.  It’s guys like Brocail and and Geary and Wright that most worry me about being over-used.

Chris Sampson, 5.51 ERA, 1.53 WHIP - Pitching slightly better - especially if it’s against the Cubs or Dodgers - but it’s time to find a replacement for him.

Shawn Chacon, 6.06 ERA, 1.86 WHIP - Chacon was extraordinarily lucky in the early going with his batting average on balls in play as regression to the mean and his poor control have come back to bite him on the ass.

Wesley Wright, 4.26 EAR, 1.74 WHIP - Most importantly, a 5 BB to 2 K ratio during the streak.

Leaving off Molotov Borkowski and Fernando Nieve for expediency reasons.

Overall, outside of Backe, a little Roy, Brocail, and Jose, our pitching has been very mediocre.  If there is one reason for our streak - and this should be of no surprise, it’s Puma.  His bat is so hot that he is literally carrying this team right now.  Matsui and Pence are adding a ton to the mix, and Lee and Tejada are in the picture, but this is all about Puma.

Because we have nothing on the farm, we should be focused on making a trade to pick up at least one, if not two, starting pitchers.  Wandy will be back soon as he has a rehab start in Corpus tomorrow, but we simply must replace Chacon and Sampson if we are to compete.  We can’t ride Puma’s coattails all season, but we will need to rely more on our pitching at some point.

Yes, I suck. I suck like a Hoover. I suck like that guy in the bathroom at the Brazos River Bar. I suck like…wait, what did I just say? DAMMIT!

Sorry I’ve been away. Some stuff going on in personal life, plus some other haps. So, yeah, sorry. Hopefully, this’ll kick off a new, on-going round of love for the blog.

So, I’ve missed quite a bit, haven’t I? The Stros are 12-4 so far in May, making my projections for eminent doom completely irrational and asshole-y, at best. Oops.

So, let’s catch me up on what’s been going on. How have we been doing it in May? Let’s look at it position by position:

CA - JR Towles - 33 AB, 204 OPS. Brad Ausmus - 25 AB, 707 OPS.
OK, ummmm, we aren’t doing it here, that’s for sure. Towles has been in a horrendous slump, though he did double yesterday. Most worrisome is the increase in his K-rate. And, even through the slump, Towles still has a higher season OPS than does Ausmus (585 vs. 570). Normally, I’m completely for letting a youngster hit his way out of a slump, but this is pretty bad. The more Ausmus plays, though, the worse off we are. For now, we need to start getting Towles more plate appearances against weaker pitchers to get his confidence higher.

1B - Lance “Puma” Berkman - 62 AB, 1690 OPS. No, that’s not a typo: .625 OBP and 1.065 SLG.
Just wow. I mean, what can you really say? I’m almost 40 years old, and I’ve seen a lot of ball over my time. Lance is playing slo-pitch softball against the league right now. And it ain’t no restricted flight ball, either. I can’t remember a hot streak like this for this long. Enjoy it while it lasts.

2B - Kaz Matsui - 60 AB, 871 OPS.
Kaz is doing something he’s never done before: he’s drawing walks at a prodigious pace with 17 in 110 ABs. OK, maybe not prodigious, exactly, but that’s more than double his career rate. Most importantly, he’s getting on base in front of Puma.

3B - Ty “Whiff” Wiggington - 45 AB, 547 OPS.
And to think we actually purposefully traded for this guy, a trade I still don’t understand today. I wonder if Ian Stewart of the Rockies is available? Or do we go straight for Garret Atkins? Regardless, we’ve got to do something here. This just in: Geoff Blum isn’t the answer, either.

SS - Miggy Tejada - 67 ABs, 814 OPS
Does the OPS number surprise you for a guy with a .343 average in May? In fact, his average makes up almost his entire OPS number, which is pretty scary. He only has four doubles and one HR on the month to go with a solitary walk in 67 ABs. I know most people would disagree, but I still do not like the trade that brought Tejada over. After his torrid April start, when considering his defense, he has been barely passable. Yes, this is a harsh assessment but one I am sticking by.

OF - Hunter Pence - 59 ABs, 986 OPS. Carlos Lee - 64 ABs, 878 OPS. Michael Bourn - 66 ABs, 463 OPS. Darrin Erstad - 21 ABs, 1000 OPS.
Hunter and Kaz must be hanging out together as Hunter’s walk rate has jumped, as well. Seven walks in 59 ABs in May ain’t so-ohmigod-totally-awesome, but it’s acceptable. I’ve been saying for a long time that the key to Hunter’s evolution to being a starter quality OF was his grasp of the strike-zone. I love seeing this improvement.

Carlos Lee - Ummmm, yep. This is precisely what Carlos Lee does.

Bourn has been execrable over May, and his walk rate has plummeted while his K rate has soared. Seems that pitchers have learned that a quality pitch in the zone is good enough to get him out, and it’s working. This was my worry with Bourn. He simply has to get stronger and start being at least a threat with the bat before he starts seeing more pitches out of the zone.

I thought I would never say this, but it’s time to get Erstad ABs over Bourn. We’ve got to ride Puma while he’s hot, and Bourn is making way too many outs while Coop hard-headedly leaves him in the leadoff spot.

I’m gonna take a break and hit the pitchers next. WHEE!!!

First, major {hugs} to Matt for the new design. If I wasn’t a married, straight man, I would so fall in love with him.

This week’s edition of Rights and Wrongs will be the last to solely look at the year as a whole. I figure, three weeks in, it’s time to look at things at a micro view from here on out. That said, let’s hit that shit!!!!

Offense:

Ummmm, holy shit? Towles is hitting for major power, Berkman has been good, and Tejada still thinks he’s 25 instead of 104 years old. Yet, Aaron Cook can kick our ass? One of my biggest worries is that Pence and Bourn have whiff rates that would make Dave Kingman blush.

My biggest worry, however, is that (before today’s game) your Houston Astros are dead last in OBP. Last. Done. Dead. As a baseball stat geek, it’s important to know why that’s, ummmmmm, important. Here’s the deal: OPS should be 1.6 OPS + 1 SLG. The reason is that there is really only one fixed variable in baseball, and that is there are only three outs per inning. That’s what makes not making outs so important. And, right now, we are making a shitload of outs.

We are slugging like mad, at least, as we clock in almost in the middle there (considering our batting average, that’s quite a feat).  Until we start seeing more pitches and drawing more walks, the offense will under-perform.

Note: I started this post last (Sunday) night, but I was too exhausted to complete the sucker.  This is where I stopped, so I am going to cheat a bit going forward.

Pitching:

Now, I predict Roy will have a nicely solid start against the Padres Monday night, going seven innings with 6 Ks.  OK, maybe that’s too much cheating.  Anyway, it’s nice to have you back, Roy.  You were sorely missed.

Wandy?  Is that you?  He has been a total badass this year, but, sadly, he’ll be sitting out the next couple of weeks with a….strained groin.  The only words I hate typing more than “strained groin” are “anal fissures.”  Well, the latter is actually kinda fun.  I mean, how often do you get to type “anal” in a baseball blog that’s not about Barry Bonds?

Shawn Chacon has been on fire, as well.  But, he scares me.  His current BA against is .220 while his career mark is .259, and he’s been at .272 and .265 the last two seasons.  We can expect regression to the mean here.  If he can cut back on his walks, though, he could make up for the BA against rate hike.  Still, a pleasant surprise.

All 41 years of Doug Brocail is having a career year.  He picked up a save earlier in the week, but he’s far more valuable in his current role than he his collecting those shiny round objects known as saves.  My biggest worry, and you’ve heard this before, is that he’s on a pace to pitch in 80+ games.  We’re starting to move past the whole small sample size factor on this, and at 41 yo, this pace is simply untenable.

Geoff Geary (wha???) and Wesley Wright have both done yeoman’s work in middle relief.  Wright may turn out to be the best Rule V pickup this year.  With a little more control, he really could be something special.

Dave Borkowski, Brandon Backe, Brian “Scuffy” Moehler, and Chris Sampson all have WHIPs above 1.7.  Moehler and Sampson are scary, Backe is basically rehabbing from Tommy John surgery in the majors, and, I swear, Borkowski means “pour gasoline on fire” in Polish.

Jose Valverde?  Watching him pitch reminds me of this:

(Stolen without permission from this awesome post from USS Mariner).

The hometown heroes are 9-12 after this evening’s drubbing of the Pa-dregs.  That’s a pace for a 69-93 record.  I still believe that our season hinges on Roy’s health: tonight’s start gives the much used pen a needed rest.  I’m worried about the workload the pen is having to take.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.  HAPPY ANAL FISSURES TO YOU ALL!!!

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.