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.
