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.

I’m not a Reds fan.

I don’t dislike them, per se, though I did root for the A’s in the 1990 World Series (note: damn you, Billy Hatcher).  More accurately, I just don’t care for them one way or the other.  I like Ken Griffey, Jr. and Brandon Phillips, but I dislike Adam Dunn and Geoff Jenkins…it’s a wash.

That’s why I can say with no worry of you calling me a “homer” that Jay Bruce is completely fucking amazing.  Seriously, through 7 games (with the seventh still in progress), he has 3 HRs, 2 SBs, 7 RBIs, and is hitting .583.  (I don’t have his updated SLB/OBP, but they are other-worldly, too.)  He has also looked incredibly solid in CF and has shown a flair for the dramatic, scoring the winning run in extra innings one night and then hitting a walk-off HR the next.

Now, of course he’s not going to hit .500 for the season and, yes, pitchers will figure him out a bit the second time he faces each of them.  But, that said, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to project him for .320, 20 HR, 15 SB, and 80 RBIs.  Oh, and a ROY trophy.

I think I have a mancrush.

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.

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*