Since the Astros found it in themselves to blow a six, yes 6, run lead there’s not a lot to say about how sucky this game one against the Arizona Diamondbacks is. So, to entertain us all here’s the latest scoop on what’s going on with the Houston Nine.

- Jeff Keppinger rejoined the Astros tonight. I was hoping his highsocks would be the right amount of luck and early on it appeared that way. Kepp came back in style despite the ‘Stros pitching atrocities going 2-5 with 1 RBI. Welcome back, Kepp. You were missed. If he keeps hitting, he should see more playing time than my best friend, Bill Hall.

- Brett Myers continues his run of disappointing pitching. He’s now not accumulated a win in six starts which is a career long. Tonight in 5.2 IP, he allowed 5 hits, 4 ERs, walked 3 and had 2 dingers hit off of him. His ERA is now 5.11. Brett hasn’t fulfilled my dream of having a strong first starting pitcher this season. Will his greatness of last season return? I’m thinking it’s not likely. This very well may be his struggling season. If we want a pitcher to cheer for, I think we’ll find it in Wandy Rodriguez and/or Bud Norris.

- The club released IF Joe Inglett today from AAA OKC to make room for Brain Bogusevic. Bogie was sent back down after Kepp completed his rehab assignment and returned to the big club.

» Continue reading “Astros Scoop Because This Game Is Poop”

I could have imagined the Astros getting a win thanks to several batters, but J.R. Towles would not have been on that list at gametime today. After a 0-32 slump, Towles proved to everyone today that the slump is over. He went 3-4 at the plate this afternoon at Minute Maid Park, the final hit being a walk-off  single to lead Houston to it’s first back to back series win. Congratulations, J.R. Your timing is impeccable!

My favorite part of the scene at the end of the game was that the first person to reach Towles on the field was Batting Coach, Mike Barnett. I’m sure the encouragement and excitement in that exchange was fierce!

There were other great plays in the game – » Continue reading “0-32? Not Anymore! JR Towles Comes Alive to Give the Astros Another W”

Last night in Houston, the Astros let one slip away that shoulda, woulda, coulda been theirs. Lead by J.A. Happ at the mound the Astros fell to the Dodgers 5-4. That puts Houston 18-31 on the season- the second lowest winning percentage in the majors. So what was Good, what was Bad and what was Ugly?

The Good

Despite getting a loss, J.A. Happ was able to take his ERA from 5.30 to 4.99 with only 3 hits and 1 earned run. Unfortunately, the Jerry Sands homerun in the third gave the Dodgers a 5-0 lead that they would never lose. In addition the Astros bullpen threw four great innings allowing 3 hits but no runs. The bullpen has been pitching well in the past several games, allowing only 1 earned run in 19 innings and I hope that’s a trend that sticks.

» Continue reading “Astros: The Good, The Bad, The Painful”

*whispers*

Shhhhhh….there is no game as superstitious as baseball. That doesn’t just go for the players, but the fans as well. I might be a wee bit guilty of that myself. Because of my superstitious nature, I’m a little afraid to post this today. You see, since my last post on Friday, the Astros have gone 3-1. In case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s a whole lot better than the four games prior in which they had no wins.

Do I really think they won because I didn’t come chat with you guys? Nope. Am I scared that you’re all going to blame me now if they don’t beat the Dodgers again tonight? Yep.

I really think that perhaps a bit of Interleague Play might have been just what the doctor ordered for the Astros. Perhaps they needed to get away from division rivalries and thinking about standings in regard to the teams they were facing. After all, sports is half physical talent and half a mind game, right? They managed to win their series with the Bluejays in their first trip to Toronto and now they’re off to a great start against the LA Dodgers.

So who’s impressing me right now? » Continue reading “Shhhhh….Because I’m Superstitious and the Astros Won a Few”

With Houston making it’s first appearance in Toronto’s Rogers Centre (I had to retype that three times to not reverse the ‘re’ to ‘er’) I teamed up with The Way of the Jay writer, Amy Swenson, to answer “6 Burning Questions” about what we’re going to see in this three game series.

1. What should we know about this weekend’s probable starting pitchers? Who’s going to shine? Who might run into troubles?

FRIDAY:

Amy: Tonight, Jo-Jo Reyes (4.75 ERA) takes the mound to try to finally get that well-deserved win. Reyes is now winless in his last 26 starts. This is the longest streak since Anthony Young went 27 in 1992-1994.  He’s one of the few starters to have faced the Astros in the past. Reyes is 1-1 in his career, with a 6.52 ERA in four starts. Reyes is long overdue for a win. His last three starts have been solid; averaging 6+ innings each game with an ERA of 3.32. However, when Reyes has a bad game, he really has a bad game. See May 4 against Oakland (3.1 IP, 5 ER) and April 16 in Boston (3 IP, 4 ER). Hopefully he can keep his control tonight and get that long awaited win.

Terri: Friday the Astros send Aneury Rodriguez (6.26 ERA) to the mound. This will be only his third major league start and he’s still hungry for his first major league win. He’s better than his 0-2 record would lead you to believe as his first start was blown by the bullpen and his last start he pitched four beautiful innings only to have it all fall apart in the fifth. I like his chances, especially given that I’m a bit superstitious and believe the third time’s the charm!

SATURDAY:

Terri: Saturday it’s Brandon Morrow against Brett Myers. I think this will be the best pitching matchup of the series and should be fun to watch. Brett’s struggled lately, but rebounded a bit on Monday in Atlanta with a quality start. He’s ready for a W as he hasn’t registered a win since April 12 and is a true competitor. Look for him to be strong.

Amy: I agree that this has the potential to be a great matchup. Brandon Morrow (4.85 ERA and 2-2 over 5 games) is a strikeout pitcher. He’s yet to K fewer than 6 batters in a game, even including his dreadful start against Detroit on May 9. He made it just 3.1 innings, giving up 5 earned runs, and yet… somehow… striking out 6. When his stuff’s good, Morrow can be counted on for well over 100 pitches, but he’s yet to stay in a game more than 6.1 innings. I think he’s ready for an even better start on Saturday.

SUNDAY:

Amy: The Jays will start rookie Kyle Drabek (4.32 ERA) on Sunday. You might be familiar with that name already; he’s the son of Cy Young Award Winner Doug Drabek, who played for the Astros from 1993 – 1996. Kyle Drabek was acquired by the Jays as part of the deal that moved Roy “Doc” Halladay to the Phillies in 2009. Like his dad, Kyle Drabek has the makings of a future ace, if he can work on his composure and control. He’s coming off of a quality start – and a win – in Detroit, where he managed to get himself into – and back out of – big jam situations, somehow allowing only 1 run over 7 innings.

Terri: Sunday the Astros send Wandy Rodriguez (3.54) to the mound. This is a guy who is a better pitcher than his 2-3 record would lead you to believe. He generally gets better as the season moves along and his last appear and in his last four starts he’s gone 1-0 with a 1.50 ERA, including eight scoreless innings Tuesday against the Braves. Wandy is well overdue for a win and the bullpen knows they’ve let him down – they won’t go down without a fight!

***I have personal ties to Kyle Drabek and will secretly be cheering him on. Don’t hate me Astros fans, but he IS a hometown boy!

» Continue reading “6 Burning Questions: The Astro’s Cross the Border”

When you are a fan of a sports team do you think you HAVE to like everyone? Is it like kindergarten when everyone expects you to share and play nice regardless of how you feel about some people? I love the Astros. Win or lose, they’ll forever be my team. And I adore most of the guys on the team, but I can’t make myself like Bill Hall. Sorry, Billy, but it’s true. Even at  a game as soon as Hall comes up to the plate, my dislike is well known enough that my mother will turn to me, roll her eyes and say, “Here’s your favorite guy.” She thinks she’s funny. I won’t tell you what I think because it’s likely that my mom or my dad is going to read this and I’d like my dad to keep buying my beer at the games. Hey – I have priorities!

I’m trying to be a big person. I even thought about what Christine Coleman, the writer of Aaron Miles’ Fastball – the Aerys Sports home of the St. Louis Cardinals did. She started a fan club for Ryan Theriot of all people. She managed to find a way to look beyond the errors and other unsavoriness and cheer for him. Chris is a bigger person than me. I just can’t do it. I can’t find a way to like Bill Hall.

But my mother raised me to be a polite Southern Girl and use my words and find a way to talk things out, so I figured that maybe if I shared my thoughts with Billy then he’d be willing to start to change a little or explain himself to me. So here goes…

Dear Bill Hall,

I really want to like you. I do. But I’m going to need some help from you. There are few things so far this season that I take issue with and would like to discuss. After you read this, call me and I’d be happy to buy you a drink or dinner or whatever so you and I can have a chat about it all. So here are my issues -

#1 – When’s the $3 million playing going to begin? I thought you were going to come to Houston and show these boys how to hit hard and big. I thought you were a bit of a power hitter. I thought….wrong. Last year with the Red Sox you managed to hit .247. And way back in 2006 you managed a season with the Brewers where you hit .270 including 35 home runs. Can we have that player? So far this season you’ve come up to the plate 111 times. 40 of those times, you struck out. In fact, Bill, you are tied for 4th for strike outs in the NL. Oh, and you’ve only hit 1 home run. At this rate you may hit 5 all season. You haven’t put up that small of a number since 2003. So what is it, Bill? Did you already peak? No, you say? Then please start proving it!

#2 – Let’s talk about the mouthguard that is constantly hanging out of your mouth or being chewed on by you. What exactly is it protecting like that? You know we have El Grande now at Minute Maid Park and I don’t particularly care to see that chewed up nasty piece of plastic that big and in HD. Did you secretly want to be a football player? Maybe that’s it. But still, you’re a professional athlete, just a different kind. Please put it in your mouth or in your pocket. Thank you.

#3 – Finally, the temper. It seems that you not playing well equates with little temper tantrums at the plate. The muttering under your breath, footstomping and general bad attitude doesn’t look good on you. You’ve already been tossed by a home plate umpire once this season, whether justified or not, so perhaps you could reign it in. I know it’s got to be hard to be thinking you’re on the downhill side of your career at just 31 years old, but it’s not attractive. And trust me, the temper won’t get your single self any love off the field either. Perhaps I could recommend a therapist.

So you see, Billy, my list is not long. I don’t expect perfection, but if you could begin comtemplating how to make some changes, that’d go a long way to helping me like you. Oh, and if we’re prioritizing…start with #2. Thanks, Billy!

Not Love Yet, Me

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the Senior Houston Astros Reporter for Aerys Sports. You can read her Astros blog at www.talesfromthejuicebox.com, email her at agirlinthesouth@gmail.com, or follow her on twitter @agirlinthesouth.

We’ve all had a night we wish we could forget. Last night was one of those nights for the Houston Astros. No matter how hard they fought to get themselves back into the game (and fight, they did) nothing was good enough to get anything going leaving them at the end of 8 1/2 innings with a 7-13 record. Tonight, they hit Miller Park again in the hopes of turning things around in this series. This particular ballpark has been trouble for the Astros for sometime. Today, word has it that the weather has improved and the roof will be open for gametime at 6:10pm CDT.

On the mound for the Astros, Brett Myers (1-0, 2.39 ERA). It’s worth mentioning that the Astros are 2-2 in games where Myers was the starter but both of the losses should have been wins – the bullpen let him down. The Brewers will send out right handed pitcher Shaun Marcum (2-1, 1.90 ERA). This should be a great duel of pitching and I don’t expect we’ll see the innumberable hits and runs that came out of last night’s game.

Here’s the rest of the Astros Lineup for tonight:

CF Michael Bourn

SS Angel Sanchez

RF Hunter Pence

LF Carlos Lee

1B Brett Wallace

2B Bill Hall

3B Chris Johnson

C Humberto Quintero

RHP Brett Myers

To have any hope of survival tonight, the Astros will have to play infinitely better than they did last night. They need to be firing on all cylinders.

1- Brett Myers will need to pitch the way we have consistently seem him since he came to the Astros and the bullpen has got to settle down. Last night the bullpen allowed 11 hits, and 8 runs, 7 earned runs. That’s just not good enough to win ballgames. The good news is that with Brett starting, odds are he’ll go well into 6 innings and we’ll see less of the bullpen.

2- The lineup is going to need to be more productive at moving runners around the bases. The 14 hits they acheived last night would have been a lot more impressive if they hadn’t only gotten 7 runs out of those hits. Marcum’s a tough pitcher to come up against and so far this year, batters are hitting only .209 against him. With only a handful of left handed batters in the Astros lineup (Bourn, Wallace, Inglett) right handed pitchers usually have the upperhand.

3- The middle of the lineup – Lee, Wallace, Hall – need to hit with power tonight. The fact that the Astros have fewer home runs (9) than anyone else in the MLB is the direct result of the power hitters not performing to date this year. Playing small ball has gotten them nowhere. It’s time for the bats to come alive!

4- Fielding has to be perfect. Error-Fest 2011 needs to come to an end. The Astros have had 21 errors so far while opponents have only had 10. Making bad plays and bad decisions results in bad endings.

Can they fix those four things tonight? Yes. Will they? That remains to be seen, but I sure as heck hope so!

The game’s not even over as I write this. The Astros are down 14-6 in the top of the 8th and you may say I’m a naysayer for deciding this game is over, but I like to live in the real world. The Astros don’t recover in 2 innings from an eight run deficit. Not this year’s Astros, that’s for sure. *** And sure enough, no recovery happened as the ‘stros lose it 14-7.

This game has not just been painful, it’s been long. Nothing like a horrible game that will not end, but I suppose if you’re a Brewer fan it’s a great game that keeps on giving. The list of things that went wrong tonight for Houston is long, too long. I’m not even sure where to begin. The pitching was bad. The hitting was bad. The defense was bad. There were times when I wondered if I had accidentally changed the channel and was watching a little league team. Oh, and “the Brads”, Arnsberg and Mills, were both ejected in the 2nd inning when Arnie made comments about the homeplate ump’s calls and Mills trotted out to defend Arnie. I had hoped that Mills’ absence would be as helpful as it was when he served his 1 game suspension and the Astros won, but alas that would not be the case.

Remember when I said that Angel Sanchez should stay around a while? I stand corrected. The way he’s been missing double plays and having his own little “Error-Fest 2011″ (he’s managed 5 already this year), coupled with the fact that his hitting is declining as the season progresses (.274) makes me long for Clint Barmes’ return. Fortunately, Barmes is going to start rehabing in the minors on Monday, so we won’t have to wait long to hopefully see some better defense played at the middle infield. Although Sanchez didn’t have an error tonight, both Bill Hall and Carlos Lee did. There were missed opportunities everywhere.

Shall we talk about the pitching? I know I keep railing on Figueroa, but tonight’s 6 earned runs (2HRs) in 4 innings along with 5 walks just proves my point. Mr. Mills, how long will you let this continue? The bullpen wasn’t any better allowing an astounding 11 hits and 8  runs. It was just ugly all around. The Brewers were hitting hard and consistently, scoring in 6 of 8 innings they took the plate.

Michael Bourn hit well tonight, going 3-5 with 1 Run and 1 RBI. He’s now at .319 on the season. Bourn also added a stolen base to take his season total to 9. Brett Wallace (.313) is finding his groove going 3-5 with 1 Run and 1 RBI. Bill Hall almost got a homer when he hit one that barely missed clearing the wall, allowing him a triple. We also saw Carlos Lee manage a double. But regardless of that hit, Lee’s still only hitting .225. I cannot for the life of me figure out why he’s still hitting clean up with a batting average like that. I’d really like to see Mills move Wallace into that fourth batting position to see if he can help more than Lee has. I know Wallace’s RBI count isn’t outstanding (7) but when you look at the on base percentages of the batters ahead of him, is it surprising? I think if he’s put in a position where he can actually be productive, he will be. Anyone who’s watched his progress since he was brought up last season would agree that he just keeps improving and is showing more and more confidence at the plate. I think he’s earned a shot at a better batting position.

The problems with this team seem to be compounding as we move along in the season. Tomorrow’s continuation of this series will see Brett Myers starting for the Astros. If there’s a chance for Houston to take a game during their stay in Milwaukee, Saturday will be their best shot.