Maybe I'm a pessimist, and while it's true that Brad Mills and Ed Wade don't exactly have a healthy plethora of arms to choose from in the farm system to implement in the 'pen, but there's a few guys there who just need to get gone. Jose Valdez is one of them, but he's not so much of a concern due to the fact that when Brandon Lyon and Jason Bourgeois are healthy again, he'll be sent back to Oklahoma City along with Voodoo Joe Inglett (who was 0-for-1 today in his lone plate appearance, per usual). The other arm that doesn't belong, as I happened to be thinking right before he served up the homer (I swear), is Abad. Now, all the potential last-name puns aside, he's just not pitching well. A 7.54 ERA and a 1.92 WHIP is pretty atrocious, but then again, I feel like every Houston pitcher has those kind of numbers right now. Still, I'm not sure why Astros brass is giving him this many chances, though it probably boils down to the fact that he's a lefty. Either way, he now has two losses and two blown saves to his credit, not to mention the fact that he was the one who started the whole 9-run fiasco against the Cardinals.
Other than that, it was just a well-played game on both sides with not too much commentary to draw on. The typical things were present: Hunter Pence continues to hit reasonably well, extending his hitting streak to 12 games, J.A. Happ masterfully fell behind in the count to every batter he faced, Humberto Quintero scored from second on a bunt, ya know, just the usual stuff. In all seriousness though, I feel like the bullpen is the missing piece of the puzzle. While the Astros' bats have cooled down a bit since the 10-4 shellacking of Cincinnati, the starting pitching has really begun to figure things out, and if the 'pen can somehow hold things together, maybe we could actually WIN a game. Sigh.
Oh, and the daily questioning of Brad Mills? The streak is now at 3 days in a row I believe, with this simple observation. Wilton Lopez is back on track, Millsie, so you can go ahead and start inserting him back in the setup role. There's really no need to hand the ball to the young, unproven relievers who, in case you haven't noticed, aren't pitching well. At all. After Abad gave up the 3-run homer, Lopez came in and got two easy outs. Genius.
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| I would have nightmares about this if I were a kid in Cincy. |
SERIES PREVIEW: Houston Astros vs. Cincinnati Reds...May 9-11, Minute Maid Park
Game 1:
7:05 pm- Aneury Rodriguez (0-0, 4.15 ERA) vs. Travis Wood (1-3, 6.21 ERA)
Game 2:
7:05 pm- Brett Myers (1-2, 4.47 ERA) vs. Homer Bailey (1-0, 1.50 ERA)
Game 3:
1:05 pm, Wandy Rodriguez (2-3, 4.00 ERA) vs. Edinson Volquez (3-1, 5.63 ERA)
Overall, I can't really see how the Astros are going to avoid a sweep in this one, as they face Bailey and Volquez, two pitchers who have some nasty stuff that could end up fooling the free-swinging Houston bats. If Myers continues his downward spiral, game 2 could get ugly; the likelihood of Aneury Rodriguez continuing his scoreless innings streak is not very high against a lineup like Cincinnati's. Lastly, who wants to bet on Wandy stringing THREE good starts together? Not me.
Prediction: After calling for a sweep of Pittsburgh that didn't work out so well, I'm gonna avoid another sweep prediction, though it would have been in the opposite direction. I'll say the Astros win one out of three, mostly because of home cooking, and because of the fact that they seem to always win the first game, get everyone's hopes up, and then get destroyed in one, and lose a heartbreaker in the other. Oh, the joy.
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