Game 37: Astros 4, Reds 3

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I took off my trusty baseball cap and looked at the logo on the front. It was a big, proud Astros star per usual, just one of the too many styles of Houston caps that I own. You see, I'm a collector of all sorts of baseball memorabilia (yes, my first-ever collection was Topps baseball cards, still love 'em). I put the hat in the closet and thought to myself something profound: during each of the past four days, I had been wearing strictly Astros caps. With each passing game, the team's results became more and more deplorable. So, I vowed that Wednesday would be a new day. I would use a bit of reverse psychology to trick the baseball gods by wearing a non-Astros cap all day. I selected one of my favorites: the 1998 Tampa Bay Devil Rays alternate cap. I might just keep wearing it.

The Astros-Reds game didn't fail to excite on Wednesday afternoon, as the home team ended things with another walk-off win, this time thanks to the 9th walk of the game surrendered by a Reds pitcher, followed by a scalding double by Hunter Pence to score J.R. Towles from first. The couple points I observed, Quick Hits style, before I head back to studying:

• Pence is a legitimate player. I recently read an article on ESPN that ranked the RF as the "worst" best guy on a team, meaning that among all team MVPs in the majors, Pence was the worst. I beg to differ. He's tied for 4th in the NL with 10 doubles thus far. His triple slash line may be just .307/.352/.500, numbers that may not be the best among the best. However, who's on the Nationals right now that's better than Pence? Ryan Zimmerman? He's injured all the time. What about the Pirates? Sorry, as great as Andrew McCutchen is, he's not better than Pence. Neither is any player on the Orioles, Royals, Diamondbacks, or Padres (excluding Heath Bell, though he can't honestly be considered the team's MVP) singularly better than Pence at his respective position. Sure, prospects are great, up-and-comings are great. Who wouldn't love to have a Matt Wieters or Eric Hosmer on their team? But Pence is better than both of those guys right now. He's no Willie Mays, but he deserves to be in the game's upper echelon of players, his team's record be darned.
• I think Wandy might be putting it together a little earlier than usual. While it's true that his line didn't end up beautiful, (7 IP, 10 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 4 SO) it was effective, not to mention his third straight quality start (at least 7 IP, > 4 ER allowed). He controlled his pitches exceptionally well, as evidenced by the zero free passes allowed, and got the outs when it counted, essentially negating a large portion of the hits. He made two mistakes by serving up back-to-back homers to Chris Heisey and Drew Stubbs, but despite that, he pitched quite well. Rodriguez has always been a bit of a shaky pitcher, even in some of his good starts this season, but if he is able to keep it together, the Astros might be forced to move him up in the rotation.
• Lastly, a bit of soberness, as this is a lesson this young team will have to learn. You can't stop playing. You can't cruise to a 3-0 lead after three innings and just expect to win. This team isn't good enough, point blank, to do that. After Michael Bourn singled in two runs in the 2nd, Matt Downs hit a sac fly to bring home Brett Wallace to put the home team in a semi-comfortable position. After that, they seemed to put the game on cruise control, and only collected two more hits until the 9th. Especially against teams like Cincinnati and St. Louis, that's not going to cut it. As the muscular Reds lineup illustrated, teams with power can jump back into the game very quickly. Triple. Single. Homer. Homer. Game tied. Walk-off wins are nice, but young teams like the Astros won't always be so lucky. Patience at the plate is key, and it looked like the team had a good thing going with 9 walks today. Keep that up, and more wins will come.

SERIES PREVIEW: Houston Astros vs. New York Mets, May 13-15, Minute Maid Park

Game 1:

7:05 pm, Bud Norris (2-2, 3.16 ERA) vs. Dillon Gee (2-0, 3.80 ERA)

Game 2:

3:05 pm, J.A. Happ (2-4, 5.75 ERA) vs. R.A. Dickey (1-4, 4.50 ERA)

Game 3:

1:05 pm, Aneury Rodriguez (0-1, 5.50 ERA) vs. Chris Capuano (2-4, 4.93 ERA)

In a matchup of last place teams in the National League, this weekend series might tend to underwhelm fans, but should be competitive nonetheless. The pitching matchups aren't all that great, as both teams will be cycling through the bottom of their rotation. However, the 'Stros were able to take two of three games in New York earlier in the season, and coming off a walk-off win against a much more potent opponent should bode well for the Houston nine.

Prediction: I was right in my series pick against the Redlegs, and so I'm hoping Lady Luck is on my side today as well. I'll say the Astros break their series losing streak and take two out of three in this one. The Mets heated up a little bit in recent weeks, but I think the Houston bats should finally be able to break out of their slump against starting pitching with the likes of Gee, Dickey, and Capuano on the bump. I'll take Bud Norris to win along with Aneury Rodriguez, as this will be the first time the Mets see him, and you saw how well that worked out against Cincinnati the first time. Still not sure Happ has it all figured out, and falling behind hitters like he does is something that could prove very detrimental against New York, as they still have bop in the lineup with the likes of Carlos Beltran, David Wright, and Ike Davis. And even if Happ pitches well, Dickey could prove to be a conundrum against the free-swinging Astros lineup.