Astros Throw Pirates into the Hamper

Roy Oswalt has the Cincinatti Reds. Mike Hampton has the Pittsburgh Pirates. Hampy is now 4-0 against the Pirates this season and he has won the last 10 games against them dating back to 1999.

To put it into perspective, Mike is the first pitcher since 50s pitcher Robin Roberts to get 10 wins in a row against the Pirates. (Roberts ended up getting 15.)

“I thought we took a good approach, trying to hit the ball up the middle or go opposite field,” said Andy LaRoche. “They just weren’t falling for us. We couldn’t get anything going the whole time. You just tip your cap to Hampton.”

Hampton also had an astounding double play in the bottom of the first showing once again why he is a Gold Glove candidate every year.

After a slow start to the season, Mike has really turned it around. While he will never get back to where he was the last time he played for the Astros, it is nice to see him getting some success and having some good outtings.

Geoff Blum and Miguel Tejada had good nights as well and the Astros ended up with a solid 4-1 win. Hopefully, they can build on that tonight with a good start by Brian Moehler.

Early Draftee Stats

It’s been almost a month since the 2009 MLB draft, so let’s take a look at the players that the Astros have signed and see what they have achieved. Initial thoughts when looking at the statistics? J.D. Martinez, a right fielder playing for Greeneville, might end up being a diamond in the rough. He has a .386 average with 57 at-bats, 11 runs, 22 hits, 7 doubles, 3 homeruns and 17 RBIs. Keep an eye on this guy!

Hitters

		AVG	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SO	SB
SS	Jiovanni Mier	.325	40	9	13	0	3	1	7	10	2
LF	Telvin Nash	.200	25	1	5	1	0	0	2	9	0
3B	Jonathan Meyer	.200	50	4	10	2	0	0	6	13	0
SS	Brandon Wikoff	.280	50	4	14	2	1	0	1	5	1
SS	Enrique Hernandez	.324	37	4	12	0	0	0	5	6	5
SS	Ben Orloff	.171	35	3	6	1	0	0	7	3	1
3B	Erik Castro	.043	23	2	1	0	0	0	1	7	0
C	Bubby Williams	.333	27	3	9	2	1	0	6	3	0
OF	Jacob Goebbert	.156	32	2	5	1	1	0	2	8	0
CF	Ryan Humphrey	.243	37	4	9	0	1	0	3	11	2
1B	Ronald Sanchez	.235	34	3	8	2	0	0	6	10	0
CF	Brian Kemp	.347	49	5	17	0	1	0	2	9	2
RF	J.D. Martinez	.386	57	11	22	7	1	3	17	10	0
2B	Barry Butera	.160	25	4	4	1	0	0	1	9	1
1B	Nick Stanley	.205	39	9	8	1	1	2	8	11	1
3B	Aaron Bray	.233	30	7	7	1	0	0	3	9	1
CF	Garen Wright	.174	23	3	4	0	0	0	0	6	2
CF	Grant Hogue	.286	14	1	4	1	0	0	3	2	3
OF	Sean Barksdale	.143	28	2	4	1	0	0	2	8	1

Most of the pitchers look pretty good. Robert Donovan, a right-hander playing for Tri-City, hasn’t had a really good start to the season. He is 0-2 with an 11.25 ERA and has only pitched 4 innings.

Pitchers

		W	L	ERA	CG	SV	IP	BB	SO
RHP	Tanner Bushue	0	0	2.70	0	0	6.2	1	4
RHP	BJ Hyatt	1	0	0.00	0	0	4.2	2	5
LHP	Dallas Keuchel	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
RHP	Brandt Walker	1	0	2.84	0	1	12.2	12	6
LHP	David Berner	0	0	2.25	0	0	4.0	1	3
RHP	Justin Harper	0	1	2.25	0	0	4.0	4	2
RHP	James Macdonald	1	0	6.35	0	0	5.2	1	5
RHP	Mark Jones	0	0	3.00	0	0	3.0	2	1
RHP	Robert Donovan	0	2	11.25	0	2	4.0	5	1
LHP	Mike Modica	0	0	0.00	0	0	7.0	1	6
LHP	Travis Smink	0	0	2.45	0	3	7.1	1	7
RHP	Brenden Stines	0	0	4.91	0	0	7.1	1	1
RHP	Scott Migl	0	0	0.00	0	0	5.0	1	4
RHP	Daniel Sarisky	2	0	3.86	0	0	4.2	0	7
RHP	Michael Schurz	0	0	1.80	0	1	5.0	2	6
LHP	Spencer Hylander	0	0	0.96	0	0	9.1	4	9

This Just In… Astros Suck

Okay, so this isn’t exactly a newsflash, but seriously… how can we go to San Francisco and not only score zero runs in two days, but give up 22 runs?  22?  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?

This is unacceptable.  I know it was Tim Lincecum and some unknown named Sadowski (who actually pitched better than Lincecum), but this is still unacceptable.  It’s unacceptable for the best team in baseball and the worst team in baseball.  It’s unacceptable in the College World Series down to Middle School teams.  In fact, it’s only acceptable in t-ball.

I am tired of watching the Astros get a little bit of mojo going only to completely flake out against a team that they should be able to beat.  Yes, the Giants are decent this year, but they aren’t 22-runs decent.

Remind me again why we aren’t going after Pedro Martinez?  Surely he would be a good #5 pitcher in the rotation.  Wouldn’t he?

And we can’t blame Cooper or Dewey Robinson.  Paulino and Ortiz were awful.  Just awful.  And now poor Roy Oswalt has to go up against Randy Johnson today to try to recover some of the Astros’ respect before they head back home.  Johnson is having a good season and he is a future Hall of Famer.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Houston pulled an Ike and got shutout again.

Okay, venting over.

All-Star News

The Astros never get named to the All-Star team.  Part of a problem of living somewhere other than the northeast, Chicago or California.  So with as bad as they have been this year, you would expect only a token player to be placed on the team.  I assumed that token player would be Miguel Tejada and I was right, but there was a surprise second player named: Hunter Pence.

Hunter is having a good season and he deserves to be on an All-Star; I am just surprised that the powers that be figured that out.

Doubly surprised that the second player wasn’t Wandy Rodriguez.  He hasn’t been as good as he was at the start of the season, but his stats are still pretty good.  Point of fact, Wandy is 7-6 with a 3.21 ERA.  Ted Lilly, who was named to the team, is 7-6 with a 3.35 ERA.  Mind you, Lilly was the only Cub to make the team, so I guess you can’t really compare the two.

That’s another surprise. How did 2 Astros make the team and only 1 Cub?  Don’t the Cubs have some kind of rule with Bud Selig that they get to have at least 2 players on the team?

There are a lot of head scratches this year, but in a good way.  It actually looks like the coaches were trying to pick the best players rather than making the northeast happy.

Who knows?  If they got rid of the “every team has a player” rule, then Wandy could have very well been included in the roster.  It’s going to be a really interesting game, that’s for sure.

Killer Bees Attack in San Diego

The Astros-Padres game yesterday was one of those games you will never forget thanks to a swarm of honeybees that decided to visit PETCO Park in the 9th inning. The Astros were already ahead 6-1 and went on to win the game 7-2 finishing the season 6-1 against the Padres.

It was thanks to a couple of Killer B’s on the Roster: Geoff Blum and Lance Berkman. Both players had great games with Lance Berkman on base four times with 2 walks and 2 doubles. Geoff Blum drove in four runs including his second homerun of the season.

But the story wasn’t about the Astros or about their 15-5 record against the West this year.  (Seriously… how bad is that league that the Astros are doing good against them.)  The story that made SportsCenter was the thousand of insects that made a beeline for a ballgirl’s jacket along the left field.

“It’s how the year has gone,” Blum said. “Bizarre things. You think you’ve seen it all in baseball, and you see something new.’

After a 52-minute delay, a beekeeper came in and removed them.  Now the Astros and Paulino face San Francisco and some guy named Sadowski.  On Saturday and Sunday, they face Lincecum and Randy Johnson.  Let’s hope for a sweep and be happy with 1 loss.

NOTE: The Astros claimed a 2B German Duran off the waiver wire from the Texas Rangers on July 1.

Astros Wiz on San Diego

If you came out of a coma last night and saw Oswalt pitch, you would never know he was struggling this season. Roy had as good a game as he has had all season. Tony Gwynn, Jr. tied it up nicely after the game when he said “The only thing he didn’t do to us tonight was throw a no-hitter.”

He made one mistake: a wild pitch in the fourth inning that brought in David Eckstein who had gotten on base by being hit in the elbow. That’s it. Two hours and eleven minutes after the start of the game, the Astros had won it 3-1.

This is the Oswalt I have grown to love. This is the Oswalt that strikes fear in the hearts of opposing players.

“That’s his M.O.,” said Gwynn. “Unless you get on him and stay on him, unless you get more out of situations like that than just one run – he’s Roy Oswalt. When he gets the stop, you can see it in him. He gets tougher and tougher and tougher.”

Roy has had such bad luck this season when he hands the ball to the bullpen; he decided to do it all last night in a 109-pitch, complete game. It truly was inspiring to see and he dominated the Padres which is good because the Astros offense couldn’t do much against Josh Geer.

Oswalt has the best winning percentage of any pitcher against the Padres. He is 10-2 in his career against San Diego and one of the losses came earlier this season when he gave up four and just wasn’t at the top of his game.

“What you saw tonight is what has made him one of the best right-handed pitchers since he came into the league,” Padres manager Bud Black said. “When we had him in one stressful situation, he fought his way out. A pitcher like that,you’re going to have one or two quality chances. We had our chance in the fourth, but just couldn’t get the big knock.”

Let’s see if Oswalt can build on this win and have the good luck to get more of them for the rest of the season.

Astros Draft Update

We have had some more signings for the Houston Astros. Dallas Keuchel, an LHP from the Arkansas Razorbacks, signed over the weekend and reported to the Tri-City ValleyCats on Monday. This is a quick signing for Houston as they had to wait until Arkansas was eliminated in the College World Series before they could talk to him. It’s also a great signing as evidenced by this quote yesterday from the Arkansas newspaper.

“In three years with the Razorbacks Keuchel played a prominent role in Arkansas’ pitching fortunes as both a starter and reliever. He accumulated 19 wins and a 4.56 ERA over 234.2 innings pitched in his time with the Razorbacks and his career totals rank just outside Arkansas’ all-time top 10. His 2009 season was the best by a Razorback starter since 2007.”

The Astros also signed a pitcher as a free agent who quite possibly has the coolest last name ever for an athlete: Max Fearnow. Max pitched for Stanford with Jason Castro as his catcher. This season, he was 4-3 with a 4.29 ERA and 35 strikeouts.

That leaves us with 16 picks that haven’t been signed. One of them, high schooler Geoffery Thomas, is a fairly high pick at 371, but I wonder if he is going to choose to go to college instead of signing. The remaining picks are lower on the list, but I still hope we will sign some of them.

Mier Officially Introduced as an Astros

The official press conference was yesterday and Jiovanni Mier and now an official member of the Astros.  With a $1.358 million signing bonus, Mier heads to Greeneville to begin his minor league career.“The fact that he signed so soon gets him into the [developmental] environment that much faster,” Ed Wade said. “We have three first-year players playing in Double-A, including our first-round pick last year and our 48th-round pick last year. These months that [Mier] has now given himself an opportunity to take advantage of will hopefully accelerate his process and get him on the express lane.”

The Astros were very pleased that Mier signed so quickly.

Now begins the career of another high pick for Houston and you wonder if it is going to be as successful as Jason Castro who is clearly prospering in Corpus Christi and looks to be a starter for the Astros in 2011, if not sooner.

Will Jiovanni be up to the task?  He’s so young, but he has the defensive mindset already.  More and more reports that I read talk about how he is a natural at shortstop.

“When we saw him at showcases, we saw the tools that you look for in a shortstop and he had all the actions that you look for,” said Doug Deutsch, the scout who followed Mier. “The ease with which he plays shortstop, for me, was very positive. It’s just not a big effort for him.”

Looking at him, I’d say he needs to gain about 50 pounds of muscle.  He’s a little guy with a shortstop body, but that isn’t going to fill out a major league uniform. (I think even slimdog Julio Lugo could run over him right now.)

He needs to work on his hitting.  A .394 average in your senior year of high school is great, but that isn’t going to hold up in front of Zach Grienke or Chris Young who are just going to get better by the time he puts on an Astro jersey.

I hope that it works out.  He will be 21 years old, at the earliest, when he enters Minute Maid Park and that seems so young to me.  But if he has the stuff and he can hit major league pitching, then he will ready.

Koby Clemens

On a side note, Koby Clemens had 6 RBIs last night for the Lancaster JetHawks.  The catcher/designated hitter looked solid and had a three-run homer to boot.

Astros Sign Jiovanni Mier

Good news!  The Astros have signed their first draft pick, shortstop Jiovanni Mier.  The deal is reportedly worth $1.358 million and will be complete when he takes a physical.  It is expected to be announced by the Astros on Friday, but the team website already has it listed as a roster transaction.  (Which I find interesting since there is no mention of it in the news.)

What does this mean?  Well, aside from the fact that the Astros have now signed 34 of their 51 draft picks, it also means that they can now concentrate onsigning the remaining 17 picks. Plus, Jiovanni can now report to a rookie league and start learning how to be a big league player.

The $1.358 signing bonus is reportedly $26,000 over the MLB recommended price.

“We finally came to a deal,” Mier told MLB.com. “I’m glad we came to a conclusion and my [agents] got it done. I’m trying to get out there and play.”

Double Whammy in Texas

I went out with some friends to Third Base to watch the LSU vs. Texas game last night.  My beloved Longhorns lost 11-4, but LSU fought a good fight and it was a good series overall.  I am looking forward to seeing the Horns play next year as most of the team is returning.  I fully expect them to go back to Omaha.

I came back home in the 6th inning of that game to find the Astros ahead 2-1.  Roy Oswalt had a great game and it looked like they would win.  Then, Valverde dropped the lead and Houston eventually lost the game 4-3 in the 11th inning.

Ugh.

Last night was not a great night in my mind, household or state.  I almost felt like God had to take the losses from the Astros and the Longhorns so that the US soccer team could beat Spain, but I really could care less about soccer.  My only thought is that a bunch of people’s dream had to be crushed last night to give the US soccer team the miraculous win.

Everyone except LSU Tiger and Royals fans, of course.

Seriously a down day in my life and I only have one bit of good news.  The Astros have now signed 33 of their 51 draft picks.  We have signed 1 catcher, 2 first basemen, 1 second basemen, 1 shortstop, 3 third basemen, 1 leftfielders, 4 centerfielders, 1 rightfielders, 2 all-purpose outfielders, 10 right-handed pitchers and 4 left-handed pitchers.

We only have three high picks who haven’t signed: Jiovanni Mier (SS), Dallas Keuchel (LHP) and Geoffery Thomas (RHP).  Hopefully, those players will be signed soon.  It seems to me like the Astros are way ahead of schedule on signings that they were last year.

I updated the 2009 Draft page and added links to the players’ minor league pages.  Use those links to keep track of the draft picks throughout their first minor league contracts with the Astros.

The 10 Best Pitching Seasons in Houston Astros Franchise History

A friend of mine (writer and editor Rick Klaw) sent me a website recently that had some really good stuff, so I wanted to forward the address to you.

Joel Reuter of the BleacherReport.com did an article titled “The 10 Best Pitching Seasons in Houston Astros Franchise History” and it should be required viewing for any die-hard Astros fan.  Here is the list…

1. Mike Scott, 1986
2. Randy Johnson, 1998
3. J.R. Richard, 1979
4. Mike Hampton, 1999
5. Nolan Ryan, 1981
6. Roger Clemens, 2004
7. Roy Oswalt, 2004
8. Darryl Kile, 1997
9. Joe Niekro, 1979
10. Larry Dierker, 1969

To see the stats and Joel’s comments on each season, read the article “The 10 Best Pitching Seasons in Houston Astros Franchise History” in full.  It’s quick, but great reading.

Astros See No Mercy at Home

The astros return home from a 9-game road trip today having gone 5-and-4 against some quality teams.  While it wasn’t a huge success, Houston appears to be performing better this year in inter league play than they have in the past few years.

I was especially happy going 2-and-1 against the Twins who I feel are a really solid and will take the battle for first place to the end of the season in the AL Central.  However, even though the Astros have six games at home against two more teams from the AL Central, don’t expect it to be a cake walk.

First, they face Zach Grienke and the Royals.  Alot of people have been surprised by the Royals, but they haven’t shocked me.  I saw them coming along the last few years.  They have made some good trades and built up their minor leagues.  I picked up Grienke last year off of waivers on my fantasy team and I wasn’t pleasantly pleased with how good he was.  His stuff is Filthy with a capital F.

Their offense has dropped off the past month and that has been the main reason for their decline.  The team is only hitting .252 with a .404 slugging and that is even lower on the road.  The stats say that this should be easy for the Astros, but my gut tells me that they are going to struggle especially since the majority of them haven’t faced Grienke before.

Tonight’s game is going to be ugly.

After that, they have to face the Detroit Tigers who have quietly snuck into first place.  (Maybe not quietly for Tigers fans, but very quietly for those of us in Texas.)   They have the second best record in the AL (38-31 tied with the Yankees and two losses better than the Blue Jays) and really only have one bust on their starters in Dontrelle Willis and I do think it was worth taking a chance on.  With Dontrelle’s complex delivery, he needed to be brought up a little slower early on and the Marlins did not do that.  His arm is shot and his current stint on the DL appears to be a common appearance for the future.

Galarraga hasn’t had a great season either, but the other three pitchers (Verlander, Jackson and Porcello) have been really good even with a shaky start to the season for Verlander.

Flip over to the offense and it doesn’t look like they have a real solid team (.262 average with a .420 slugging), but it is good enough to support their starting pitchers and make close games into wins.  Plus, they have a good coach in Jim Leyland.  I don’t like the guy, but he has a good baseball mind and he has proven that you can rebuild a team that was a laughing stock five years ago.  Maybe the Lions should look into hiring him.

Prediction?  I would expect the Astros to go 2-and-4 on this homestand and I would be happy if they break even.  I do not expect them to be on the positive side.

Draft Update

Ed Wade, Billy Heck and their scouting staff have been busy signing the Astros 2009 draft picks and they seem to be having good success. The highest signing so far was their second pick, Tanner Bushue, an RHP out of South Central HS in Illinois who had a chance to visit Minute Maid before the draft and has links to his visit and draft day party on his high school team’s web page. Everything I have heard on this kid is that he is a good guy, smart as a whip and has some incredible movement on his pitches.

The first pick, Jiovanni Mier, is still in negotiations with Houston, but they have also signed their third and fourth picks in Telvin Nash and Jonathan Meyer. Gone are the days when Houston couldn’t get these guys’ signatures on the dotted line. Of course, I think that is a big reason they are going after high schoolers now, but the more I am reading about the top four players, the more I am hearing that they are bona fide talents and worth taking a chance on.

To date, Houston has signed 25 players.  Keep track of the signings on the 2009 Draft page.

A Look at Jason Castro

I went to take a look at Jason Castro. He was upgraded to Double-A on June 7, 2009 and the Hooks were playing a series in nearby San Antonio, so it was an easy, 103 degree trip for me. (Thank god for light breezes!)

I took a bunch of photos which you can in this post and had a great time watching the Astros catcher of the future. (I hope.) Jason is a tall man; one of the tallest on the team. It’s unusual to see a catcher tower above the other players, but unusual in a good way.

Here are my thoughts on what I saw…

Hitting

Hitting has been a major issue in the past with the Houston catchers. When you have the best defensive catcher in the league in Brad Ausmus, you are willing to accept a much lower batting average. But Jason Castro isn’t going to come into the league as the best defensive catcher and we have seen this year that a boost to offense at that position in Pudge has made a difference in the batting order and the reaction of the opposing pitcher.

Jason’s hitting was quite good. He went 2-for-4 with a couple of well placed singles and he also scored a run. He has a solid stance and a good eye for the ball. He didn’t appear to have any problems facing better pitching, so the decision to move him up from Single-A is a good one based on offense.

Prognosis: Good

Baserunning

There really wasn’t a chance to see his baserunning abilities, but he did seem to have some good speed on the bases. This is probably due to the fact that he has really, really long legs.

Prognosis: Too Early to Tell

Game Calling

I can’t really comment on this as I feel I should see more than one game before deciding if Jason knows how to call a game. Based on the Sunday game, he isn’t good, but I really feel that was more of an issue with the pitching than him. The Hooks’ pitching staff was definitely struggling on Sunday. It was hot on the field and they didn’t appear to have their heads in the game, especially in the later innings. There was one wild pitch, but it is hard to tell if that was the pitcher blowing the pitch, Jason blowing the catch or both of them not communicating. I think we should give Jason some more time before declaring that there is a problem.

Prognosis: Average

Throwing

There were two opportunities to see him throw, one to second and one to third. The second base throw was spot on. You couldn’t have asked for better location and he got the ball there well before the runner. His reaction time was good very quick and it was definitely impressive. His throw third wasn’t as good. He was off target and even though he got the ball there on time, it was nowhere near the runner. Jason needs to work on the home-to-third throw, but his home-to-second looks great and I hope this is a sign that base stealers will be more timid when he is behind the plate. I wish Jason had had a chance to work with Ausmus on this aspect of his game. I can’t think of anyone I would want more to teach him. Pudge would be my next choice, so, hopefully, they will have a chance to speak about it at length.

Prognosis: Good, but room for improvement

Defending the Plate

This is the one aspect of the game that I really feel Jason needs some work. He seemed to struggle with some of the pitches and had a passed ball that should have been guardable. I would like to see him work on that. It might be a case of him getting used to the pitchers than anything else, but it was the one thing that we all felt he had problems with.

Prognosis: Poor

Conclusion

I am really excited about Castro. He looked good and other than a few issues behind the plate, I think he is going to be an Astro in 2011 and possibly parts of, if not all of, 2010. (Though I would prefer he get another year in the minors under his belt.) He’s exciting to watch and it looks like first pick in the 2008 draft will pay off in a big way!