Today's game was one of the better games I've had the honor of recapitulating here at the Crawfish Boxes. If you looked at the box score, you would have had no idea that the starting pitcher for your Astros was J.A. Happ. You also probably would be shocked that Wilton Lopez gave up a walk, which is just mind-blowing, even for smart people. But we'll get to that later. The Astros shut out the Brewers 4-0 in the 2-game series finale. Among one of the game's highlights, Jed Lowrie proved once again how that Melancon trade was good as gold as he slugged his 5th homer of the year. Jed's been hitting a lot of warning track fly balls lately. I wouldn't be surprised if he goes on an absolute tear later this season, hitting homers like he's Josh Hamilton.

But someone else really had a good game. Hmm, I wonder who that was. Oh! It was J.A. Happ! Boy, J.A. Happ certainly looked swell tonight. He got out of bases loaded jams, he pitched to Ryan Braun like he was Cliff Lee facing a little leaguer. Need to get out of the inning unscathed? There's a Happ for that. He had a pretty good game, posting a game score of 61, which isn't great, but isn't bad. He pitched 6 innings, gave up 7 hits and 1 walk, striking out 4 as he allowed no runs to score. He worked well with runners in scoring position, escaping a potentially deadly scenario with Ryan Braun up to bat with the bases loaded in a favorable lefty-righty matchup. Fortunately, Braun flew out to end the inning. Happ was pretty lucky as far as getting out of jams. The game could have easily ended had a different outcome had the Brewers been able to take advantage of the opportunities they were given.

Brian Bogusevic really looked nice on the base paths today, running aggressively from 2nd base to home after Chris Snyder hit a single to Norichika Aoki in CF. Chris Snyder did a nice job running to 2nd base on that play, getting in to 2nd just milliseconds before he was tagged by Rickie Weeks. Snyder also ran from 2nd to home as Jordan Schafer also hit another ball to Aoki, who has a terrible arm from what I was able to gather. Schafer was able to advance to 2nd base on that play as well. On defense, Bogey did get his first error in the outfield after failing to pick up a ball, allowing a base runner to advance to 2nd.

Jose Altuve was Al3ve today, going 3-5 in his first multi-hit game since his birthday on May 6, raising his batting average to .319. Jordan Schafer went 2-4 with a double. Chris Johnson went 2-4 as well. Chris Snyder also went 2-4, his first multi-hit game since April 25th.

On the bullpen side, Dequam LaWesley Wright got an out, but managed to walk a batter. Wilton Lopez was brought in to close out the inning. What happened the following inning was just terrible, as Lopez walked his first batter of the season. But all in all, it's very pleasing to have a reliable reliever in Lopez to rely on in games. He has not given up an earned run since April 29th (not including inherited runners), however it is somewhat concerning that Lopez may be pitching too often. Lopez did say that he wanted to pitch everyday in 2010, but he ended up having a bad stretch of games toward the end of that season as he seemed to be worn out. The Astros should hope that such a meltdown doesn't occur again.

Frequent Fernando finished out the game, facing three right handed batters and one lefty in the process. He was able to get all 3 right handed batters out, but ironically gave up a hit to the only left handed batter he faced. It was a good way to finish the game as everybody seemed to pull their own weight and contribute to an Astros win today.

Tomorrow the Astros will face the Josh Hamilton show (and the Rangers) in Inter-league play for a 3-game series. The Rangers are no team to mess around with. They have a powerful offense that will not give mercy to mistake pitches. But it's a good thing we have Wandy Rodriguez pitching for us tomorrow, who has an ERA below 2. The Rangers will have Neftali Feliz on the mound. It all starts tomorrow at 7:05 p.m. Central Time.

Access didn't make today's notes any better, but it did make me feel cool...

1) Batting practice musings - I don't want to make too big a deal over practice. One of the football coaches I cover likes to give me a hard time because I made a big deal over this catch one of his kids made in practice. He yells that Allen Iverson like of "Practice? Practice?" at me constantly now...

But, I digress. Now that I've sufficiently caveat'ed my point, let's talk about what I saw standing around the batting cage before Wednesday's game. I got to see the final two groups, but paid particular attention to the last one. In watching Marwin Gonzalez, Justin Maxwell, J.D. Martinez and Chris Snyder, I know I wasn't watching the best of the best, but I could make a couple assumptions.

Marwin doesn't flash much power in BP. He's got a line drive stroke and will muscle up to send one to the outfield occasionally, but for the most part, he's pretty punchless. Maxwell, on the other hand, looks a lot like CJ up there. He kills the ball, hammering it to right and not just in the Crawford Boxes. He hit a couple to the Conoco Phillips sign in left center. In his case, it's a reminder of his raw abilities, but not a guarantee he can hit like that against MLB pitching.

The other two struck me as interesting comparisons because both have been scuffling lately. Snyder looked like it too, hitting a few too many on the ground or straight up into the cage. Basically, he wasn't hitting it solidly. I can't remember him taking BP in the other games I've come to, so I don't have a good base of comparison, but anecdotally, I could see him struggling there just like he has in games.

J.D., though, looked sharp. He hit for power his last few rounds through and only seemed to hit the ball on the ground when he was trying to go the other way. He also grimaced after that, made an adjustment and roped a couple line drives off them.

I should also point out that this last group was hitting off a left-handed BP coach, possibly to prepare for Mr. Randy Wolf. It doesn't quite tell me J.D. should get out of his slump, but I don't know how much you can tell from that. J.D. did get the start and was back to hitting third in the lineup, so Brad Mills had some confidence in him. He rewarded that by going 0 for 2 with a walk, an RBI and a run scored.

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Today seems like a good day to revisit Delino DeShields Jr., since he did steal four bases last night. He originally was tagged with five steals but they changed his double and stolen base to a triple after the game. Fair trade off. You can read about his night and a little about his goals here. It's nice to see that he has really put in the work to be what he's expected to be. If there's one thing I've hear about his character, it's that he puts in the work to achieve his goals. This time last year, people were starting to doubt his base stealing capabilities because he had been caught stealing about the same amount as times he had stolen bases. This time around, he's been caught once. Big improvement.

So, we know he's improved on the base paths. And, we've heard that there is a night and day difference in his defense from last year. But, what about his improvements in the plate so far? It's not as big of a difference as you'd hope.

DDJ's average is up a about twenty points over last year, but the sample size is still small and over the last ten games, its about ten points worse that last year. The power is slightly elevated, but could be a result of just hitting more. The good news is that he's still drawing walks (23) at a higher rate (13.6% vs. 9.7%) and the strikeouts are about the same at at 21%. The great news is that his BABIP is under .300 which is not what you would expect for a guy with his speed, so maybe he's been unlucky and numbers rise in the future.

As for his batted balls, there hasn't been much change. His LD% is slightly elevated but .6% isn't really a change in this sample size. His GB% is higher by almost 2% which is good and bad. You want your leadoff guy to put the ball in play and just beat it out. DDJ can do that. But, for a guy with his strength and frame, I think it limits his power potential too much.

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Post game audio from the Astros game Wednesday:

Brad Mills discussing Bud Norris and Randy Wolf.

Bud Norris discussing his start and his maturity as a pitcher

J.D. Martinez discussing the teams struggles and his approach at the plate

Jed Lowrie discussing the teams attitude and the use of the shift

Audio is loud so if you're at work I would suggest making sure you're volume is low and then slowly increasing it to the desired level. Unless of course your boss is a huge Astros fan and you want to get some brownie points.

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For Game No. 38, we're going to look back at one of just three players to play in exactly 38 career games in Houston. It's not Rick White, journeyman reliever who had two different stints with the team. It's not Ronn Reynolds, the backup catcher who hit the only homer run in the group.

No, our guy is none other than Jose Cruz Jr., son of one of the most famous Astros ever in Jose "Cheo" Cruz.

Cheito was drafted third overall after setting the college world on fire at Rice for three seasons. He was drafted by Seattle in 1995 and quickly made it to the pros by May 31, 1997. Two months later, he was traded to the Blue Jays for a pair of reliever is Mike Timlin and Paul Spoljaric. It was the rare trade, where a top prospect (he was No. 12 on BA's list before 1997) gets dealt, not in a challenge trade, but for spare parts.

Of course, the way it turned out, Seattle may have gotten more value out of him than he'd give Toronto. Cruz Jr. hit .250/.331/.462 in six seasons with the Blue Jays. He also was almost traded to the Mets for David Wright. So there's that...

But, back to the topic at hand. Cruz became a free agent after the 2003, 2006 and 2007 seasons and was placed on waivers in 2005. That's four different chances Houston had to sign or select him (though I don't know if the Astros had waiver priority over the Dodgers at that point in 2005). His dad, the first base coach in Houston, lobbied multiple times for the team to sign him to little effect.

Finally, Houston picked him up in 2008 on a minor league deal, but Cruz the Younger ended up breaking camp with the team and playing for the next 38 games. He even started seven times in the outfield, but hit a measly .122/.283/.143 with one double, one RBI, six runs scored, 11 walks and nine strikeouts.

He then got released on June 6 and did not play professionally in the majors or minors again. He now works as an analyst for ESPN, something that's new this season. What are your memories of the younger Cruz? Do any of you remember him better for those Bellaire and Rice teams he was on than his major league tenure?

It's good to be home as the Astros celebrated their homecoming by breaking out of an offensive funk to put up an eight spot against the Brewers Wednesday night. Sure the Brewers didn't arrive in Houston until 4 this morning, and Randy Wolf had an ERA of 5.63 coming into the game, but it was night to see the offense break out of their slump. Hopefully the offensive uprising will also show up tomorrow against Shawn Marcum.

Pitching

Perhaps slightly overshadowed by the offensive outburst was Bud Norris who pitched a great ballgame. In 3 starts in May now Bud Norris has pitched 19 innings with 21 strikeouts against 6 walks, and has only allowed 1 earned run. He has also only allowed 7 hits during that time period. In tonight's contest Norris cruised through his first three innings before allowing a leadoff homerun to Corey Hart in the fourth. After that Norris fell into a nice rythym and retired the next eleven in a row before allowing a single in the seventh. He ended his evening with a strikeout of Taylor Green, good enough for his ninth strikeout of the evening.

Rhiner Cruz took over for Norris in the eigth and had a 1-2-3 inning with a strikeout. He came back out for the ninth and lost the strikezone issuing back-to-back walks to Aramis Ramirez and Corey Hart. Mills had seen enough at that point and brought in lefty Wesley Wright. Wright allowed both inherited runners to score on a triple by pinch hitter Johnathan Lucroy, but then recorded two groundball outs to end the game.

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