That is a good summation of the Cardinals series. We have to give Brocail, Villareal, Valverde, and Geary more time before we reach any conclusions. They have all been good pitchers in the past, and none of them have pitched more than handful of innings. I probably am least concerned about Valverde. (Closers all over the majors have started the season with some bumps in the road.) In any event, Valverde is our closer, and there isn't anybody to replace him.

Villareal has been problematic. The Astros have committed to him with a 2 or 3 year contract for a tidy sum. So the Astros will give him every chance to succeed, considering that he will be here for awhile.

Geary's stuff has been good, but he had some trouble with pitch selection...at least that is the way it seems. In fact, faulty pitch selection seems to be a recurring theme for the bullpen pitchers. What's going on with that? Would it help if Brad Ausmus did some catching in the late innings in order to assist with calling pitches?

I agree that Moehler and Borkowski are somewhat duplicative in terms of their abilities. At the moment, the Astros really don't have any "youngsters" to call up for the bullpen. I don't know if Nieve is being groomed as a starter or reliever, but in any event he will need some more work in the minor leagues, given his arm surgery.
Some older relief pitchers in the Round Rock bullpen who have pitched very well: Byrdak (LHP signed off waivers out of the Indians organization), Paronto, Hines, Houston....all with zero ERA, but none with more than 5 IP. Maybe one them gets called up at some point.

As for Valverde's velocity, from what I can tell, he seems to have lower velocity (91/92) when he enters the game and then gets up to 95/96 after he ptiches to several batters. I don't know what that says about his warm ups or anything.