Astros vs. Giants Post Game Analysis

I was fortunate enough to catch game one of this series on TV* tonight so I'm going to offer a little post game analysis here. This is our first game against the Giants this year and we took this one 7-3. The Giants scored all three of their runs before we even scored one, but we came back with seven for the win. Oswalt got the win and Valverde the save. On the offensive side, Lance Berkman and Jose Cruz Jr. were the stars of the game.

Roy Oswalt
IP: 8.0, Hits: 5, ER: 3, BB: 0, SO: 6, HR: 1

Take a look at the pitching line above. Three runs and only one homer in eight innings and you might think he had a pretty good game. He did and that should be satisfying. But was this a return the Roy of old? Not quite. He was a bit erratic at times and not just during the first four innings when he gave up those three runs. Roy retired 14 batters in a row from the bottom of the fourth to the end of the eighth and that is great. Great results, but is he back? The jury is still out on this one. One plus for Roy: the Giants hitters were pretty hot coming into this game, so those results should be taken with that in mind.

The Bullpen

Two pitchers took the mound for the Astros Monday night. Geoff Geary and Jose Valverde. Geary had a so-so performance. He got two outs, but he also was hit once and walked a batter. Valverde came in for the save when his team was ahead by four. This is the rare instance where there are enough players coming up to lose the game: 2 men on base, 1 current batter and 1 on deck batter. For those of you who didn't see the game on TV, you might have squirmed when a Giants batter got a hit against him. Let me allay your worries. That was one of the best surprise bunts I've seen recently. No one was expecting it. It was hit perfectly and was just about perfectly place. That Giants hitter (sorry can't recall who did it) knew exactly what he was doing and did it well. I don't blame Valverde at all. He got the last out by inducing a fly out to left field from the very next batter.

The Offense

The Puma just keeps on... Pumaing. :p He was 3-4 on Monday night with a single, double and a home run. He increased his batting average by .011 to .393 and is only .011 behind league leader (and MLB leader) Chipper Jones. He is now tied for the most home runs in the league (and MLB) with Chase Utley. (They both have 13 each by the way.) He leads the National League in RBIs with 38. He is so close to taking over the lead in the Triple Crown race that it could happen any day now. As for Cruz, no one expected it, but he delivered. He was 2-3 Monday night with a walk and was key in some critical plays. Carlos Lee was 0-3, but he was viewed as enough of a threat to be intentionally walked. Pence also had a good night. I'm very happy with the way he's learned to lay off the down and away (and just down) pitches lately.

The Defense

To call this defense amazing is probably an exaggeration, but they have been really good. Well, except for Ty Wigginton. Watching Ty in the field can be a bit worrisome. He seems to be a little bit confused at times when he's making a play, but maybe that's just me. Tejada has been excellent and I'm amazed at some of the plays he makes in the field. Puma also excelling in the field. He had several nice plays today. I don't know what his defensive statistics are this season, but watching him lately makes me think he's one of the better defensive first basemen for this season. The ball Cruz dove and missed on early in the game was a very close play. You would think he had caught it if you didn't actually see the ball behind him. This surely would have been a top defensive highlight in the league tonight if he had made the play. I can't fault him too much for that.

Wrap Up

The game didn't turn out exactly how I predicted. I predicted a win, yes, but I also thought we'd get to Barry Zito sooner. I feel the Astros wasted some at bats against him because he was more erratic that Roy was. Astros swung at pitches they would have been better served laying off of at times. His fast ball was slow and other pitches were constantly out of the zone. I feel we could have damaged him more with a bit more patience. In fact, the only out Berkman made today could have been avoided if he had not swung on a high pitch trying to protect a running a Tejada (which he failed to do anyway.) The Giants bullpen gave up two runs in three innings (aside from the ridiculous Zabu/Velez screw up) and that's about what I was expected. It afforded us a look at the bullpen which will serve us well in the coming three games. This was a good game for us, overall.

Other notes:

• Roy can't bunt for crap. I've never seen a bunter chase pitches out of the zone as bad as Oswalt does when he tries to bunt.
• Watch Geary walk back and forth to the mound. He looks like he should be wearing tights.
• One place for improvement: Ty Wigginton. Bad defense, bad offense. We need a better 3rd baseman.
• Ausmus seems to be splitting time with Towles more evenly lately. This could be a good thing.
• Valverde didn't fist pump when he ended the game. He did this sort of chest salute thing, which I thought was interesting.

 

*I live in Louisiana, which means I'm in a blackout area so I can't order MLB Extra Innings or MLB.tv. BUT -- my regional sports network chooses to show Rangers games most of the time, so I'm pretty much out of luck when it comes to watching the Astros. Don't expect these post games from me often. :)