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Houston Astros Take Game 3 From the Reds, Look to Sweep


Final - 8.9.2008 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R
Houston Astros 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 3
Cincinnati Reds 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1

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Very nice outing by Brian Moehler...  7 innings of 5 hit, 1 run ball while striking out 3 and walking none... Very nice outing indeed.  Actually Moehler has been phenomenal lately....  In his last 3 games(20 2/3 innings), Moehler has allowed just 16 hits, 3 earned runs, 1 walk and striking out 10...  Amazing for a guy that the Astros were keeping around to eat up innings after games were out of hand before...  boy has he turned his career around.  The bullpen (consisting of Geary, Byrdak and Valverde) came in and did it's job as well by throwing 2 innings of hit-less ball with Geary and Byrdak both earning a hold and Valverde a save. 

The win makes me happy... but we lost Carlos lee for some time after he was plunked in his 2nd at bat on the left hand, breaking his pinky finger... Who knows how long he'll be out yet, but I'm assuming he'll go on the DL... Joe from Birmingham stated he seen blood from Lee's finger... Let's just hope for a smooth and quick recovery.

Offensively, the Astros did just enough to get the win... 8 hits isn't all that great, but it's more than the Reds got... so I'm happy with it.

The win tonight puts the Astros just 2 games under .500 at 57-59... unfortunately both the Brewers and Cardinals won tonight... so no improvement in the NL Wild Card race.

Next up, the Astros go for a 4 game sweep tomorrow against the Reds at 12:15 PM, sending the Magic Wandy to the hill against Aaron Harang.


Next Game

Houston Astros
@ Cincinnati Reds

Sunday, Aug 10, 2008, 12:15 PM CDT
Great American Ball Park

Wandy Rodriguez vs Aaron Harang

Partly cloudy. Winds blowing out to right field at 10-15 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Near 75.

Complete Coverage >




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In another thread (where we talked about Lee's salary)...

I suggested, half-heartedly, that putting Erstad in LF, instead of Lee, wouldn’t be as big a loss as it seems, because the defensive improvement would offset part of the offfensive loss. Now I feel bad about the possibility of seeing that experiment take place. Lee is out for the year, unless the Astros make the playoffs.

The statement I mentioned above about Lee was based on his normal offensive stats, which are generally in the mid-800’s for OPS. Since the All Star Break, Lee has been on fire, with a .372 BA and 1.11 OPS. (His OPS is 1.572 in August.) Even with defensive improvement, it will be hard for the team to make up for losing that kind of offense.

The best way for the Astros to overcome that kind of loss is for Berkman to get out of the offensive doldrums. Berkman has a .740 OPS since the ASB, and he is hitting .219 with a .636 OPS in August. If Berkman would get back to his “normal” OPS in the .900’s for the remainder of the year, that would go a long way. It also wouldn’t hurt if Erstad and Bourn could pitch in on the offensive side more.

The Astros called up Abercrombie to replace Lee. I’m not too excited about that move. We’ve seen him already. Try someone else. Maybe even Nick Gorneault. He has hit 3 grand slams this year.

by clack on Aug 10, 2008 10:10 AM CDT reply reply actions actions   0 recs

And unfortunately,

including today’s game, we only get to play the Reds 7 more games this year.

Why, oh why, oh why oh
Can’t we play those Reds of Ohio
All season long?

It takes more than pitching to win a pennant, but not much!

by bwhite2323 on Aug 10, 2008 10:32 AM CDT to parent up reply reply actions actions   0 recs

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