Astros crest .500 for the first time in 2009: Astros - 3 Dodgers - 0
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 12:42 AM CDT
in Events
31 comments
This will easily the first time that I won't mind having had to stay alert until 12:20 AM CDT to write a game recap. The Astros started off the second half of the season in encouraging fashion with Wandy Rodriguez battling through what HLP and I remarked, via phone, to be one widely inconsistent, but wide, strike zone to shut out the Dodgers for six innings. After that, Tim Byrdak, Alberto Arias, LaTroy Hawkins, and Jose Valverde combined to honor Wandy's effort and slam the door on a shut out on the best team in baseball whose fabled slugger, Manny Ramirez, was back in LA for the first time since his attempt to restart his ovaries landed him a 50 game suspension.
The positives (there will be no corollary negatives):
- Wandy Rodriguez posted the following line: 6IP, 5H, 0R, 6K, 2BB, 7 GB outs, and 5 FB outs on 108 pitches, 68 of which were strikes. That's a 3 K:BB and a 5.56 K/100. Not the greatest outing ever, but against a team who is near the top in just about every offensive category of worth in the NL—pretty stellar. Thanks, Wandy.
- Humberto Quintero felt bad about stranding Kaz Matsui after Kaz just missed a HR in the 3rd, so he went ahead a crushed his first HR of the year to deep right center field.
- Cecil Cooper pulled the right lever by inserting Darin Erstad as Lance Berkman's defensive replacement and it paid off in spades with Erstad making two pretty dazzling plays to keep the Dodgers from truly threatening the Astros. The problem of watching the game on mute is that you don't find out Lance Berkman left the game with a calf strain until it pops up in your RSS feed after you hit publish...
- Alberto Arias continues to honor everyone here at TCB who pegged him to be a dark horse for the Astros in 2009 by working out of he and Byrdak's jam in the 7th by striking out Juan Piere and Raphel Furcal before getting a GB out on Andre Either.
- Carlos Lee didn't have an embarrassing moment in the game.
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Arias, Hawkins, Valverde
the new “Lidge, Dotel, Wagner”?
by goingforthecorner on Jul 17, 2009 1:12 AM CDT reply actions
Can we drop out the Dotel part?
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 1:19 AM CDT up reply actions
Can't really...
Dotel was pretty good in 2003.
Looks like the Astros have a ton of young bullpen arms going forward: Arias if they keep him there, Wright, Lo, Norris may come up as a reliever. Easiest part of a baseball team to build should be a ’pen…
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
I know he was good
It’s just hard for me to separate out the good from the bad.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 2:01 AM CDT up reply actions
God bless you
Ed Wade.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 2:07 AM CDT up reply actions
Which I personally think
is ridiculous. The Astros really didn’t do much in getting this bullpen, a very solid one, together. Cheap signings and waiver-wire.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
Agreed
All you need is a couple of solid arms and a couple of situational guys for a change of pace – I don’t see how every team in the league doesn’t have a decent pen.
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
I think the reason it's difficult for teams to build good bullpens
is because the “shelf life” for relievers tends to be shorter than those of starters. Here are my hypotheses about why that is so:
The back end of the bullpen usually has a number of guys who are failed starters…typically because they don’t have enough quality pitches. This makes it easier for opposing batters/scouts to figure out The Book on them.
Also, Relievers play more regularly, so are very open to overuse.
At the same time, they usually pitch a third of the innings that starters do, so a season’s worth of statistical data for a reliever is more subject to small sample size warnings. So on a year to year basis, a reliever’s performance might appear more inconsistent than it actually is. This makes eyeball scouting more valuable, and some teams just don’t have as good a crop of major league eyeball scouts.
I love the graph
But notice it only shows offensive moments, is there anyway to show key K’s on the graph. I was pumped when Wandy got out of the jam in the 5th and Arias got out of the jam in the 7th. I actually stood up and gave a fist pump, after Arias got the GB from Either.
Well
I don’t make the graphs, I just post’em. Even though it’s not explicitly noted, all of that is in there, the just generally provide notation for the big scoring plays…or epically crushing outs.
If you click this link, it’ll take you to the play log that has every play’s corresponding Win Probaility Added (WPA), so you can get everything you want quantified.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 9:47 AM CDT up reply actions
Don't know why I bother
or why I’m bothering to note, when it’s so predictable, but I caught the SC highlights of the game over a bowl of cereal this morning. They showed all four Manny at-bats, Juan Pierre’s pinch-hit strike-out, complete with standing ovation when he came to the plate for some reason, and Ethier’s double play in the 8th (only because it followed the Manny hit). That’s it. That was their whole highlight. Not even a quick nod to the outing Wandy had or his 17-inning scoreless streak. NOT ONE SCORING PLAY. Not even the final out. Nothing that actually might be construed as a “highlight” (wait, they actually did show Erstad’s over-the-shoulder catch in the 9th now that I think about it). Anyway, it was a pathetic series of genuflections to Manny.
Did watch the whole game last night, and am tired this morning as a result. Fortunately that’s the last weeknight west coast game of the season, and it was worth staying up for. I’m trying to fight back the unfettered optimism, but it feels good to have the Astros above .500 for the first time this year. Hopefully it lasts a while.
ESPN is really bad. Just last week, the entire Dodgers-Mets highlight was showing all of Manny’s AB and that’s it. They missed any of the highlight plays, as you mention. Its even frustrating for a Dodger fan, but I would imagine its even worse for a non-Dodger fan when you just want to see actual highlights of, you know, the team that won the game!
I generally love MLB Network, and their highlights are usually spot on, and very thorough. But even last week they fell under the spell of “must show Manny” and some of their Dodger highlights were very Manny-centric.
Overall, though, MLB Network is miles ahead of any baseball content on ESPN.
by Eric Stephen on Jul 17, 2009 10:21 AM CDT up reply actions
Damn you Suddenlink
Provide me the MLB Network
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 10:49 AM CDT up reply actions
ESPN Shows Manny the Ex-Red Sox
The fact he is wearing a Dodger uniform is incidental
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 17, 2009 12:37 PM CDT up reply actions
That must have been miserable
Waking up after the game, tired, and then to be a watching morning SC (easily the worst television programming in the history of television) and see that….ugh. I imagine you hadn’t even finished cup of coffee number one. That’s just rough.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 9:50 AM CDT up reply actions
That's a shame, too
there was some good defense played last night.
I’m a sucker for web gems. All homers look alike to me, so I don’t care about seeing those.
There was a lot of good defense last night. That was the story of the game, along with the breaking balls of Wandy and Arias neutralizing the Dodger bats.
by Eric Stephen on Jul 17, 2009 11:31 AM CDT up reply actions
Fortunately
The sliding catch from Pence and the nice DP turn from Erstad were included, since they involved Manny. Also, the nice breaking balls that were employed to strike Manny out twice in his three AB’s against Wandy, were at least in frame if not the topic of conversation during the highlight.
If I were a Dodger fan, though, I think I’d rather have seen the great catch at the wall by Ethier and the slick fielding by Cabrera and Furcal on Berkman and Tejada’s bids for seeing eye singles. Those were really the only notable highlights for LA.
by littlevisigoth on Jul 17, 2009 2:07 PM CDT up reply actions
Both of Cabrera and Furcal's plays
Were of the soul crushing variety.
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 2:37 PM CDT up reply actions
Do you mean Orlando Hudson? The Dodgers don’t have a Cabrera.
by Eric Stephen on Jul 17, 2009 4:51 PM CDT up reply actions
Yes
Hudson
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 4:53 PM CDT up reply actions
Alberto Arias
has some nasty stuff. He fooled Furcal so bad on that backdoor slider (I think.) When he can command(which seems to be often these days) the strikezone he’s very dominant.
"I am from one of the top 15 cities in the world. Buffalo, New York." - TrentEdwardsHoF2018
Good win for the ‘Stros. I feel great for Quintero as well, he’s always trying hard, and it probably was probably and unexpected gut punch for his job security for the team to bring in Coste. Kind of like the Texans bringing in Dan Reeves as a consultant before canning Casserly. Also, good to see Matsui healthy and playing well.
As far as Arias, he’s been awesome this year. His stuff is pretty nasty, when he commands it, and I really like the fact that he’s given up only one home run all year. It just occurred to me that Arias could be a closer possibility in 2010 if Valverde and Hawk go.
So much for history
No one mentioned this yet: For the past few years Wandy has lived a Jeckyl & Hyde existence, emulating Cy Young at Minute Maid and Jason Jennings on the road. This was a road game agaisnt a team with hitters, and Wandy pitched masterfully.
That’s exciting.
Astros fan for life
by Joe in Birmingham on Jul 17, 2009 2:20 PM CDT reply actions
Wandy
Why do you pull a guy after only 6 innings when he’s dominating?
Cecil Cooper fastest call to the Bullpen in the West!
Because he was @ 106 pitches?
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Jul 17, 2009 7:12 PM CDT up reply actions
I thought Cooper had commited himself to trying to get as many runs as possible at the time he made the decision to PH with Blum. The Astros only had 1 run at the time when he showed Blum as the likely PHer. The Astros had 3 runs wtih 2 out and a runner on 3d by the time Blum came up to pinch hit. Maybe you could argue for calling Blum back and putting Wandy in the batter’s box at that point, but I think Wandy had already been told he was done. I won’t argue with the decision.
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4 game series vs Dodgers @ Minute Maid Park
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Los Angeles Dodgers
Thursday, Sep 9, 2010, 7:05 PM CDT Partly cloudy,rain. Winds blowing out to left field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 90. |
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati
|
79 | 60 | .568 | 0 | Lost 4 |
|
St. Louis
|
72 | 65 | .525 | 6 | Lost 2 |
|
Houston
|
66 | 73 | .474 | 13 | Won 2 |
|
Milwaukee
|
65 | 74 | .467 | 14 | Won 2 |
|
Chicago
|
60 | 80 | .428 | 19.5 | Lost 2 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
47 | 92 | .338 | 32 | Lost 1 |
(updated 9.9.2010 at 9:41 AM CDT)
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