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| Andy Pettitte | Tim Hudson |
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17 - 9, 2.39 1.03 WHIP |
14 - 9, 3.52 1.35 WHIP |
Congratulations to Morgan Ensberg, who was named by the Houston Chapter of the Baseball Writers of America as Astros Team MVP for 2005. Ensberg is just the third player in the last fifteen years to win the award who doesn't have a last name beginning with the letter B. Lance Berkman won the award last year, and three of the last four years.
The Chapter also named Andy Pettitte as Team Pitcher of the Year, and Willy Taveras as Team Rookie of the Year.
The 25-man roster will include Luke Scott rather than Charles Gipson, it was announced this morning. Like saylinara, I think it's a mistake.
But hey, maybe Scott gets that double to center, who knows. Maybe it's just possible that the General Manager of a Major League baseball team knows better than us.
But I doubt it. . . .
Wandy Rodriguez also made the roster, as expected.
So, here we go. Bravos 'n' Astros, mano a mano, toe to toe. Their lineup is clearly better, our pitching is clearly better. Houston, I think, also has an edge from the bench. Maybe even a big edge. It's not rational, but I've just got this warm fuzzy kind of feeling about Bagwell; he's gonna win us a game at some point in the playoffs.
Several Braves come in with a little bit of a question mark. John Smoltz, of course, has the shoulder questions, and Andruw Jones had a .294 onbase percentage in September. But did you know that Francouer had a .739 OPS for the last month of the season? Or that Kelly Johnson, so good for the first half, has basically lost his job, and had a .690 OPS in only 17 September at bats?
On the other hand, Langerhans, LaRoche, and Larry Jones come in red hot. And I'd feel so much better about this series if Farnsworth wasn't pitching for the Braves, or wasn't pitching well.
The first couple innings of today's game will take place while I'm at work, and I'll be forced to follow through GameCast, and I may or may not be able to comment on what I can gather. The next few innings after that, I will be on the highway. Hopefully I can be home by the sixth inning, so I can catch the resolution of the Astros' glorious victory. . .and blog a couple innings.
| OPS | Astro | Pos | Brave | OPS | ||||
| x | .689 | Brad Ausmus | C1 | Johnny Estrada | .670 | |||
| .472 | Raul Chavez | C2 | Brian McCann | .745 | x | |||
| x | .942 | Lance Berkman | 1B | Adam LaRoche | .775 | |||
| .789 | Craig Biggio | 2B | Marcus Giles | .826 | x | |||
| .653 | Adam Everett | SS | Rafael Furcal | .777 | x | |||
| .945 | Morgan Ensberg | 3B | Larry Jones | .968 | x | |||
| .805 | Jason Lane | OF1 | Andruw Jones | .922 | x | |||
| .776 | Orlando Palmeiro | OF2 | Jeff Francouer | .884 | x | |||
| .676 | Chris Burke | OF3 | Ryan Langerhans | .774 | x | |||
| .665 | Willy Taveras | OF4 | Kelly Johnson | .731 | x | |||
| .557 | Luke Scott | OF5 | Brian Jordan | .632 | x | |||
| x | .891 | Mike Lamb | Util/PH1 | Julio Franco | .799 | |||
| x | .744 | Jeff Bagwell | Util/PH2 | Pete Orr | .718 | |||
| .174 | Andy Pettitte | P1 | Tim Hudson | .376 | x | |||
| x | .523 | Roger Clemens | P2 | John Smoltz | .389 | |||
| x | .372 | Roy Oswalt | P3 | Jorge Sosa | .222 | |||
| x | .626 | Brandon Backe | P4 | John Thomson? | .539 |