As you may have noticed, Hunter Pence has finally been given a shot to start in the majors, replacing Chris Burke as the starting center fielder for your Houston Astros(starting tonight). Personally, I think it's about damn time... I mean it only took a 7 game losing streak for Purpura to do something about it.
I'm a big fan of Burke, but he just hasn't put up enough production to warrant an everyday spot in center field. If he was an average or above average center fielder and he wasn't doing well on offense, then I could maybe give him a slide. But he's been below average in the outfield and below average at the plate. Burke has the worst batting average on the team of the regular starters(.219) and has struck out 17 times. He only shows to have 1 error on the season in the field, but there have been numerous chances that he just didn't get to that a decent outfielder would have made the play on.
That being said, I still expect Burke to get starts in center field and he'll probably get more starts at 2nd base as well.. Hopefully this doesn't take away from starts that Loretta would be getting, being that Loretta is actually putting up good numbers this season in his limited playing time(.361 avg).
With Pence coming up, Randolph went down. That sucks for Randolph, who really didn't get a chance to take a spot on the team. Through 2 games, he pitched one inning after rushing up to Pittsburgh to take over for Rick White who hit the DL.
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