Game Hero, 25 - 35

Chris Sampson

6-2/3 IP, 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K 54 Game Score Leads Astros starters in Innings Pitched,     Quality Starts and ERA since May 1 Ties Roy Oswalt for club lead in wins.

A very difficult selection this evening as a lot of little contributions from many players added up to a fairly workaday victory. Although we scored five runs, no player scored more than one run, and no player had more than one RBI. And four of our five RBI came with two out.

Luke Scott was tempting, as he came off the bench to become only one of two players with more than one hit, and if one of those hits had been for extra bases, I may have gone there.

But despite the unimpressive strikeout to walk ratio, I'm again going with Sampson, who has, quite simply, been our best starter for a few weeks now. Friday was his sixth straight Quality Start, and his fifth straight Game Score above 50.

No starting pitcher on this club has pitched better and more consistently since Mayday than Sampson, and if yiou remove Brad Lidge from the equation, you can say that no-one at all has.