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| Adam Eaton | Roy Oswalt |
| 7 - 5, 5.75 | 7 - 5, 3.42 |
Roy Oswalt takes his third shot at tying Nolan Ryan on the Astros' career win charts this evening, and I know there ain't no jealous ghost of Nolan Ryan, so hows about he gets it this time?
Oswalt on further inspection has won only once in his last nine trips to the hill, and while he continues to get deep into games for the most part, he's also given up nine hits or more in five of those nine starts.
As JD often reminds us, Roy has a higher hit total than most premier pitchers, because he attacks the zone so much. Even so, his hits/9 this season at 9.27 is about .six-tenths above his career. And no, you can't blame it on BABIP: that has remained at his career average .308 for most of the season.
It does appear that opponents are putting the ball safely into play more often this year vs. Oswalt. . . and let's not even talk about how his walk rate has more than doubled over what it's been the last two years.
Great. And now we've got to go into battle vs. the Phillies behind this bum.
Welll. . . . maybe, just maybe, it'll go OK; after all, Woody was successful last night, and Roy is coming off his best start in nearly a month.
And he's our ace goshdarnedit, the perennial most underrated pitcher in the entire National League. We're gonna vote him into the All-Star Game, and he don't need no stinkin' peripherals, anyway.
Astros have won four of five for only the sixth time all year, and have won seven of eight home games, that's a season first. And I know you know from reading littlevisigoth's post that the Lance we know and love has finally arrived: Berkman's OPS over the past 30 days is over 1.000.