Tonight will be a late night as we're on the West Coast, but here are some news and notes to keep you occupied until game time:
- This is just a big quote from Coop about what we're going to do with Felipe Paulino, Russ Ortiz, Mike Hampton, and Brian Moehler, when Hampton returns from the DL:
- Richard Justice claims the following:
- Also from Justice (this post is stuff I've clipped over the last two days): Apparently Ed Wade and Drayton McLane have good relationship. This article is loaded with tons of insight into how the management works and Bobby Heck discussing how he was reluctant to come to Houston based on Drayton's reputation. Truly some interesting stuff.
- Again, from Justice, he claims that there is magic afoot for the Astros.
- The Unofficial Scorer lets us know that Hunter Pence is the only Astro, objectively speaking, deserving of an All-Star bid.
- For those who will miss Brandon Backe, McTaggart writes the most glowing piece about his career I've come across.
- Aaron Boone has been cleared to work out and could be ready by September, according to Bob.
Coop is appealing to the sabr-inclined with the four man rotation idea. The article also discusses line up shuffling and has some insight onto what are line up is likely to look like it in a bit."We’ve talked about it and made some plans, just got to figure out if that’s a good plan," Cecil Cooper said. "It’d be pretty hard to not run Felipe out there. Russ has pitched well. Wandy’s one of the mainstays. Roy’s a mainstay."Moehler’s pitched pretty good, and so has Hampton. What do you do? We’ve got to figure out how to map it out to where they all stay on the hill somehow. ... We’ll go with matchups or something. I don’t know. "Cooper likely won’t go with a six-man rotation because that hasn’t been considered. "We’d have to cross that bridge when we get to it," Cooper said. "I like four. That’s old school. "
Unlike some of you, I never stopped believing in this baseball team. I believed in the talent. I believed in the chemistry. I believed in the manager. Remember the success I predicted back in spring training?I'm too lazy too lazy to look this up, but I know he's called out Coop, Ortiz, and Hampton.