What the hell, Matt Lindstrom?
Do you want Brandon Lyon to steal your job? Or have you decided to join up with Danny Meszaros and Chia-Jen Lo in the David's Favorite Relievers Who Also Disappoint Him Club? I don't like that club. David Berner best not think about joining.
One of the many, many disappointing things about this game is that Wandy Rodriguez threw another gem. He pitched 6 1/3 innings while striking out seven and allowing two runs (one earned). It's another in a string of good starts by Wandy, showing that his 2009 season wasn't the fluke that we might have thought earlier in the year.
Chris Johnson, Carlos Lee and Geoff Blum all had multiple hits, with Blum going 3 for 5 with two runs scored. Michael Bourn also stole his 34th and 35th bases while Jeff Keppinger walked twice. Add in a Brett Wallace double and the offense did pretty well to support Wandy.
Allow me a quick digression about Chris Johnson. Did you happen to catch Richard Justice's tweet about CJ jumping into the NL Rookie of the Year talk? No doubt, his .359 batting average and 29 RBIs in 153 plate appearances will do that. CJ is currently third on the team in RBIs behind Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee (now that Lance is a Yankee). The thing is, he's over halfway to Pence's total and he's gotten nearly 300 less plate appearances. Fact is, Johnson has been beastly since his callup.
The thing is, his season reminds me a little of when Pence was called up. Hunter put up sterling batting averages without walking much. Pence struck out too much and hit for some power but not a prodigious amount. We've talked about the comparison between the two players before, but the point I'd make now is that his true talent level is probably somewhere south of that .359/.379/.557 line. You already know that, though.
Still and all, I've been impressed with Johnson as a hitter. In 15 of the 42 games he's appeared in this season, he picked up multiple hits. He also leads the team in wOBA for the season and in the past 30 days.
So, that leads us back to Lindstrom. A home run and a two-run single by Prince Fielder undid him. But, a walk preceding the home run and a single and a walk before Fielder's hit also hurt. As bad as the Astros have been this season, there haven't been as many games where they should have won and didn't. This one sucked. I'm not even going to post the WPA graph because it's so depressing. Till tomorrow...