Chris Johnson Homers Twice, Astros Sweep Mets

Chris Johnson made it tough impossible to complain about his performance today. What is that you want to see? More Power you say. How about 2 homeruns, 6 RBI’s, and 2 singles added in for good measure. Will that suffice? Maybe he felt the pressure put on him from consecutive homerun nights by Matt Downs and felt that it was time step it up, or maybe it was attacking a rookie pitcher. Whatever it was, it would sure be nice to see some more games like this from the third baseman.

Offense

What a nice performance by the Astros offense today. Jordan Schafer was back in the lineup today, and reached base twice on walks to keep his consecutive on-base streak going, but his hitting streak ended. He also looked to re-aggravate his injury, and was replaced by Justin Maxwell during the game.

Today was CJ’s game without a doubt, but how about Jed Lowrie. He went 3-4 on the day with a double and is now hitting .329 on the year. Throw in the added bonus of errorless defense at shortstop on the year as well, and the Astros are getting more production out of shortstop than they have in a long long time so far.

Brian Bogusevic had a day and went 2-4 with a double, and now has his batting average up to .240. It appears that he was told by the coaching staff that he should be more aggressive at the plate, and the early returns of this look to be paying off. He looks like he could be coming out of his slump.

Other guys to highlight were Carlos Lee and Jason Castro who both went 2-4 on the day. JD Martinez was the only starter to go hitless today besides Schafer who left early with an injury. Justin Maxwell who entered the game for Schafer also joined in on the 15 hit parade.

Pitching

Wandy Rodriguez continued his hot pitching ways by going 7 innings and only allowing 1 run on 6 hits, with 2 walks and 5 strikeouts. His ERA now stands at 1.64 on the season. Wandy got quite a few groundball outs in this one (12 to be exact), and brings his groundball percentage up to 52.1% on the season. His previous high was 47.9% in 2010, so he may regress some here as the season progresses, but it's been nice to see him put it on the ground and let his defense take care of the rest.

Wandy was at 90 pitches when he was removed from the game in favor of giving David Carpenter and Fernando Abad, both of which have had their struggles, an inning of work. The duo managed to keep the Mets off the board and combined for 1 hit, no walks, and 2 strikeouts.

Overall it was a great game, and a great way to end the series against the Mets with the broom. The Astros will enjoy an off day tomorrow before taking on the Cardinals at home this weekend.