Editor’s note – This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.
I have come not to bury Chris Holt but to…no…I’ve come to hit the guy with a shovel.
First of all let me say, I have nothing against Chris Holt. Despite the fact the guy is from Dallas (and even worse, went to Skyline High School), from all accounts, he doesn’t beat children, spit on old people or offer quaaludes to dogs. He may very well be the nicest, most patient, salt of the earth, greeting card buying (just because) guy to ever walk the face of the earth. However, you cannot deny some simple truths
Holt is 0-5. Holt has put the Astros in an early hole in each of his six starts. Holt seems to be unable to pitch in the first inning.
I have been scratching my ample sized head to figure out what causes a major league pitcher to allow teams (and I use that term loosely) like the Expos to light him up like a pinball machine on amphetamines in the first inning.
Is it physical? Holt claims that his shoulder and elbow are sound and strong?for some reason the Astros management agrees with him. Speaking of health, if I have to watch this guy start again in 5 nights, I may vomit.
Is it mental? He’s allowed 4 runs in the first inning of 4 consecutive starts, putting the Moving Stars in catch-up mode before they even get to the second bag of sunflower seeds. If it’s not mental to Holt, it’s going to start getting mental to the other guys on the team. As in they’ll start expecting to lose every fifth day. Any faith they had in this guy to begin the year has to be gone. Even John Halama looked better than this guy did.
Is Chris just too nice a guy? Does he feel sorry for the other teams? Is he trying to give them a chance to feel good about themselves? Is he trying to be baseball’s answer to Stuart Smalley? Maybe he wanted the Expos to feel that they were good enough, smart enough, and that, doggone it, people liked them. Well at least Chris does.
Flat out, the fact that Chris Holt is even pitching in the major leagues in 1999 is proof that expansion has horribly and maybe irrevocably thinned the hurling ranks.
He needs to head to Bourbon Street, and if he were a man, he’d ask to go. It’s time, past time, to put Scott Elarton in the rotation, bring up Wade Miller, Brian Sikorski, or Jeff McCurry and move on with the season.
Around the League…
Evidently Antonio Osuna is smarter than Dodger management. While admittedly that’s not saying much, he has evidently decided that he doesn’t need surgery on his ailing elbow, despite what the Dojer docs are advising. I can’t tell where Osuna went to medical school, or where he’s doing his orthopedics rotation, but this sure looks like another example of someone who so badly wants to not play for the “Best Organization in Baseball that Kevin Malone works for” that he’s willing to cripple himself to avoid it.
Chan Ho Park, not satisfied with giving up grand slams to Fernando Tatis, decided the easiest way to avoid that sort of face-loss is to not pitch. He actually made a plate umpire invoke the “speeding up the game” rule, because he took more than 30 seconds to toe the rubber. I told you 5 years ago that those rules actually existed.
Steve Trachsel, who is quickly becoming a master at stating the obvious, made this astute observation about the idiots who populate the friendly confines of Juicy Fruit Field, after they booed him for giving up five runs in six innings, “Doesn’t bother me; they obviously don’t know anything. You can’t make them happy.”
Astro of the Week…Because he makes me smile, Jose Lima. He was also the only Astro Pitcher who managed to beat that glorified Pony League Team from Montreal. 5 down, 15 to go. Do you want to tell him he’s not going to make it? I don’t want him calling me a free-king maign-knee-act.
DisAstro of the Week…I’m not panicking, but Shane Reynolds is the first player to drop from Astro of the Week to the other end of the spectrum. And this is totally for allowing the freakin’ Frenchies to score 6 runs in an inning against him. Not only that, but with one performance he gave E$PN and FOX the ability to run their, “Astros need an ace” angle on every league overview for the next month. He’ll rebound; I have no doubt, but for one week, Tsk, tsk, tsk…
