The Co-Ards have had trouble with pitching all year. From the extraordinary, untimely death of Darryl Kile to run of the mill injuries to Woody Williams and all points in between. So what do they go and do? Trade away two pitchers, that’s what they do. Whaaaaa?
OK. So Rolen is an upgrade over Polanco at 3B. His defense is special, and it does the Co-Ards the huge favour of keeping Pujols off the hot corner. Of course, this puts AlbErt into LF where he’s rapidly garnering a reputation every bit as good as Dimitry Young. ESPN says that this is a good thing because Pujols hits better when he plays LF. Huh?
With the stick, Rolen has better plate discipline and more pop than Placido. But then Polanco hit #2 most of the time, so they’re not really comparable in the line up. I await with baited breath what arrangement Co Russa will make out of this. What I do know is, Rolen will have to generate a shit load of runs.
You see, the Redbirds just traded away two pitchers with major league PT, from a staff that’s been patched together with spit and sawdust from day #1. As an Astros fan I love this. The biggest divisional rival (no, I still don’t count the Reds as competition) has just weakened its pitching staff in time for the arm sapping stretch drive to the strike…errr… post season. By the time the Co-Ards come up against the Astros for the last 7 games head-to-head, their pitching should be well and truly shredded.
An upgrade this is; but it’s not like adding Randy Johnson and it’s certainly not without cost.
Meanwhile, strange things are afoot in AstroLand. The Astros are actually pummeling the dregs of the division, as they’re supposed to do. Biggio and Bagwell are hitting again, plus the ghost of Moises Alou is guiding Brad’s hands at the plate. Oswalt seems to have recovered from his bout of mono or whatever it was that was fatiguing him, Miller is back to his dominant self, Mlicki has returned with a good showing and Saarloos has been a revelation.
Not all is zesty and freshly squeezed for the Astros: there is some pulp. Ward continues to scuffle and Hidalgo has been benched. Berkman has cooled off at the plate too, but has been flashing some leather in CF which is nice. Merced has worked as a temporary plug in at RF and maybe Wesson will get some more time there too. Barry looks like he knows what he’s doing at the plate, and certainly moves well in the outfield.
When I look at the Astros, I see a team in transition. The pitching has come together, despite Wagner’s attempts at derailing the train, and the offense has shown signs of clicking. Either or both could go the wrong way, but if this thing comes together the Astros will scare more than a few people before this is over.
Am I officially jumping back on the bandwagon that I jumped off of in May? Nope. I think there’s too big a hill to climb and not enough time left to do it. But I also think that the Co-Ards have just put themselves on a knife edge, and are one injured starter away from a serious problem.
This week, the Astros play the Mets and Expos. Two teams with similar records and aspirations. A 4-2 record might not be enough to make ground on the division leader, but it does make a statement while boosting the challenge for the Wild Card.
Juneberno. Maybe when this is all done, the Astros and Co-Ards will be tied…