The Great American Bandbox
Monday, May 7, 6:10 p.m. CDT – FSN
Tuesday, May 8, 6:10 p.m. CDT – FSN
Wednesday, May 9, 6:10 p.m. CDT – FSN
Thursday, May 10, 11:35 p.m. CDT – FSN
Okay. I’ve tried being funny. I’ve tried… Allright, funny is all I’ve tried, other than asking a plastic kid’s toy how a series would turn out. Nonetheless, I’m sick of the Good Guys winning one out of three in the previews I do. It’s time to get this ship pointed in the right direction, hoist the Jolly Roger, load up the cannons, hoist the mainsail, and take care of business!
Projected Matchups from Astros.com
Monday
Roy Oswalt (4-2, 3.06) v. Kyle Lohse (1-2, 3.12)
Roy O upped his record against the Reds last week to 18-1, going 8 innings and utterly destroying the Reds save a solo shot by Adam Dunn that barely snuck over the right field wall. It’s a pretty well documented fact that Roy owns the Reds, so I’m not going in to any great detail about it. Roy, stare at this for at least 30 minutes before game time. Alex Gonzalez (5-13) is the enemy. Destroy him by any means possible! And if you’re feeling generous, please plunk Griffey Jr. for me at some point in the game if the Good Guys manage to get a lead.
Kyle Lohse was re-signed via arbitration by the Redlegs with hopes of him filling out the middle/bottom the rotation. Lohse hasn’t done anything spectacular since his first few years with the Twins; mostly he eats innings and gives up a lot of fly balls. He gives up more hits than innings pitched, and his ERA has hovered around 4.50 higher for most of his career. The 3.12 ERA he is sporting right now will almost definitely go way up before the season is over, especially when you see his ground outs to fly outs split favors fly balls. And we all know that fly balls in The Great American Who Fucking Cares mean homeruns, and lots of ‘em.
On paper, the Astros own Mr. Lohse. The following players hit .333 or above against him: Roy Oswalt (1-2), Jason Lane (1-2), Brad Ausmus (2-5), Carlos Lee (16-41!), Craig Biggio (3-9), Orlando Palmeiro (1-3), Adam Everett (2-6), Mike Lamb (4-12), Pence!!! (1-3). Everyone else pretty much has sucked against him.
Tuesday
Wandy Rodriguez (0-3, 4.09) v. Eric Milton (0-4, 4.85)
Wandy and Woody are fighting hard for the “Last Starter To Get A Win” award, Houston Division. Wandy had one bad outing against the Brewers, which is the only thing keeping his ERA above 4. He has given up 3 or less runs in all but that one start, and has done a great job battling through the infamous “Wandy Inning” he was known for last year. Wandy has only walked 8(!) so far this year, while ponche-ing 32. That is pretty damn impressive.
Aside from Griffey Jr. (6-8), Wandy has done a pretty good job against the Reds in his career in limited numbers. Adam Dunn and Brandon Phillips are both 2 for 5 against him. Other than that, he has kept the Reds he has faced in check. The only homer Wandy has given up to a Red was Griffey’s cannon-shot during the Reds series at MMP last week.
Eric Milton generally sucks. He’s only made it through 6 innings once so far this year, with a couple of 5 inning outings and a 4 and one third outing too. And we all know what happens when you turn the game over to the Reds’ pen early in the game… Boom boom, out go the lights.
Morgan Ensberg (7-13, 2 HR, 3 BB) absolutely owns Milton, as does Brad Ausmus (10-27). Lance Berkman sports a Moberg-like OBP of .400, despite only having one hit in seven at bats. Other than that, the Astros haven’t done much against him in limited chances. Adam Everett (1-11) and Jason Lane (1-10) pretty much bring up rear.
Wednesday
Woody Williams (0-5, 5.49) v. Matt Belisle (3-1, 4.10)
This is the most painful match up of all for me. I really want Woody to turn it around and get a W, but I really don’t want it to be against Matty B. Woody has been good against the Reds, holding everyone but Ken Griffey Jr. (13-31, 5 HR) and Josh Hamilton (2-3) both in the ballpark and low in average. Adam Dunn has hit 4 big flies against him, but only has 9 hits in 40 at bats against Woody total.
Matt has limited exposure to the Astros, with Craig Biggio, Brad Ausmus, and Carlos Lee taking 5 at bats against him each. Believe it or not, those 3 are a rather shocking 0-15 against Belisle. Guys with success against him in their limited ABs: Mark Loretta (2-2), Fat Elvis (2-3), and Luke Scott (1-2). Matt hasn’t given up a homer to the Good Guys, and in fact has only given up one extra base hit to the current Astros, a Lance Berkman double.
I’m rooting for this one to go to the Red bullpen in a 1-1 tie, and David Weathers to give up 2 or 3 grand slams in the late innings to propel the ‘Stros to the win.
Thursday
Matt Albers (1-1, 3.32) v Aaron Harang (4-1, 4.78)
Fat Albers struck back for his first win in the Majors against the Redbirds last week, pitching 7 1/3 of fantastic baseball on short rest before yielding to the pen in Saturday’s 13-0 laugher. The bad news is Albers has been tattooed by the Reds in his short MLB career. Half the starting lineup is hitting over .400 against him in limited exposure, mostly thanks to his inability to get out of the 3rd inning in a stinker against the Reds last week at Minute Maid. Granted 3 of the 6 runs he gave up were unearned, but he still managed to give up 8 hits in 2 1/3 innings. Scott Hatteberg (3-6) has the most success at the plate against him, but a long list of 1 for 2’s follow: Griffey Jr., Alex Gonzalez, Josh Hamilton, and David Ross. Brandon Phillips (1-6) and Edwin Encarnacion (1-4) have the most at bats that sucked against him.
I hate Aaron Harang. He’s like 9 feet tall, throws about 15 miles per hour, and it’s my understanding he stole Christmas back in 1995. He is somehow 4-1 with an ERA near 5, and always seems to have big games against the Astros. He also has royally fucked me the two times he was on my fantacrap baseball team, but that’s neither here nor there. Jason Lane (5-14) has had good success against him with 2 homers in his 5 hits. Luke Scott (4-12, 2 triples!), Adam Everett (8-27), and Mike Lamb (8-28) have all had also hit him well. Bidge has 12 hits off of him, but in 42 at bats. Berkman struggles to hit for average against him (7-32), but 5 of those 7 hits have been homers, and another was a double. Amazingly, Lance’s 6 extra base hits have netted him 6 whole RBIs. Way to set the table, guys. Ensberg (3-18), Burke (2-12_Ausmus 4-23) and Loretta (4-23) have all struggled against him.
Notable giveaways this series…
Not much to report here. Apparently the Reds are cutting their bleacher prices on Monday. And some kind of hair cutting deal Thursday. Frankly, who gives a rat’s ass?
Injury Report
Houston –
Nothing new to report here.
Jason Jennings is still a few weeks away per Garner.
Giminez is still out for the year.
Brandon Backe is still planning on coming back as soon as possible.
To the best of my knowledge, Jared Burton and Elizardo Ramirez are residing on the 15-Day DL with a bum hamstring and right shoulder problems respectively. Always a damn shame when El Lizard isn’t pitching. What an awesome name.
Eddie Guardado and Chris Denorfia populate the 60-day DL with injuries to their pitching elbows.
Our Interesting Things To Look For
I managed to prevent Jason Lane from even seeing playing time with my kiss of death/Interesting Things To Look For feature last preview, so we’re just going to stop talking about Astro players all together…
[list]
[li] Roger Clemens completed the circle of assholeness by returning to the New York PoleSmokes. There are few sports teams in this world I hate more than the Yankees, and Rog going to play out that way makes it easy for me to go from vaguely liking him for being an Astro to hating him for being the colossal cock-sucker that he is.
Foghorn said it best…
“Not to go all Denny Green, but Clemens is who we thought he was. Don’t ask Satan to the prom and then get upset when he whips out his fire cock and butt rapes you.
Or something.[/li]
[li] Hopefully, with the Clemens Horse-shit Express Train pulling in to New York, the Astros can start to bear down and play some real baseball, instead of this “Leave 10 guys on base every goddamn game” nonsense they’ve been pulling. [/li]
[li] Along that same line of thinking, I really think the Good Guys are just another hit or two away from breaking out in a big way for more than one game a week. If Lance would just get his big ass in gear, things might just start falling in to place. The pitching has been great so far, and the bats need to stop pissing away all these excellent starts. [/li]
[li] If you listen carefully, you will probably be able to hear the Coach and me cursing whichever team is doing better on Wednesday. That is going to be a painful one. [/li]
[/list]
Discuss today’s game in the GameZone.
Edited to fix link.