Chuck, Live from Kissimmee (3/14/2011)

I’ve watched too many spring games to believe that what you see in March is what you’ll see in April. But I wouldn’t mind seeing some consistency out of the projected starting pitching, some decent defense, no further base running injuries and maybe a little hitting out of the team’s touted prospects.

I’d dreaded recapping the last five games I’d seen. And so I hadn’t.  They were mostly shitfests, variations on the same theme. But apparently spicy Vietnamese crawfish give Limey an adrenaline burst and he managed to beat me to it. Thanks, Limey!

Let me first address the Bill Hall – Cole Hamels standoff. This is really all on Laz Diaz. Remember, Carlos had just hit a home run. Hall strides to the plate, raises his right hand to signal for time like he always does as he digs in and readies himself. I personally don’t think Hall takes an inordinately long time – he scrapes four or five times with his back foot, taps the bat, grabs it with the back hand and is ready to go. Hamels was obviously pissed that he’d left the last pitch up. I’d noticed that when Carlos emerged onto the on-deck area he didn’t use any sort of weight, he just had his bat and didn’t even swing it to warm up at all. He stood there with the bat on his shoulder and watched the warm-up pitches. He strode out into the batter’s box and smashed the first pitch he saw over the left field fence.

So Hamels is pissed. Hall enters the box and has his back hand up asking for time. He’s looking down at the dirt as he readies himself. I have no idea what Diaz was looking at because he’s just standing there with his hands hanging naturally, not signaling time out at all.  Hamels goes into his wind-up and about midway through Hall realizes that Hamels is trying to pitch to him right about the same time that Diaz realizes that he should have been signaling time out. Diaz waves his arms for time out and Hamels stops his delivery mid-stream.

Hall again raises his back hand, his right hand, and digs in. This time Diaz is raising his hands, too. Hamels ignores all of this and begins his motion. He’s still pissed and is intent to pitch. Hall seems to know that Diaz has time out so he’s not looking at Hamels, but Diaz is. Once Hamels gets into his wind-up Diaz shouts for time out and Hall, annoyed, steps out of the box entirely and takes a couple of steps, takes a breath, composes himself and does it all over again.

At last Hamels waits until Hall drops the hand and, more relevantly, until the home plate umpire gives him the signal to pitch. Hamels winds up and delivers a fastball high and tight, chest high, maybe ten inches off the plate. It’s not meant to hit Hall, but definitely meant to deliver a message. Hall steps out of the box with his left foot, right foot still in the box. He knows what’s happened, of course, but he’s calm. Hamels gets the ball back from Ruiz and turns towards the mound and after a step or two suddenly turns back towards the plate and shouts something at Hall. Hall stiffens up, surprised, and then strides towards the mound, shouting at the pitcher. Diaz immediately jumps in front of Hall and shoves him back although Hall never made a move to charge.

Hall is not the bad guy here. Hamels got taken deep, was a dick, was a dick again, threw inside to Hall and then chirped about it. Fuck that prick. Hall got a knock his next at bat and was followed by a Chris Johnson home run. When CJ crossed the plate Hall slapped his open palm forcefully on Johnson’s chest, shouting in catharsis.

What else?

Steele had, what, five at bats? He never managed to get the ball out of the infield. He’s fast, though, I can tell you that. Drew Locke gave the Phillies their tying run. With a runner on third he caught a fly in very shallow right and his throw sailed over the cutoff man and was at least fifteen feet up the line. It was a shockingly bad throw, worse than anything Pence could dream up. I have no idea why Martinez was sent back to the minors camp while the team continues to evaluate Steele, Shuck and Locke.

The Phillies’ winning run came on a colossal, Little League style fuck-up. Esposito was catching and with a fast runner on second he let a ball get through his legs. He definitely should have blocked it; it really wasn’t that hard a chance. As he jogged back to retrieve the ball the runner made an aggressive turn around third. Esposito fired to Navarro at third but mistimed the throw and gave Navarro a difficult throw to handle. The runner broke for home once he knew that the ball was coming back to third and made it easily. It was very, very ugly. Just for balance Corporan threw one into right field giving the Phillies a run. There were men on first and second and the runner on second stole third easily. This was with Figueroa pitching, and he paid no attention to the base runners at all. Corporan had the good idea of throwing to first but Wallace was tardy to the bag and the throw went wide. Free run.

Last thing – late in the game Q singled and took an unwisely aggressive turn himself. He beat the throw back to first but just barely. He slid awkwardly head-first back to the bag and lay there for some time in apparent pain. Great, I’m thinking, the team’s two starting catchers are out thanks to base running misadventures and we’re stuck with Moe Bandy.

Q got up finally. He was promptly advanced to second where he slid again, awkwardly, and the team immediately sent Bogusevic in to pinch run.

Chuck, Live from Kissimmee (3/1/2011)

Opening Day at Osceola

Today was a lovely day for baseball and a thin crowd dominated by Braves fans opened Osceola County Stadium for the spring. We watched our guys get slapped around by the Braves for the second day in a row in another game where the final score means dick.

Let me relay two observations from previous days that I’d neglected to mention. At the plate Towles’ hands look very, very slow. He didn’t always look this disjointed. In fact, I remember a couple of years ago when he looked like a star in the making here in Orlando. His swing just looked very different to me in the intra-squad game and I started to watch him carefully. I noticed that in his stance and through his swing he appears to roll his right foot outward and put all of his weight on the outer edge of his foot almost like he’s on snow skis and is making a sweeping turn to the right. I can’t imagine how he maintains balance like that, and I certainly don’t see how he can have any sort of consistent rhythm in his swing.

That reminds me – yesterday Hunter was taking his first at bat and unadvisedly swung wildly at a pitch that was going to hit him. I know I’m straining credulity here, please bear with me for a moment. Hunter sort of leapt out of the way as he swung and somehow managed to foul the pitch off. Everyone on the Astros bench was laughing and Carlos, the batter on deck, looked over at the bench with a broad smile and shouted at his new hitting coach, Mike! Teach me how to do that!

The other thing I forgot to mention was during the intra-squad game Brett Myers (who looked great today, more on that in a moment) commandeered a spot on Clark’s bench and basically raised hell throughout the entire six inning game. It was playful – shouting at the umpires, yelling words of encouragement and derision at the pitchers and hitters, he’d pop up and position himself at the entrance of the dugout like any good Little League coach and pretend to give signs to the catcher pitch by pitch. The highlight came in the fourth or so when Myers, in the middle of the inning, ran out onto the field and accosted catcher Brian Esposito (who looks really strong behind the plate) with a baseball card, mockingly beseeching him for a signature. It was brilliant. Myers dashed out of the dugout and in three strides was beside Esposito, waving the card in his mask-obscured face. Before Esposito could complete the question, Dude, what the fu- Myers with perfect timing had turned around and was back in the dugout.

Myers looked very much in control today. If he starts here and builds, getting better steadily, he’ll at the very least replicate last year’s surprising performance. He threw strikes, he seemed to hit his spots, he looked very, very good for early spring.

Every pitcher looked pretty good, actually, with the exception of my man Urckfitz. He got hit pretty hard, mainly because he was not keeping the ball down at all. I’m excited about Rowland-Smith. He has a very nice breaking ball and decent velocity. If Arnsberg works some magic we may see a pretty good pitcher emerge.

After Heyward’s double he immediately and quite foolishly tried to steal third. Needless to say, Q threw his ass out.

Koby started and finished a nice 3-6-3 double play which is never routine with a right handed first baseman, especially one who’s not out there for his glove to begin with.

Bourgeois and Steele both made very nice diving catches charging in from center.

Sadly I’ll be absent from the next week’s slate of games but will be back in action on the 10th, just in time to host Mr and Miss Limey as they make a pilgrimage to Osceola for a long weekend of baseball, sun, and, if history is any guide, plentiful libations shared with Ty in Tampa.

Yes, it’s that time again. Goodbye void and hello baseball, Spring Training style.  And as usual, we don’t mess around here at SnS.  In keeping with our long-standing tradition of providing excellent, informative, and thought-provoking commentary here on the SnS front page, we’ve decided to bring back our man in the park for an encore edition of “Chuck, Live From Kissimmee.”

Chuck, Live from Kissimmee (pt. 1, 2/28/11)

For me the void ended on Sunday. I’d been in the Orlando area a couple of days by then and had seen a few workouts, but Sunday offered an intra-squad game and that seemed to me an appropriate marking of the beginning of spring and of the beginning of spring training.

The turnout on a very warm Sunday was incredibly light. The majority of the fans inside the complex seemed to be socially maladjusted autograph seekers. If you’ve ever been to spring training you know the type. Fuck me, maybe you ARE the type. If you have irreconcilable differences with basic social norms, break long periods of uneasy silence with machine gun bursts of random observations at an inappropriate volume, lug around enormous binders filled with baseball cards of every conceivable variety while two-strapping a large backpack surely filled with more of the same, wear free promotional caps and only free promotional caps, if your sandaled stride as you leg it across grass and asphalt in hysterical pursuit of the one minor leaguer you missed last year is remarkably reminiscent of Borat, then yes, you are the type. And I thank you for your lurking presence near the batting cages and the parking lot while I sat happily in the bleachers and watched the game in relative peace.

By the way, where the FUCK do you work?

For the second year in a row Koby Clemens brought his bat. Very few pitchers threw many offspeed or breaking pitches (with the strange exception of Douglas Arguello who threw all sorts of breaking balls) so it’s impossible to extrapolate what I’m seeing now but like last year I’m struck by the obvious fact that Clemens can hit. At the time I thought drafting him was purely a PR move (and it may have been), but he is plainly shaping up to be a major league hitter. His defense
though needs a lot of work. That’s a charitable way of saying he is terrible. He was hit two balls at first. He bobbled one and let the other pass right through the wickets. I’ve watched him in several workouts thus far as well and it doesn’t get any better there, either.  He works hard and doesn’t seem to let his errors eat at him, but he’ll need to improve dramatically to offer big league defense.

You’ll likely have read that Anderson Hernandez made a couple of very nice plays at third and Manzella also made an impressive play at third diving to stab a sharply hit ball up the line and springing up to fire out the runner easily. I got my first look at Jordan Lyles who looks very much like a pitcher out there and had no trouble getting through his inning 1-2-3.

After the game I wandered over to a field in the back and watched a group of high-level minor leaguers go through some fielding drills.  This was my second chance to watch Delino DeShields, Jr. Last year I read that the team was considering moving him in to second from the outfield. So far, I know not why. His hands are stony and his arm is inaccurate.  I mean, he’s 18 years old and since I’m a casual fan and not a professional scout I can’t project what I see today into what might be five years from now. I have no idea what Adam Everett looked like at 18, but I would have to guess that he looked a damn site better than DeShields does.

I’ll leave it at this – in every workout I’ve seen DeShields lines up in tandem with fellow second baseman Enrique Hernandez. Maybe you busriders know all about this Hernandez kid but I don’t. All I know is that he has great hands and shows a very accurate arm. I think he’s 20, not too much older than Delino. Hell, he’s almost old enough to drink. But watching the two side by side it’s obvious who’s the more advanced defensive player, by far.

I love watching the minor leaguers’ workouts. It’s amazing how fundamental many of the things they practice are – how to call for an infield popup for example. I really enjoyed a fast paced drill where the pitchers fielded balls and threw to various bases and into various situations as dictated by the coach in charge. Squeeze! or 1-5! Or 1-4-3! or In between! and the pitcher and the first baseman would both charge the ball and communicate who’d get it over to the second baseman. The fellow in charge of these drills by the way was Dave Borkowski. Again, the pace of these drills is incredibly fast; a new pitcher appears at the front of the line every few seconds to execute the play directed by Borkowski.

I also enjoyed watching the pitchers, catchers and infielders work on various bunting plays and a wheel play designed to pick off a runner on second base. An added bonus is I now know the current signs the catcher gives the infield for these plays.

This morning I attended the meet and greet the team hosts for the season ticket holders. It was about 120 elderly shut-ins, three or four of the hardcore autograph seekers and me. I tell you what, I have never heard so many people complaining about free Starbucks coffee. I guess Starbucks is too robust for the velcro-shoe set.

Wade and Mills came out and gave a bit of a pep talk. Good thing, too, because after a hearty fruit cup a lot of these folks were beginning to nod off. After they opened the floor to a Q&A one lady leapt up and declared that she had noticed an uptick in the paehshin of the club. Don’t you people from Michigan have your own team? I wondered.
Another codger stood up and braced himself against his walker as he demanded to know why the hell the team was planning to move to Disney after all the county had done for the team. No, this codger was not I, nor did I put him up to it. I did befriend him, though. I would guess he’s close to 70 and far more profane than I am. In our friendly chat he called me a prick, a bastard and cheerfully told me Fuck you!

Afterwards I watched the minor league guys do some infield drills and then take BP. Mixed in were some of the big league players who wouldn’t be making the trip to Disney, most interestingly Barmes and Hall. I didn’t see a whole lot of these two fielding but from what I did see they both look very good, very comfortable. They look like a tandem that’s been playing together for a while. And both of them showed considerable pop in BP. I’m fascinated to learn what the team does with the infield this year, who the back-ups are, whether Manzella makes the team. There’s no Geoff Blum, no guy who can play all the positions. I could see a guy like Jimmy Paredes having a shot.

On to Disney for the game. I hate that fucking stadium. I really do.  The bright spots were several, despite the final score. The Astros got lots of hits. Look at the box and you’ll see. Wallace, Lee, Steele, Pence ripped one, even Manzella had a couple of hits. Later in the game Paredes and Mier turned a tight double play. I was sitting directly behind Tal Smith and at the play he straightened up and clapped with excitement, the only time he displayed any emotion at all throughout the game. Castro effortlessly threw out some idiot who tried to advance to second on a ball that had bounced off of Castro’s chest.

All in all it was great to see our guys back out there again.

Sure Footer, Fallas, McTaggart and Levine provide plenty of Spring Training coverage from Kissimmee, but if you want to hear about the real happenings – SnS style – the buck stops with Chuck. Chuck is a long-time SnS’er and has been an Astros Spring Training season ticket holder for the past four years. This year we’ve conned and cajoled him into periodically writing about his Spring Training observations for us here at TRWD. Enjoy!

Chuck, Adios from Kissimmee

Monday, March 22: STL at HOU, L 6-4

Starter Wandy Rodriguez was touched up for five runs in the top of the first inning as visiting St Louis held on for a 6-4 win. Despite the ugly first inning there was plenty to like in this game. Wandy had no life on his fastball in the first and could not throw his curve for a strike at all. But in the three subsequent innings he looked like the pitcher we all hope he’ll be, finding some zip on the fastball and, more importantly, spotting the curve for strikes.
Sammy Gervacio worked some Dominican voodoo in two more scoreless innings, striking out the side in his final frame. I love seeing him pitch earlier in games rather than later so that he has the chance to face some of the major leaguers who have made the trip. But it doesn’t seem to matter whom he faces, he’s been infuriating batters all spring. He’s effectively wild, and the pitches he throws for strikes all have serious movement. Wilton Lopez followed and was equally effective if not quite as entertaining. Lopez and Gustavo Chacin are two pitchers who are both quietly having excellent springs and should give the team some bullpen help along the way.

Geoff Blum got a rare start at SS and treated fans to a couple of very nice plays. He dove to his left to steal a base hit and sprung up to throw the runner out easily. Another inning he timed his jump perfectly to snare a sure base hit. Pedro Feliz smashed a homer in the second and his eventual replacement Chris Johnson was busy at third looking more and more comfortable defensively.

Finally, Carlos Lee easily had his best all-around day at the plate going three for three. He sharply lined a single up the middle but fought out a pair of hits on two-strike flares to the opposite field, one of which went for a double.

I wish I could have remained in Kissimmee for the entirety of the spring. I know that those of you who will attend the upcoming games will have an outSTANDing time.

Sure Footer, Fallas, McTaggart and Levine provide plenty of Spring Training coverage from Kissimmee, but if you want to hear about the real happenings – SnS style – the buck stops with Chuck. Chuck is a long-time SnS’er and has been an Astros Spring Training season ticket holder for the past four years. This year we’ve conned and cajoled him into periodically writing about his Spring Training observations for us here at TRWD. Enjoy!

Chuck, Live from Kissimmee (pt 6)

Friday, March 19: TOR at HOU, W 2-0

Josh Banks got an emergency start filling in for a flu-struck Bud Norris Friday afternoon against the Blue Jays in from Dunedin. Banks infuriated the Jays with glacial change ups and slow breaking balls for three solid innings leading seven pitchers in a 2-0 shut out of the Jays. The Astros’ parade of pitchers was uniformly solid issuing two walks and scattering six hits.

Like the day before Bourgeois and Sullivan both had good days at the plate. J. R. Towles got the start behind the plate and was more active with the pitchers than I’ve seen so far. Keppinger played some shortstop. I noticed a couple of plays where he showed an arm strength that I’d never had a chance to see from him at second. I think he is a legitimate SS and will be an acceptable fill-in as long as Manzella’s sidelined.

Saturday, March 20: NYY at HOU, W 8-6

A record crowd of 7,020 packed Osceola County Stadium Saturday afternoon to witness the Astros prevail 8-6 in a topsy-turvy contest.  Obnoxious and foul-mouthed, most of the crowd went home disappointed, drunk and hoarse. I can honestly say that I do not enjoy the spectacle that the Yankees bring to Central Florida each year. Anyway, Brett Myers got the start and again struggled with command. He has good velocity and his breaking ball routinely fools hitters when he gets it close to the zone but for five innings he struggled with location.

Houston sent only three pitchers to the mound today. Myers was followed by Casey Daigle, a big right hander and Shane Loux. You may recall my description of Loux’s main pitch as a sort of sidearm forkball. I had a chance to ask him about the pitch the other day and he told me he considers it a simple two-seam fastball except he throws it nearly sidearm and he turns his wrist over dramatically as he throws it. He demonstrated by rolling his right wrist basically as far as he can to the left. It is a weird pitch and I have no idea how he gets any velocity on it but it has plenty of velocity (I don’t know the exact speed he typically reaches, there’s no speed gun at the Astros’ park) and an alarming, tumbling rotation.

Sure Footer, Fallas, McTaggart and Levine provide plenty of Spring Training coverage from Kissimmee, but if you want to hear about the real happenings – SnS style – the buck stops with Chuck. Chuck is a long-time SnS’er and has been an Astros Spring Training season ticket holder for the past four years. This year we’ve conned and cajoled him into periodically writing about his Spring Training observations for us here at TRWD. Enjoy!

Chuck, Live from Kissimmee (pt 5)

Sunday, March 14: ATL (ss) at HOU, W 8-5

The Astros beat the Braves Sunday afternoon. Carlos Lee and Hunter Pence both homered. Carlos is having a tough spring, not hitting many balls hard, and it’s good to see him find his swing. He’s hit more weak pop-ups than I can ever remember. Myers got the start and had trouble with his command. It looked like he threw his entire range of pitches but he has real trouble locating his fastball. Lots of hits, lots of walks and lots of strikeouts.

You may remember my hoping that Pedro Feliz would bring some of the leadership that departed with Tejada. In workouts I noticed that Feliz seemed to have the capacity to provide on-field leadership. I was impressed when Feliz called time out and jogged to the mound for a quick word with the pitcher – Byrdak, I think – when he was having trouble.

Tuesday, March 16: BOS (ss) at HOU (ss), W 3-0

The Astros shut out the Red Sox in front of a large crowd Tuesday. It was the Sox’s first trip to Osceola County since I’ve been attending Spring Training. It was a special game for many involved as new Astros skipper Brad Mills served as Red Sox bench coach under Terry  Francona prior to joining the Astros. Francona brought a very unusual number of top-line players to a road game, treating fans to an up-close view of Dustin Pedroia, Jason Varitek and Kevin Youkilis. The large contingent Red Sox Nation went home disappointed as Roy Oswalt and five teammates gave up just four hits over nine innings. Roy was especially sharp, locating his fast ball well and fooling lots of Sox with his slow curve. Matt Lindstrom has really started to lean on his breaking ball and to excellent effect. Gervacio continues to mystify batters with his sidearm delivery and bizarre pre-pitch ritual.

Ron Johnson, Red Sox first base coach and father of Astro third baseman Chris Johnson, was moved to third base for the game so he could be close to his son. Prior to the game Chris brought the line up out to the umpires meeting his father at the plate. I’m very impressed with Terry Francona, from little things like this to larger things such as pushing the Astros to hire his invaluable bench coach away he’s proven himself to be a quality person.

Wednesday, March 17: WSH at HOU, W 11-2

The Astros tagged Jason Marquis with five runs in the first and a pair in the second, cruising to an 11-2 win over the Nationals. Wandy got the start for the good guys giving up a pair of solo homers on careless pitches but otherwise looking very good. The game was a laugher from the opening frame, but it was good to see Tim Byrdak get back on track with a solid inning after a couple of rough appearances and Gustavo Chacin, a tough left hander, really got my attention with a pair of excellent innings and three Ks. The team really wanted to give him two innings of work because he actually notched a rare at bat as a Spring Training reliever.

Thursday, March 18: HOU at DET, L 5-4

Gary Majewski gave up three singles and the winning run in the bottom of the ninth at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland as the Tigers beat the Astros 5-4. Jason Bourgeois got the start in center over a gimpy Michael Bourn and wasted no time in collecting a couple of hits and stealing a pair of bases. I really like this kid. He’s not tall and a little stockier than you’d imagine but he as a ton of speed and seems to be an instinctive base runner. He’s been hitting the ball better than the box scores would indicate, he has some power, and I think he can contribute more to the team than other fast fifth outfielders have such as Charlton Jimerson and Reggie Abercrombie. For one thing, he has far more plate discipline than either of the two I mentioned and he definitely seems to have a plan at the plate that goes beyond ‘swing as hard as I can.’  He does not have Bourn’s laser-like ability to track balls deep in the outfield, but he’s good. The conventional wisdom is that Bourgeois is fighting with Cory Sullivan for the final OF spot. Sullivan had a nice day at the plate as well, he’s also fast and also hits for power. It’s a fun battle to watch.

Felipe Paulino started and went three frustrating innings. He is having terrible problems with his command. I suppose if anyone can get this straightened out it’s Arnsberg, but for now it’s tough to watch. Chris Sampson has looked sharp all spring and turned in another crisp inning. It was my first look at Brandon Lyon. Lyon looked tentative and scuffled through an inning giving up a run and had some help from a double play. Unlike the other new Astro at the back of the bullpen Matt Lindstrom, Lyon is not a fireballer but his fastball looked especially meaty today. He has both a curve and a slider and from what I’ve seen he really leans on the slider. I hope to be able to watch him a few more times this spring to get a better idea of what he brings. Right now I can’t see Lyon closing. He hasn’t been pitching and has a lot of ground to make up where Lindstrom looks stronger and stronger each outing.