Pitch Count? What Pitch Count

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Duman in From the Bus Stop

It looks like there is a new way of doing things in the Astros’ farm system. In the last week, Corpus Christi pitchers, Casey Hudspeth and Douglas Arguello have each thrown a 9 inning complete game. Prior to these two, a complete game had not been thrown by a Hooks pitcher in almost 2 years (Ronnie Martinez 6/9/07).

What has changed?

“I wanted to give him (starter Casey Hudspeth) a shot to complete his game,” Pujols said. “I believe that they’re not even looking at the dugout anymore. They’re just pitching until we take them out. And they know that. They see that we’ve already proved that if they pitch well enough to complete a game, they’re going to do it.”

To put it another way

“He (starter Douglas Arguello) finished the eighth pretty fresh,” Pujols said. “The thing this year is there are no (set) pitch counts. I felt he was throwing the ball pretty well and gave him a chance to finish the game.”

April 2009 Spike and Star Award Winners

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Noe in Austin in Monthly Awards

The winners were selected, and there was much rejoicing. Seems though that this admin totally forgot to add the information on this here venerable site. There is no doubt, I need to slow down and make better “to do” list. So to the honored ones, mea culpa mis amigos, I suck!

Any way, just to do a little recap, Spikes and Stars (dot com) has decided to jump into the fray and honor Houston Astros players for their outstanding monthly contributions to entertain the unwashed masses, including those who hang around here. We love our bread and circuses like no other, but I digress. We give out two awards monthly: A Spike Award to the one player who exhibits the hard nose play that shows heart, dedication and all out “what was he thinking?” responses from your typical SnS’er. The other award is the Star Award and true to it’s name, it’s about the best baseball performance of the month by a player.

So without further adeu, here are the winners of the April 2009 Spike and Star Awards:

april_spike April 2009 Spike Award
The first ever Spike Award goes to Jose “Papa Grande” Valverde. Valverde is currently enjoying an extended vacation away from the team to recuperate from his exploit that earned him the recognition from this site and it’s members. Jose was pitching to try and save a game against the hated LA Dodgers in an early season series when, after one out, he was struck in the calf by a batted ball traveling about 1,000 miles per hour. Or so it looked like to us. Valverde proceeded to attempt to throw out the perpetrator while wincing his way to the ground. He did not succeed to secure the out, but he did get up from the shot to the leg and took the hill to continue pitching. He proceeded to secure the necessary two outs to close the game by way of strikeouts. He did this with just one leg, as was evident to all who watched in amazement.

Jose celebrates like a Cossack!

This sort of thing was nothing new for Valverde as memories of last year’s incident, taking a batted ball off the face, was talked about extensively as this drama unfurled. A truly deserving honor for Papa Grande, although truth be told we would not recommend anyone on the Astros attempt this sort of thing to win our award (not that they would mind you, but juneberno), a simple bounce off an outfield wall to rob an opposing homerun, a sliding dive into a dugout or a punch of Cub fan in the face while leaning over a rail to catch a foul ball will certainly do.

Honorable mention: Props to Pudge Rodriquez who came in second in the voting.

April 2009 Star Award
The first ever Star Award goes to no other than Wandy “Eny” Rodriquez. What can we say about Wandy and his magical left arm this season? Two words come to mind: Ah Mazing. The little southpaw has finally turned the corner (so it seems) and has established himself as a starter in the NL to be reckoned with. Long thought of as a Minute Maid Special pitcher, Wandy is proving he can take his act on the road and it’s playing well off Broadway.

We’ll borrow a frame of reference from Russ Ortiz here and point out that wins and loses are a product of team and not a reflection of the starter’s performance. That’s good, because in terms of w/l, the 30 year old Rodriquez did not set the world on fire, posting a 2/2 record in Mar/April. It is Rodriquez’s stellar 1.69 ERA, 27 strikeouts with only 12 walks and no homeruns allowed that made everyone stand up and notice. He pitched 32 innings in 5 appearances in Mar/April, basically averaging 6.4 Inning per Game pitched. Imagine if Cecil Cooper would just let him stay in a little longer, what Wandy could have averaged so far this season. Wandy’s goal is to solidify Houston’s number two starter in the rotation while pitching at or over 200 innings this season. Lofty goals, so far so good.

Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga

Wany has been working exclusively with Pudge Rodriquez, who is said to be a calming influence on Wandy, not allowing him to get flustered in stressful situations. It’s showing, as little Eny is showing great poise on the mound (the proverbial “mound presence”), spotting a well located fastball (92 mph variety) inside and outside. This sets up his curveball, an almost unhittable pitch if the batter is trying to stay on top of Wandy’s fastball. All in all, a good game plan executed to perfection by the Rodriquez battery leading to good things for the lefty hurler.

Honorable Mention: Props to Michael Bourn who gave Wandy a run for his money as the Star Player of the Month.

Attendance is Half the Battle

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Andyzipp in Columnistas, Off Day

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Attendance is down. Everyone knows that to be true, as well as the reasons for it. When the economy, specifically the fear (thanks, media) of the future of the economy, joins a tag team with a piss-poor baseball product, attendance is going to get suplexed from the top rope. I’ve seen the numbers, and watched games on television, so of course I know attendance is down, but I hadn’t really felt it before Sunday. Despite the reported attendance (tickets sold) of 30,023, (nearly 11,000 less than capacity), the actual AIS count felt like much, much less. There were no lines to speak of at any of the concession stands or restrooms. The ushers weren’t preventing people from coming down to better seats. Even reasonably sure that everyone in attendance got at least 20 seconds of camera time on the Kiss Cam.

The concourse on Sunday was almost…luxurious…compared to recent years. It was reminiscent of being in the Astrodome, without the wafting odors of catshit or urine. Speaking of the Dome, the last time the Astros drew worse than this year? 1997, when fans, still hungover from the “build it or we’re leaving” referendum, managed to stagger in at a clip of about 25k per night. And while this is all sad for Drayton McLane’s nieces and nephews and their visions of a Merry Christmas (linger longer), in a way, it was nice. The percentage of idiots was probably the same, but the overall number of them was far lower than it usually is. The stadium employees weren’t as frazzled as they sometimes get, and if you wanted to take your time doing something inside the park, it was easy to do. For a Sunday. But as an ongoing concern, the attendance is potentially a huge problem.

Pundits and fans can whine and cry all day about how the Astros allocate their payroll (and they do), but it gets overlooked (by overlooked, I mean willfully ignored) that Houston has one of the higher overall payrolls in baseball. Beginning the season, 14 of the 30 teams had reduced payroll from 2008. 10 of those teams had slashed payroll by more than 10%. The Astros, instead, increased their payroll and currently pay out either the eighth or ninth highest payroll in the sport, depending on the source. The attendance at MMPUS has dropped more than 15% over last year. Only nine teams have a worse drop (percentage-wise) so far this season. Interestingly, the Astros are outdrawing all but 10 teams in 2009 on a per game average.

What does any of that mean? Other than Pam “Hathaway” Gardner scrambling to get people to the park by painting things different colors (Pink in the Park will be followed up by a similar Brown Around Town promotion for Prostate Cancer research. Probably), the Astros need to start winning, and McLane needs to not panic. Easy for me to say, as it’s not my money. The perception is that if the Astros are out of it, McLane is going to start shedding payroll like he owns the Marlins. Even though the team hasn’t done anything close to that since 1995. But as the Astros haven’t sniffed the playoffs since 2005, who knows where McLane’s thoughts are? If you could find a taker for Miguel Tejada or Jose Valverde or convince Carlos Lee to ignore his no-trade, is that enough to offset the attendance drop?

Being optimistic after the sweep of the Fathers, if the Astros start winning, does the lack of attendance keep the Astros from persuing a top of the rotation pitcher at the trading deadline? Dropping payroll to pick up a pitcher aren’t mutually exclusive activites, but would likely necessitate multiple moves (with multiple partners…bow-chicka-bow-bow), if not during the season, certainly afterwards.

Houston, for good or ill, supports winners by buying tickets. There’s also the somewhat conflicting belief that Houston has become a baseball town (at least until Pre-season football starts). It’ll be interesting to see how the season plays out, but we could be witnessing the final battle between Gardner and Tal Smith for McLane’s soul. Somebody’s going to lose a hand.

Justice Through Osmosis?

One of the great things about the Rockets’ playoff run (run=getting out of the first round) is that Richard Justice isn’t writing columns or even paying attention to the Astros (outside of the few tidbits he tweets to those of us foolhardy enough to follow him.) The most obvious benefit (of many) is that Astros fans been spared the yo-yo-ing opinions surrounding the team and their (lack of) performance. Except, apparently, he’s given his gift of conflicting himself to Astros’ manager Cecil Cooper.

Cooper is apparently a savant, but since May 3rd, Cooper has dropped a utility infielder, picked up a 13th pitcher, wondered aloud if he needed a 14th pitcher, claimed that his bullpen wasn’t tired about 24-hours later, decided he didn’t need the 13th pitcher, and more or less recalled the the same utility infielder, stating that he shouldn’t have ever DFAed him. The net result of all of this? Alberto Arias is begging someone to use a spare bedroom, and Fulchino is once again just a style of pants.

Credit Where It’s Due

Although it was probably Ed Wade’s doing, Cooper should get credit for putting Felipe Paulino back in the rotation. While I hate that Russ Ortiz is moving to the long relief role that so rightly should belong to Brian Moehler, putting Paulino in the rotation gives the Astros the best chance of success right now. And it only took Cooper 3 “relief” appearances (3 innings pitched, 21.00 ERA) to get the idea. Progress, my friends, ain’t just a city in Mississippi.

Before We Leave

Thanks to the largess of Geoff Leach, my kids were in a position to get some autographs prior to Sunday’s game against the Padres. My kids were jazzed and are now the owners of autographs from Brian Moehler, Hunter Pence and Cecil Cooper. Pence didn’t sign his name with an exclamation point, but Cooper did tell my son that he needed to work on pulling the ball. I immediately ran the ball Cooper signed to the Shed. We’ll see.

*Fingers crossed.*

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Astros sign free agent Jason Smith, Q back, Roy’s losing his mind and the craziest thing Alyson Footer has ever written.

Posted on May 11, 2009 by pravata in News You Can Use

Jason Smith cleared waivers on Friday, but in order to bring him back in less time than the required 10 days, he declared free agency — and immediately re-signed with the Astros.

Cooper said, before the game on Sunday, “I thought we needed pitching more than position players. Now we only have one game left until the off-day [Monday]. We should be good pitching-wise. We thought we might need an extra guy [Sunday, because of Berkman’s wrist]. We thought it would be better if we went ahead and did it.”

He also said “[The roster move] probably should have been done a couple days ago,” which is odd, because a couple of days ago he was wondering if he needed 14 pitchers Link

But that was before Wandy gave him 8 innings on Friday and Moehler 7 on Saturday. The move was probably planned in advance as Smith hadn’t even packed his bags for Round Rock. Link

Quntero will join the team in Denver. Link

Roy losing his mind and his curveball
“I went from a fastball-curveball pitcher to a fastball-slider pitcher all of a sudden,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I’ve kind of lost my mind.” Link

Footer’s Mother’s Day blog,

Really nice group of pictures here and Footer’s story of when she first came to the Astros and how her mom encouraged her. She said she told her mom,

“This isn’t going to end well.”

She’s not wrong often, but that one was a doozy. Footer’s blog

Meszaros Saves The Day, No Single Lifestyle for Fixler

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Duman in From the Bus Stop

Daniel Meszaros wasn’t drafted until the 48th round. That means over 1400 players were taken ahead of him. It also means he feels he has something to prove.

“I was pretty disappointed when I got drafted that late,” he said. “But, you know what, I felt like I was just as good as any of the other people drafted, high or low.”

Meszaros is leading the South Atlantic League in saves with 9 saves. He has yet to allow a run to score and has only allowed 6 base runners in 11 inning pitched. In the mean time, he has sent 16 batters back to the bench with their bat in their hands.

Meszaros was available so late because he missed his junior year after shoulder surgery and then didn’t have a great senior year coming back. He also doesn’t fit the profile of a power pitcher, being only 6 feet tall and about 170 pounds. So what is the Legends closer throwing besides his low 90’s fastball?

“What he’s done has been great,” said Travis Driskill, Lexington’s pitching coach while Charley Taylor recovers from surgery. “And what he does is attack the strike zone. He is very aggressive with his fastball.

“He’s got a curveball that we haven’t gotten to see a whole lot of because they’re either putting the fastball in play early or they can’t catch up to it.”

Any thoughts of making him a start?

“I just think it fits me better. As a starter, you kind of have to have three pitches to get through (when) you get late in the game,” he said. “And right now my change-up, or third pitch, just isn’t there. So I like just the one inning. Go in for one inning and kind of throw max effort and go after hitters that way.”

What The Fixler?

When you see a .195 batting average, you don’t expect to see a .585 slugging percentage. But that is what you get with Jonathan Filxer. The Hooks’ catcher is 8 for 41 on the season with 4 doubles and 4 HR. He has yet to reach on a single. Filxer was slated to start the season in Lexington but due to Lou Palmisano’s injury, he was called to Corpus Christi to be the back up. Then when the catcher shuffle started due to then injury to Q in Houston, he was moved up the depth chart in Corpus Christi. He has also reached on 6 walks which gives him a OBP of .306.

Middle Infield Movement

Wlad Sutil was activated from the DL in Corpus Christi and Mike Diaz was re-assigned somewhere in the Astros organization. I bet he lands in Lexington now that Legend’s SS Richardo Bonfante seperated his shoulder this weekend.

Fixler, Meszaros, Sutil

A Real Mother For Ya

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Dark Star in Game Recaps

Sunday May 10, 2009

Astros 12, Padres 5

WP: Oswalt (1-2) LP: Geer (0-1)

Alyson Footer (in tight slacks)

San Diego Union-Tribune

HOUSTON (SnS) – After screwing around for two games, scraping together little leads against the visiting San Diego Padres and then blowing them or almost blowing them. . . two days of bullpen meltdowns and complicated managerial decisions consisting primarily of “no, no, no” and “yes, yes, yes”, the Houston Astros went out this afternoon and dropped a motherfucking soup bone on the visiting Friars of South California, winning 12-5 and securing a series sweep before a delighted crowd of Astros partisans bedecked in pink and various combinations of brick red and black. Carlos Lee, Pudge Rodriguez and Miguel Tejada were the big bats for Houston (Lance Berkman sat out his third straight game), helping starter Roy Oswalt to his first win of 2009.

A Mother’s Day crowd of 30,023 at the Juice Can saw erstwhile ace Oswalt (0-2. 4.26) take the hill against the Padres Josh Geer (0-0, 3.96), a Dallas native and Rice University alum. After the first two games of this series, when neither offense distinguished itself or even showed much in the way of vital signs, a casual observer could be forgiven for assuming this contest, too, would be a low-scoring affair.

Au contraire, ma mère. With Berkman out of commission again, middle of the order big guns Lee (3-4, 4 RBIs, HR) and Tejada (3-5, 4 RBIs, HR) wielded their mighty pink bats and picked up the slack, while Pudge-Rod chipped in big time from the 7-hole (4-4. 2 RBI, 3B, HR). This gave Oswalt some unaccustomed run support, and he made the most of it, scattering six hits – including two 2-run home runs – over a lackluster six innings to up his record this season to 1-2. Hopefully, the win will help Roy keep a grip on his sanity – he mentioned in an interview that part of his trouble this season may be that, “I’ve kind of lost my mind.” That and, from time to time, control of his curve ball.

The Astros got things going the bottom of the first, startling everyone by scoring three runs, highlighted by a two-run jack by Tejada. They threatened to score more, but left two men on when 8th place hitter and TZ demi-god Jeff Keppinger grounded out to end the inning.

After scoring two more in the second, the mighty Houstons struck again in the fourth, finally chasing SD starter Geer by adding on 4 runs, highlighted by an RBI double by super-hot El Caballo Lee and a run-scoring triple onto Tal’s Hill by Pudge-Rod. I really hope Geer’s mom wasn’t at the game today, because her son didn’t pitch very well, and got hisself keel-hauled. No una vista bonita, mi madre.

Oswalt, on the other hand, cruised through the first five innings, only hitting a bump in the 4th by surrendering a two-run dong to SD LF Chase Headley. After Scott Hairston followed up the homer by drilling a double to left, one started to get that “uh-oh” feeling one gets nowadays when Roy-o is on the mound; but the Koskiusko Konundrum killed any further spreading of negative waves by striking out Kevin Kouzmanoff and Nick Hundley in quick succession to close out the frame.

The Mississippi Mystery ran into trouble again in the sixth, however. In possession of a 9-2 lead now, Oswalt opened the inning by giving up a single to Padres SS Luis Gonzalez, followed by a monster home run to left-center by Adrian Gonzalez. He regrouped to retire the next two Padre batters, then gave up a single to PH Brian Giles, and a walk to Nick Hundley. Fighting hard now, Oswalt battled ex-Astro Chris Burke (who, by the way, made two errors at SS in a solid contribution to his former team’s victory) to a 2-2 count, before getting the former golden boy of the stathead types to pop out weakly into foul territory behind third, ending the threat of any further damage.

Oswalt was done after that, but a bullpen combination of Tim Byrdak, Alberto Arias, and (mostly) Chris Sampson held the fort, the only blemish being a quick, long home run off of Byrdak in the top of the 7th by San Diego leadoff hitter Jody Gerut. The Astros played add-on in the 8th, highlighted by a triple by Gunther Pence, a 2-run homer by Lee, and a solo shot by Rodriguez. Extraneous, yes, but fun to watch, anyway. War es nicht, meine Mutter?

After a well-deserved day off on Monday, the Astros head to the rarified environs of Rockie-land to take on the Colorados, starting Tuesday evening, Mountain Time.

(The writer apologizes if there are any gaps or inconsistencies in this report, as he was watching the game while also a.) helping his niece take a PolySci final on-line and, b.) eating about 30 oysters on the half shell – washed down by 1 or 2 beers, approximately – during the Mother’s Day cookout/fish fry. Talis est vita , meus matris.)

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