Bad teams don't do what the Astros are doing.
Bad teams don't have guys flirting with .400, yet still make cases for other players being the most important to the team.
Bad teams don't escape disaster the way the Astros do.
This just in, the Astros are not a bad team.
The foul taste of a 73-89 season in 2007 is long gone. The proverbial "out with the old, in with the new," has made for a remarkably strong start to 2008.
The Astros have found a new legend in Jose Valverde after he took one of the face, dusted himself off and sealed the deal on his league-leading 15th save of the season.
The very next night, with Valverde taking the night off, but watching eagerly from the bullpen, Doug Brocail entered the ninth attempting to protect a one-run lead. He allowed singles to the first 2 batters he faced, he personally sent the runners 90 feet closer to scoring when he threw a pickoff attempt into centerfield. Then the defense took over. With the bases loaded, Michael Bourn raced in from center to catch s inking pop-up just a few feet from the infield dirt. Then
Darin Erstad made his play to save the game.
Also, for the 4th time in 4 starts, Brian Moehler gave the Astros a chance to win. On the season, the Astros have lost just once in the 6 times Moehler or Jack Cassel has started in place of the injured Wandy Rodriguez, who will be back to start in St. Louis this week.
It's gonna be a fun ride, because every night the 25 guys in the dugout feel like they're going to win - so why shouldn't the fans.
--------------- WEX
1 comment:
The things that have surprised me are the relief pitching and Coop pushing buttons.
Brocail and Byrdak have made me forget all about Walls/Queeler combination (hahah danny) with 2.89 ERA for Brocail and 15 innings with no ER for Byrdak.
When Coop switched Berkman to 4 and Tejada to 3 I was upset (note: I am not a manager)because their numbers where the same basically at the time
Berkman with 4 homers, 11RBI's and 18 hits and Tejada with 11RBI's 3HR's and 19 hits, with berkman hitting for average more than Tejada most of the season. At that time Bourn had 9 SB in 17 games so I thought Berkman should stay at 3 but he seems to have done pretty well at 4..........i guess.
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