Cubs-Astros, Big Z Puts Cubs In First

Coming in late to the Astros-Cubs game. Big Z, Carlos Zambrano shutting out the 'Stros through five, while Chicago has put three up on Roy Oswalt. The Cubs are the prohibitive favorites to win the NL Central, while the Astros had a flukey season last year and are likely to come back down to earth.

Bottom 5:

• Zambrano gets Hunter Pence looking with a 93 mph fastball on the outside corner.
• Then he gets Michael Bourn with a heater at 92.
• Bouncer back to the mound by Oswalt ends the inning.
  

Top 6:

• Milton Bradley pops one up, with Pudge Rodriguez coming out from behind he plate to make the catch.
• Aramis Ramirez pops out to first.
• Former O's prospect Mike Fontenot grounds out to second.
  

Bottom 6:

• Kazou Matsui strikes out swinging. That's Z's fifth of the game.
• Zambrano blows a 95 mph fastball by Pudge. Six K's.
• Lance Berkman draws a walk, but Carlos Lee grounds out on the first pitch he sees.
  

Top 7:

• Geovany Soto grounds out to start the seventh.
• Ryan Theriot singles into right-field.
• Zambrano takes three big hacks at the plate and goes back to the dugout.
• Alfonso Soriano (who led off the game with a homer) grounds out to third.
  

Bottom 7:

• Miguel Tejada with a line-drive single to center.
• Geoff Blum walks, and that'll be it for Zambrano. Lou Pinella went out to the mound before the inning started, but left him in for the start of the inning. It may have looked like he was dropping his arm angle a little in the inning, but maybe I was just imagining it.
  
• Aaron Heilman comes in and gets Pence to ground into a double paly on the first pitch.
• Bourn hits a slow bouncer up the first-base line. By the time Heilman gets to it he has no chance to throw the speedster out, and Tejada comes in to score. 3-1, Cubs.
• Neal Cotts in to face Jason Michaels, pinch-hitting for Darin Erstad, pinch-hittingf for Oswalt. Michaels grounds out to short to end the inning.
  

Top 8:

• Geoff Geary in for Houston, and he retires the Cubs in order (with a little help from an over-the-shoulder grab by Matsui in short right-field).
  

Bottom 8:

• After a couple of groundouts, Carlos Marmol walks Berkman.
• Marmol gets Carlos Lee - the potential tying run - to pop out to Ramirez.
  

Top 9:

• A single by Fontenot and a walk by Theriot puts two on with two outs, and pinch-hitter Micah Houffpauir coming in to bat.
• Houffpauir singles to right to extend the Cubs' lead to 4-1.
• Soriano flies out to end the inning, but Chicago picked up an insurance run.
  

Bottom 9:

• Miggy picks up his third hit of the game, linging a single to center off of closer Kevin Gregg.
• Blum lines to right, but Bradley can't quite make a rolling catch. Runners on the corners with no outs and the tying run coming to the plate.
• Sac fly by Pence cuts the lead to 4-2.
• Bourn flies to center for the second out.
• Pinch-hitter Jason Smith grounds out to first to end the game.

That short stretch with Zambrano mowing down hitters was exciting, but after that the game was pretty boring. nice to see Tejada had a good game though. Read more ...

"Huh?", Part II

I have no idea what Ed Wade is thinking. Does he actually believe that the Astros (13.5 back in the NL Central, 9.5 back in the Wild Card) have a chance at the play-offs this year?

In another perplexing move, Houston traded second-base prospect Matt Cusick to the Yankees for LaTroy Hawkins. Now Cusick is no great shakes (he’s hitting .285/.356/.462 in A-Ball, but is already 22 years old), but Hawkins isn’t good either (5.71 ERA) and he’s a free agent at the end of the year, and likely won’t net any draft-picks. Even with the Yankees picking up a good bit of the money he’s owed for the rest of the year, it still doesn’t make sense. Ed, for the sake of the fans in Houston, please stop trading cost-controlled years of even mediocre players for crappy veterans who are going to leave at the end of the year. There will be no late season surge – you aren’t making the play-offs. The longer it takes you to accept that, the longer it’s going to take for the franchise to dig itself out of this hole. Read more ...

Wheeling & Dealing

A couple of smaller deals going down yesterday.

First, the Houston Astros, still trying to stay in contention for some reason, traded for some pitching help.

Houston got:

Randy Wolf, 31 year-old LHSP, 6-10 with a 4.74 ERA (82 ERA+, 4.28 FIP) this year, but has an ERA of 3.17 in his home (extreme pitcher's) park, and a 6.63 ERA on the road.

San Diego got:

Chad Reineke, 26 year-old RHP, 5-9 with a 4.41 ERA in 20 games, 19 starts, for AAA with 8.01 strikeouts and 2.80 walks per nine innings and a 1.31 WHIP.

It's not a great haul for the Padres, but I find it amusing that Paul DePodesta got Ed Wade to bite (maybe) with the bit of propaganda that he posted on his blog (It Might Be Dangerous, You Go First):

"Randy Wolf - Randy has a limited no-trade provision in his contract, so there are a number of designated teams to which Randy does not have to accept an assignment. Randy is another guy who is on the collective radar of the buyers at this point and for good reason. After having a shoulder cleanup in the middle of last season, Randy has had a very good year to date. His average fastball velocity is the highest it has been in any of the past six years (which is the timeframe of the data set) and his strikeout rate is as high as it has been since 2001. His ERA currently stands at 4.38, though almost a full run of that is due to two starts in Colorado and Chicago during which he gave up 14 runs in eight innings. His collective line of 109 innings, 109 hits, 42 walks, and 100 k's is one of the better lines you'll find during this deadline, but his line of 101 innings, 95 hits, 33 walks, and 94 k's (3.48 ERA) without those two starts is even more indicative of the pitcher he has been. In fact, his 12 quality starts ranks 7th in the NL behind Haren, Lincecum, Hudson, Santana, Webb, and Volquez."

No way do a Billy Beane or Theo Epstein (or several others) take that seriously, but Wade just might have (even if he didn't read it, I imagine a similar argument may have been presented to him). Fine job by San Diego to turn nothing of much value to them (Randy Wolf, who is a free agent at the end of the year) into a cheap (probably) bullpen arm. And they saved some money to boot.

From the Houston side, this is just dumb. They didn't give up that much (but it was still one of their top prospects - oh, what a bad farm system), but they are 12 games out in the Central (tied for last with the Pirates) - spending any money or resources to improve (by maybe a game or two) this season only makes almost no sense. Wolf likely won't result in extra draft picks after the season, but perhaps there's a small chance it helps the Astros sign him a little more easily. I guess that's worth perhaps $3.5 million and an arm to them.

The second deal made more sense as the first place Diamondbacks upgraded their bullpen in a trade with the Nationals, who correctly are trying to sell.

Arizona got:

Jon Rauch, 29 year-old RHRP, is 4-2 with 17 saves and a 2.98 ERA while averaging 8.19 strikeouts and 1.30 walks per nine innings to go with a 1.01 WHIP.

Washington got:

Emilio Bonifacio, 23 year-old second baseman, is hitting .302/.348/.387 in AAA.

Rauch is a good reliever with two years (well, one and a team option) left on a relatively cheap contract. He immediately becomes the D'Backs best option out of the pen. I don't know if they'll install him as the closer, or leave protecting 3 run leads to Brandon Lyon (and his ERA of over 8 in the last month) and let Rauch and Chad Qualls shut things down in the higher leverage situations. I assume that this means Arizona will make a stronger push to sign Orlando Hudson after this season, but they shouldn't miss Bonifacio much. Good deal for them.

At first blush, I thought this was an OK deal for Washington. Thinking about it (and really looking at Bonaficio's stats), I think they could have gotten more. Bonaficio was one of the D’Backs top prospects, but he's a fairly light-hitting (some average, but no OBP or power) second baseman with a lot of speed and good defense. That's not bad (and considering the Nat's just gave Christian Guzman $16 million over 2 years, they seem to value that skill set) but it doesn't seem worth using the team's best trade chip. Considering the Rockies are asking for an Ian Kennedy type prospect in return for two months of Brian Fuentes (and draft picks), either they have their sights set unrealistically high, the reliever market isn't going to be crazy this summer, or Bowden made a bad call. This likely lessens what the O's could get for Bradford, Walker, or Sherrill though. Read more ...

O's-Astros, Now With Minimal Gloating

I didn't watch the game, though I followed the updates online. While it was going on, I was talking (via the intertubes) to a friend of mine who has relatives in Houston, and a cousin who's an Astros fan, who was apparently talking to him also. This naturally led to a little bit of extra commentary on my part.

Garrett Olson started for the O's and had an excellent stretch, retiring 12 straight 'Stros from the first to the fifth innings. Unfortunately, it book-ended two not-so-good parts of the game. In the first, a lead-off single, two wild pitches, and an RBI groundout gave Houston an early lead. With two outs in the fifth (after the O's had gone ahead 3-1 on a two-run homer by Aubrey Huff (who is hitting a solid 266 / 332 / 466 on the year so far - the average is down, but the walks and homers are up just like a certain blogger predicted they would be) and an RBI single by Freddie Bynum to plate Ramon Hernandez, who looked bad behind the plate (again - from what I've heard) but did reach base three times) Olson lost it. Single-single-single-passed ball (thanks, Razor)-double-walk and the Astros are ahead 4-3 and Olson is out of the game. I'm disappointed by how it ended, but I think he actually pitched pretty well. Sometimes those kinds of innings happen.

At this point, my friend was saying that the Orioles were going to lose ("hey, they're a come-back team... it's not over yet"). Former 'Stro Matt Albers came into finish the inning. After the O's went down in order, Carlos Lee started the sixth with a solo home run to make it 5-3. "They're done...it's over... have they lost yet?" - "This team won't give up... they've been come-back kids all year". It looked like it started to happen in the bottom of the frame, when Ramon walked and Adam Jones doubled with one out. Bynum struck out meekly though, and former Orioles Tim Byrdak got Brian Roberts to end the threat. Albers pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, and ended up having a pretty good night.

"KAKES"-"KAKES?!" was the reaction to start the bottom of the seventh. Nick's opposite field home run (his 12th) cut the lead to 5-4. Markakis, by the way, is up to 287 / 384 / 483. I can't wait till he really starts heating up in July and August. A Huff double and an intentional walk to Luke Scott had the O's in position to jump back ahead, but Ramon struck out (check) swinging to end the inning. Jim Johnson took over in the eighth (Trembley is kinda using his pen as if he were ahead 5-4 instead of behind) and gave up a single and a walk, but K'ed two and kept Houston off the board. Running out of time, guys - time to score some runs.

Adam Jones led off with a single to left, and then was sacrificed to second by Bynum. (Trembley praised the bunt after the game - it wasn't a horrible move with his poor hitting and the top of the order coming up, but it would be nice to have a guy on the bench who can pinch-hit in that situation.) Roberts walked, and everything was set up for Nick to be the hero tonight (with all of the comebacks the team has had, they're best player doesn't seem to be the hero very often - maybe he needs to do some clutchness drills). Too bad the Astros know Markakis has some trouble with the high heat as they brought in closer Jose Valverde, who blew Nick away on four pitches. Melvin Mora likewise found himself down in the count, but he battled back and eventually hit one into deep left-center field. Jones scores... and here comes Roberts! ("I told you they would come back.") Another big hit for Mora puts the O's ahead 6-5. That's all they would get, and it was George "Tired Arm Just Two Days Ago" Sherrill in for the save. No problems today, as he set the Astros down 1-2-3. I "knew" the whole time that the Orioles would win this game. It's the same feeling I've had time and again this season, and it's much nicer than the "how did they lose this time?" from past years.

The O's win gets them back above .500 to 35-34. Houston falls to 33-38 (haha). Miguel Tejada went 0-3 with a walk and a K in his return to Baltimore. Luke Scott went 1-3 with a walk, and Albers did a fine job as the long-man in the game. Apparently, the Astros don't want to rebuild. All they need to do is look across the field to the other dugout (or to Oakland) to see that rebuilding != losing. Read more ...

He Must Have Interviewed Really Well

Example number 541,337 of someone in a position of authority within a major league baseball team saying something that doesn't make any sense.

"“That’s a good play,” Cooper said of Berkman’s decision to bunt with the third baseman playing him deep. “That’s a baseball player’s play. It’s a nice job. We need baserunners. If you hit a ball out of a ballpark, I call them rally-killers when you get down like that. We need to keep a rally going, and that was a nice play to me.”"

Houston was down 5-1 at that point, and would go on to lose by that same score. I'm not saying it was a bad play by Berkman to take a single when presented with it, but I have to think that if given the choice he would have gladly accepted the home run. 5-3 and none on, or 5-1 and two on? Really, you want the latter? Is that your final answer (yaye pop culture references)? You know, I never understood why someone would prefer a single to a HR when his team was batting (so as to keep the rally going) but would intentionally walk an opposing batter for fear of him hitting a HR in the same type of situation. Shouldn't he prefer the "rally-killing" homer? This make sense to anyone else? Read more ...

Falling 'Stro

If you're a team that is surprisingly contending behind a great offensive core, but only have one legitimate pitcher, it stands to reason that you would protect that pitcher as well as you can, right? Well, not if you're the Astros.

"Oswalt walked off the mound at the end of the sixth inning Saturday night having thrown 105 pitches. More important, he had already felt a “twinge” in his right groin area.

When someone, presumably pitching coach Dewey Robinson, approached him about going back out for the seventh, Oswalt said he tried to make it clear he’d had enough.

“I told them I thought that was it,” he said after the game. “They wanted me to go one more.”

In his postgame news conference with reporters, Cooper remembered the conversation differently.

“He just said he thought he could go back out for the seventh,” Cooper said. “We felt we could get one more out of him.”

Oswalt did go back out for the seventh, but threw just five more pitches before summoning the medical staff and limping off the mound."

Nice job Houston. Have fun with your new "ace", Wandy Rodriguez. At least Lance Berkman has a 231 OPS+. (That's not a mistake - it's actually 231.) Read more ...