GAMES 105-106: The New Era Continues...

GAME 105 - August 2: Astros 9, Cardinals 4
GAME 106 - August 3: Astros 18, Cardinals 4


     Quote of the Day: "18-4? Are you kidding me?" (my sister Elizabeth, on Facebook)

The Astros may be 12 games under .500, in fourth place in their division, but that doesn't mean that baseball can't still be fun. Since the All Star game, they've been playing with a lot of spunk and good results. Since trading their star players last week, they've been unbeatable. Over the weekend, Astros pitchers held the hard-hitting Brewers to 2 runs in 3 games -- that's the same Brewers who are second in the league in slugging and first in homers. Now in St Louis, the Astros are beating up the Cardinals, a team whose pitchers have the third best combined ERA in the league.

The past week, while the Astros were busy blazing blazed their way into a 7 game winning streak, their pitchers had a combined ERA of 1.50. Our team batting average was over .340, with slugging over .530, despite a relatively modest number of homers (just 6). Oh by the way, in those stats, the Astros are leading the league this week. If it weren't for the humongous hole they dug themselves into, at the start of the season, they'd look like (dare I say it?) contenders.

Take last night's game: 18-4? You must be kidding! That's the kind of pounding that happens against the Astros, not by them! Outscoring Pujols & Co 27-8 in the first two games of this series, and extending their winning streak in Busch Stadium to 6 games, is pretty remarkable. Nearly everyone on the team participated in the hitfests - even Carlos Lee. El Caballo seems so energized by all the offensive frenzy that he tried to convert a double into a triple, and almost succeeded (the ump said no, the slo-mo said maybe, it was that close).  Here's what the hitting for some of the key players looked like over the first two games of the St Louis series:
      Bourn - 1 for 4, 1 BB, 2 R, 1 SB
      Kepp - 3 for 8, 1 BB, 2 R, 4 RBI
      Pence - 3 for 10, 3 RBI, 1 SB
      CJ  - 4 for 8, 2 R, 5 RBI
      Lee - 5 for 8, 3 BB,  5 R, 1 RBI
      Sanchez - 5 for 7, 2 R. 6 RBI
      Wallace - 2 for 4, 1 BB, 2 RBI
      Hernandez - 1 for 3, 1 BB, 2 R
      Bourgeois - 1 for 5, 2 BB, 2 R, 2 RBI
      Feliz - 3 for 6, 2 R, 2 RBI
      JMike - 1 for 3. 1 R

What's amazing in this spate of 27 runs is that there were NO homers, only 1 triple, and 7 doubles -- all the rest of the 34 hits were singles. The team RISP was 21 for 36. What a change!

We've been seeing hot pitching for the past month, and these games were more of the same. Myers had another 6 inning quality start. Norris gave up 4 runs in his 6 innings, but got a ton of run support and earned a win. The bullpen has been stellar - just one run given up (by Figueroa) in 6 relief innings.

Of Special Note: Angel Sanchez came within a homer of going for the cycle in Tuesday night's game. He went 4 for 6, with 2 singles, a double, a triple, and 6 RBIs.

Chris Johnson's season BA is up to .350.

There's only one position player batting under .200 (Castro).

Feliz went 3 for 6 right after being named August's Worst Player in Baseball.

Myers continues his streak - he has not pitched less than 6 innings in any of his starts this season. His ERA is 3.10. It would be nice if that translated to something better than an 8-6 record, but there was that really bad start to the season... He got a no decision in his start Monday night.

Photosynthesis: The further the Astros go into renovating the team with youngsters and new guys, especially those that were recently acquired from trades, the fewer pictures I have to illustrate my blogs. I always take some pictures of Astros prospects from Spring Training (generally the better known ones), but I only have the other teams' younger guys if I happened to snap their pictures during a game. So I don't have any pictures of Brett Wallace or Angel Sanchez to post. I'll have a lot of players to catch up on at Spring Training next year!