The Future is Looking Very Bright

GAME 59: Astros 7, Angels 2
GAME 60: Angels 4, Astros 0
GAME 61: Astros 8, Angels 5

Another series win!!!

I went into this season thinking that this is a good time to get to know the new faces, batting stances, and stats for the future Astros team that will be a contender -- starting maybe 3 years from now. Over the past couple of months, I've kicked up my expectations: Maybe 2 years from now this will be a winning team? But in the past few weeks, the Astros are starting to look like a team that can win games now. No, I'm not calling for a 2005-style upset, where Houston went from 15-30 on to win the pennant. That year, despite the June 1 "RIP Astros Season" tombstone from the Chronicle, I was undeterred from my faith that the Astros would play in the World Series. (It's all documented in two 3-ring binders that I started at Spring Training and kept up through the sad ending to the World Series.) But that was an Astros team of veteran great players (Bagwell! Biggio!) and seasoned star pitchers (Clemens! Pettitte! Oswalt!), whose day had simply come.  This year, we've got a bunch of kids, with energy and speed and high hopes for their day coming. Even so, I'm starting to believe that their day is coming much sooner that I had thought back in March.

Our pitching rotation might be (mostly) youngsters, but we have enough starters to keep the Astros winning games. More than enough - they had to send Oberholtzer back down last week, not because he wasn't producing, but because they didn't need 6 starters. The bullpen's settling in. And the hitting has improved significantly from the first month of the season. When we went to see the Astros in Baltimore on Mothers' Day, Altuve was the only Houston player on the field batting over .250. Now Altuve's batting well over .300, and the Over .250 Club includes Fowler, Springer, Gonzales, and Dominguez (on a good day). There are still too many players batting under .200 (Carter, Villar, Grossman, Corporan, and --for the moment -- Singleton), but the team batting as a whole is more productive.

The way we can tell is this: The Astros haven't lost a series since they dropped 2 of 3 games in Anaheim May 19-21. They've tied, won, and even swept the Mariners, Royals, Orioles, and Angels since then.  You know what else? The Astros are no longer the worst team in baseball! Their .426 record beats the Rays (.377) in the AL, and 3 teams -- the Phillies, Cubs, and Diamondbacks -- in the NL. That's what happens when you win 12 of the last 20 games. If they keep this up, the Astros aren't getting the first pick in the 2015 draft!

The Astros unprecedented third consecutive first draft pick took place last evening, before the end of the Shavuot holiday, so I missed seeing it live. As soon as the holiday ended, I rushed to Astros.com on my iPad to find out who they selected in what hopefully will be our last first draft pick for a very long time. The Astros went with Brady Aiken, a 17-year old So Cal high school lefty flame-thrower, who looks like he came out of Central Casting to star in a sentimental baseball movie. Really, doesn't this kid look like he ought to be playing a baseball star, not a baseball game? If he develops the way the Astros are dreaming about, this guy is going to be a super fan favorite! Looks don't matter as much as stats... but still... Okay, more seriously, is this a kid we are going to see on the mound when he's 20 years old, with 4 solid pitches, and a flaming fast ball? He's so young, who knows how he'll develop, but he's got the overall look of a big league pitcher, and he hasn't been worn out by overuse in college baseball. Is he going to be our ace by the time he's legally able to buy a drink? I guess he'll have to duke that out with Mark Appel! WOW!

Following the first pick on Day 1, the Astros selected a couple of potential power bats, Derek Fisher and A.J. Reed, both college players. It was great to see one of my favorite players from the pennant winning Astros, Adam Everett, announcing the Astros picks.

Okay, just a couple of words about the Angels series. We won! (I really ought to leave it at those two, considering that I only got to watch the first inning of game 1 and the last few innings of game 3, due to the religious holiday.) But I have to at least mention that this was the first big league series for brand new Astro, Jonathan Singleton. He was signed to a unusually long and large contract for a newbie, and brought up this week from OKC. Clearly the Astros see him as a long-term impact player. He had a good impact in his first game: His first ML hit was an 8th inning home run in Tuesday night's 7-2 win. He had an oh-fer night on Wednesday -- as did most of his teammates, as the Astros were shut out. He got one hit and scored a run in last night's win. So welcome to the Big Leagues, Jon Singleton. And stay off the weed. 

Recapping the starting pitching for this series: McHugh got the win in game 1, after pitching 5 shutout innings (97 pitches), giving up only 2 hits and 2 walks. Although he ended up with the loss, Cosart did not have a bad start in game 2 - he threw into the 7th inning, giving up 3 runs on 8 hits. But NO (zero! zilch!) run support! Peacock didn't have his best stuff in game 3, throwing his 5 innings, giving up 3 runs of 6 hits, one walk, one K. But he got the win with plenty of run support - half of it after he left the game. The big 8th inning surge started with 4 walks, followed by a pair of 2-out 2-RBI hits from our Dynamic Duo, Altuve and Springer. That 8-3 lead should have led to an easy win, but Paul Clemens loaded the bases with no outs in the 9th inning. Kudos to the calm veteran, Chad Qualls, who got the save, after only allowing one of the runners to score. (And to be fair, kudos to Clemens too. He took down Pujols, Hamilton, and Kendrick for a 1-2-3 eighth inning. And the first two guys who got on base in the ninth did so on shaky fielding. He didn't pitch as bad as "bases loaded, no outs" sounds.)

One more notable item: Porter has jiggled the batting order a bit, putting Fowler back as lead-off, followed by Altuve and Springer. I like the change - Fowler's hitting has increased batting at the top of the order (and hopefully his steals will too), and it still keeps Altuve and Springer batting one after the other. Altuve gets on base, Springer knocks him in. That seems to be a good pattern, as Springer has quickly taken the team lead in RBIs. Singleton's batting 5th, for now at least. If he starts knocking out the homers he was brought up to hit, I'd expect to see him in cleanup.

Now that the 2 day religious holiday is over, I still don't get to watch ball games.  WAH! The Sabbath starts at sundown tonight, and tomorrow's a day game. I won't get to watch our new hot ball team in a live game till Sunday. Well, let's just say, we all need to have our priorities in life.

Seeya online on Sunday!