GAME 15 - April 16: Oswalt Rocks, Valverde Sits

Houston 2, Philadelphia 1

Quote of the Day: "We've got to get him on the horse as soon as the situation presents itself." (Cecil Cooper, on Valverde, the day after)

It was a nice of Coop to build up his beleaguered closer, after yet another perfectly dreadful blown save. "He's the man...He's the guy. I have a lot of confidence in him. I just told him, as soon as an opportunity presents itself, you'll get back out there." But when the opportunity presented itself on Wednesday night, with Roy Oswalt's start on the line in a one-run game, it was not Valverde on the mound in the bottom of the ninth. Valverde had had a bullpen session before the game, so Cooper brought in Doug Brocail to save the game for Oswalt's first W.

In a 2-1 game, it's all about the pitching. The best news of the night: Oswalt looked like himself again, not the weird alien who had taken over his body in the first three games of the season (and the last couple of games of Spring Training, too). His curve ball is back and it had the Phillies bamboozled. (Of course, Oswalt always has the Phillies bamboozled - he's won 6 consecutive games against them, since 2004.) He pitched 7 innings, giving up only a single run and 3 hits in the first inning. He threw 92 pitches, and only gave up another 2 hits after the first inning, with 2 BBs and 4 Ks. The second best news of the night: Wright came in to face the 2-3-4 batters in the Phillies lineup. He struck out the side on 12 pitches. The third best news of the night: Brocail pitched a scoreless ninth to get the save.

Of course, the Astros didn't win without scoring runs, meager as they were. The offensive hero for this game was Bourn, the off-season trade for Lidge, who scored both of the Astros runs. Nothing like showing off for the team who traded you. He reached base on an infield single to lead off the game, stole second, then scored on Lee's 2-out double. Then, in the 5th inning, he bounced a ball off the outfield foul pole, for his second home run in a week. That run turned out to be the decisive one, as the score held at 2-1 for the rest of the game. With 8 SBs in 8 tries, Bourn leads the Major Leagues - double the next runner up (so to speak).

This was the fourth straight game in which the Astros' pitchers (aside from Valverde) have been virtually lights-out. Not including Valverde's 4-run fiasco on Tuesday, Houston pitchers have given up a grand total of 2 runs in the past 4 games. This early in the season, with such a small sample of innings, games like these have made a huge dent in their ERAs. Backe and Chacon's ERAs are 2.25; Wandy's is only 2.33.

Some of the relievers have also been terrific. Brocail has had a stellar start to the season, with only 1 ER in 7+ innings, an ERA of 1.17. Ya know, that's kinda like what one would expect, say, from a closer... Wright's ERA is 2.70; Borkowski and Geary are both in the 3's. The main disappointment, besides Valverde, has been Villareal, with 2 losses and an ERA of 6.00. But overall, this improvement in mound performance, on top of the fantastic defense we've seen so far this season, bodes very well for the team.

In less cheerful news, Pence was 0 for 3, with 2 Ks; his batting average is down to .161.

Now if we could just have one of those double-digit run games, with Pence going for the cycle, and Bourn stealing 3 bases, and Berkman hitting homers from both sides of the plate... I am SO ready to see that!