GAMES 122-123 - August 15-16: Consistent Inconsistency

August 15: Arizona 12, Houston 2
August 16: Arizona 11, Houston 5

Quote of the Day: "I just wanted to see if he was OK, and I said, 'I really need you to get this guy.' He said, 'OK, I can do it.' That's why I left him in. Hindsight's always good, but I'd do it again if I had to do it." (Cooper, on leaving Backe in with the bases loaded, just before he gave up his second granny)

Brandon Backe's been back and forth like a pingpong ball - bad, good, bad, good - this season. He had a really nice start last week, and thought that maybe it had made up for his previous one, when he gave up 9 runs, including a grand slam. But he outdid even that on Saturday night, giving up 5 runs in the first inning and 11 total - including two grand slams. Backe's line - 5 2/3 innings, giving up 11 runs on 9 hits and 5 walks, striking out 6 - doesn't even fully illuminate how bad he was pitching. A more telling stat: Of his 119 pitches, only 69 were strikes.

One might ask why Backe, who had given up his first granny in the first inning, was still in the game in the sixth, when he allowed the second one. The answer ultimately rests with Cecil Cooper, who visited Backe on the mound and then let him keep pitching, even though he had just walked the bases loaded, even though he already had over 110 pitches. Bad judgment, especially when he says that he'd do it again? It's hard to guess what might have happened if Cooper had not let Backe dig quite such a deep hole. The bullpen - Geary, Brocail, and Hawkins - finished off the game without surrendering another run, and Houston came back late in the game to score some runs, one in the seventh and three more in the ninth. But it was too little, too late.

The other reason that Backe wasn't taken out much earlier rests on someone else: Wandy Rodriguez. Wandy's pitching meltdown the night before resulted in the bullpen having to start in the third inning. It was apparently their overuse on Friday that factored in Cooper's leaving Backe in the game, even though he had been way off his game all night. Wandy, on Friday night, was proportionally even worse: Of the 77 pitches that he threw in his 2 1/3 innings, only 39 were strikes. He gave up 3 runs in the first inning and another in the third, before he was yanked out. With ace Brandon Webb on the mound for the Dbacks, Cooper knew that he had to keep the score within reach, and Wandy wasn't doing that. Unfortunately, his relief pitchers didn't offer much in the way of relief. Sampson gave away a pair of runs in his two-plus innings. Brydak threw in 6 more in 3 innings, all on home runs - one in each inning. Wright pitched a perfect ninth, but by then the score was 12-2 and the Astros streak was broken at 8 games.

The lone bright spot in Friday night's game was Ty Wiggington, who continues to crush the ball - he went 3 for 4 including a home run. Then he followed that up on Saturday with 3 more hits - 2 doubles and an RBI triple. Wiggington's recent offensive barrage has received plenty of attention, but I'm not sure if anyone is attributing it to the true source: He's taken over in left field for El Caballo, out for the year with a broken pinky. Apparently RBIs are contagious.

I was expecting the Astros to have some problems scoring runs off of the strong Diamondback pitching, but that didn't mean that the Astros pitching needed to melt down too. The Astros are facing quite a few big shot pitchers over the next week or so, and they'll need to do much better to get their winning momentum back. They can start with Sunday's series finale: the Wiz vs the Big Unit.