Well, Clemens lost to Francisco Liriano, but that's nothing to be ashamed of. Roger had a tough 3rd inning, throwing 30+ pitches, but other than that, I thought he looked fine - just a little rusty. We start a series with the White Sox today, who have won the last 3 games against the Cardinals by scoring 20 runs, 13 runs, and 1 run (on 1 hit!) They're hot. Let's hope we can win a close game or two this time around, as opposed to the World Series last year. I'm going to be on the river for the next week, so Andy, it's all you, buddy.

Astros Notebook

The big news today is Roger Clemens makes his Astros return against Francisco Liriano (who was 1 year old when Clemens made his first MLB start) and the Twins tonight. Clemens by himself won't automatically make us a great team, but if he can get his good buddy Andy Pettitte back on track, get the fans fired up, and pitches great, that will work.

We're making room for Clemens by optioning Chris Sampson to AAA, moving Fernando Nieve to the bullpen, and keeping Taylor Buccholz as the 5th starter. Garner's reasoning for the Nieve / Buchholz decision is that Nieve is better suited to be a reliever than Buchholz. Perhaps this is because he's a better pitcher in general:

Nieve, 2006: 65 IP, 4.71 ERA, 20 BB / 42 K
Nieve, June 2006: 18 IP, 3.00 ERA

Buchholz, 2006: 77.1 IP, 5.82 ERA, 19 BB / 47 K
Buchholz, June 2006: 19 IP, 6.63 ERA

Buccholz has had some excellent starts in the majors but he's also had some terrible ones. He's given up 8 ER or more in 4 different games!

Oh well. It probably doesn't matter that much, since Buccholz will be sent down when Brandon Backe returns. Still, I think Nieve is a better pitcher than Buchholz, for 2006 and beyond.

There has been some talk on Astros message boards about how badly Morgan Ensberg is slumping, etc. I mean, my god, he's only batting .249!

He also leads the team with 48 walks, and is 3rd to Chris Burke and Lance Berkman with a .381 OBP, and is 2nd to Berkman with a .541 SLG.

If his elbow is still bothering him, that's one thing, and we should let him rest. But to say we should bench him because he's not helping the club? Ridiculous.

The U.S. was bounced out of World Cup by a 2-1 loss to Ghana today. I'm disappointed, sure, but to be honest this wasn't a surprising result - Italy and the Czech Republic are both great teams, and Ghana is the best team in Africa. This was a brutal group to get out of. Expect better things in 2010.

One of the free agents that I wanted the Astros to go after this winter was Jason Johnson. Well, he was just released by the Indians after a 5.96 ERA in 14 starts. Johnson's main problem was that batters were hitting .341 off him, which is unlikely to continue - he's allowed a .282 batting average for his career. The Red Sox got him for cash and a PTBNL. I still think he can be a decent pitcher for the right team. He's getting an unbelievable number of groundballs this year, so maybe he just needs better infield defense.

Just when things were looking up (my last post was a little over-optimistic), we lose 2 out of 3 at home to the mighty Royals. We've got the Twins coming up next:

Radke vs. Oswalt
Silva vs. Wandy
Liriano vs. Clemens

That last match-up is going to get all the attention, as Roger Clemens returns to the Astros. I'm almost as concerned with tonight's game, just to see how Roy O looks on his 2nd start after his DL stint. Both Radke and Silva throw a ton of strikes and allow a bunch of hits.

The World Cup is still awesome to watch. I've got a bunch of free time until my river trip on June 25, so I've been watching a LOT of soccer. Big England vs. Sweden game today. Let's go Brits!

Just when things were looking up (my last post was a little over-optimistic), we lose 2 out of 3 at home to the mighty Royals. We've got the Twins coming up next:

Radke vs. Oswalt
Silva vs. Wandy
Liriano vs. Clemens

That last match-up is going to get all the attention, as Roger Clemens returns to the Astros. I'm almost as concerned with tonight's game, just to see how Roy O looks on his 2nd start after his DL stint. Both Radke and Silva throw a ton of strikes and allow a bunch of hits.

The World Cup is still awesome to watch. I've got a bunch of free time until my river trip on June 25, so I've been watching a LOT of soccer. Big England vs. Sweden game today. Let's go Brits!

Just when things were looking up (my last post was a little over-optimistic), we lose 2 out of 3 at home to the mighty Royals. We've got the Twins coming up next:

Radke vs. Oswalt
Silva vs. Wandy
Liriano vs. Clemens

That last match-up is going to get all the attention, as Roger Clemens returns to the Astros. I'm almost as concerned with tonight's game, just to see how Roy O looks on his 2nd start after his DL stint. Both Radke and Silva throw a ton of strikes and allow a bunch of hits.

The World Cup is still awesome to watch. I've got a bunch of free time until my river trip on June 25, so I've been watching a LOT of soccer. Big England vs. Sweden game today. Let's go Brits!

The Astros finished up a sweep of the Cubs at Wrigley yesterday, as Brad Ausmus had a 2-run single in the 8th that gave us a 3-2 win. Fernando Nieve pitched well, almost certainly insuring that Taylor Bucholz will be the one sent back to AAA when Roger Clemens joins the team on June 22. Chris Burke continued his great June (.405 / .476 / .578 for the month) with 2 hits and 2 walks yesterday. He appears to have won himself the majority of the starts in CF, forcing Willy T to the bench.

Morgan Ensberg pinch-hit yesterday and was hit by a pitch immediately. It didn't do any damage, though, and he should be starting today against Kansas City. Mike Lamb did an admirable job filling him, and should get the occasional start at 1st and 3rd and be the main pinch-hitter.

Brad Lidge seems to have settled down - he hasn't allowed any runs (and perhapes even better, not walks) in his 7 IP in June. He should be fine. Chad Qualls (who, somewhat surprisingly to me, has the 2nd highest VORP of any pitcher on the team behind Roy Oswalt, according to Baseball Prospectus) has also been fine since a rough April, and Dan Wheeler's peripheral stats (9 BB, 29 K in 28 IP) look pretty good. Even Trever Miller and Dave Borkowski have been good! It's easy to be flying high after a series sweep, but with Ensberg back, Clemens on the way, Lancey Lance putting up his usual 988 OPS, and two good starts in a row from Andy Pettitte, it's a good time to be an Astros fan.

Some things that I'd like to see:

Chris Burke getting at least a weekly start at 2B to rest Craig Biggio. I've said this plenty, but Biggio has collapsed after the All-Star Break the last two years. He needs more rest.

Eric Munson getting a little more playing time. After his ridiculous April, Brad Ausmus has put up his usual OPS's of 664 and 625 in the last two months. Munson isn't great, but he's slugging .431 on the year and has slugged .411 for his career, which is about 120 points higher than we can expect from Ausmus.

Patience with Jason Lane. Preston Wilson is having a nice comeback, and has his batting average up to .279. Even though he's batting .209, Lane still has Wilson covered easily in both OBP and OPS, yet Lane has been benched fairly often lately. He's not going to hit around .200 all year, and he's got the patience (38 walks, 2nd on the team to Ensberg's 44) and power that we need.

Improvement at the plate from Adam Everett. You can talk all you want to about how shortstop is a defensive position first, and that might be so, but a 571 OPS is awful. Everett seems to pop up or fly out weakly early on in the count WAY too often. First of all, he should take advantage of his speed by trying to hit more ground balls / line drives, and second of all, he should try working the count a little bit.

More walks from Preston Wilson. He takes wild swings often. That's ok if the pitch is a strike, but it still seems like he's pressing a bit and trying to hit huge home runs to left field on pitches a foot off the outside corner. Settle down, go the opposite way, and be a little more patient.

Fewer walks from Wandy Rodriguez. I'm not quite sure how, but Wandy only has a 4.48 ERA despite walking 40 batters in 80.1 IP. I know he doesn't have great stuff, so he can't exactly throw fastballs down the middle of the plate, but he has to quit walking so many batters.

Ok, that's enough. Everything is going well right now, so let's enjoy the ride. But we're only 35-32, still 5 games behind the Cardinals in the division and 2.5 games behind the Reds in the wild card. Clemens will help, but we have to keep working hard.

Roy O is back tonight, as we take on slumping Greg Maddux and the Cubs. The offense continued its recent tear last night - Chris Burke went 4-for-4 with a walk and scored all 5 times, Jason Lane had a hit and drew two walks, and Lance Berkman and Preston Wilson each had 5 RBI's. Sweet. Andy Pettitte looked smooth, giving up 1 run in 7 innings. All in all, a great win. I like this team again!

My first river trip of the summer was supposed to leave tomorrow, but I was unceremoniously bumped from it. It's a long story. I'm still going on one later this month, then an ultimate frisbee tournament in Chicago, and then a family trip to the Galapagos Islands, so I can't really complain. I plan on playing a fair amount of poker the next 10 days. Today was a brutal poker day, though - I had KK five times, and lost all five. I had AA, flopped an A, and lost to a runner-runner flush. None of my draws were coming in, I wasn't flopping sets...that's how it goes. Variance, variance, variance. I should understand small sample sizes better than most people, but it's still frustrating.

Things are looking better for the Astros - we took 3 of 4 from the Braves, and got our offense on track, as guys like Mike Lamb, Eric Munson, and Jason Lane had some big hits. It was great to see Lane have a big night - he's been the victim of some bad luck this year, and I still believe he can be a solid outfielder in this league. The Munson signing has also worked out nicely; it's fun having a catcher with some power, huh?

Roger Clemens made his 2nd rehab start last night, and struck out 12 in 6 innings. Guess he's ready. Andy and I were trying to figure out when Backe would be back, and when he finally is, a rotation of Roy O / Pettitte / Clemens / Backe / Wandy certainly looks good on paper.

I haven't been able to find it, but I seem to recall reading a Phil Garner quote that he wants to get Chris Burke in the lineup nearly every day. This appears to mean a lot less playing time for Willy T and Jason Lane. I like Burke too, but I think he works fine as a super-utility guy also. We'll see how this plays out.

The World Cup has been great so far, as long as you're not a huge American soccer fan. How about Australia's comeback today???

Well, things can't get too much worse for the Astros:

Roy Oswalt misses a start due to back pain
Carlos Zambrano almost no-hits us in a 8-0 win
We get swept by the Cincinnati Reds
Jason Lane isn't playing much despite having a higher OPS than Preston Wilson
Adam Everett has a 576 OPS
Andy Pettitte has a 6.03 ERA

Shall I go on?

Ok, so we're struggling. We've been down and out the last two years and have come back to make the playoffs. Unfortunately, the National League looks stronger this year. The Mets, Cardinals, Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, Padres, and Diamondbacks are all good teams. Can we do it again?

I still say we have a better line-up than last year. Garner has been playing "Create a new lineup every day" for a while, but if he'd just stick with

Taveras
Biggio
Berkman
Ensberg
Wilson
Lane
Ausmus
Everett
P

I think we'd be a lot better off. Sure, Mike Lamb, Eric Bruntlett, and Chris Burke are playing well right now, but there's a reason they haven't forced their way into the starting lineup until now.

A rotation of Oswalt / Pettitte / Clemens / Wandy / Bucholz looks good on paper, but there are issues everywhere. Oswalt has thrown a crapload of innings in the last few years and now has back pain. Pettitte is getting hammered (and he's making 17.5 million this year!), Clemens isn't back for another two weeks, and Wandy and Bucholz have both sucked hard the last few weeks.

The bullpen should be good, at least. Lidge / Wheeler / Qualls is solid, Springer isn't terrible, Trever Miller has looked good, and even Dave Borkowski has done decently well.

All in all, anything is possible, but it's time to pick it up. Garner isn't helping us by sitting Lane and Everett.

Ouch! Wandy was absolutely pounded last night, giving up 7 runs, 6 hits and 5 walks while only recording 4 outs. Recently-promoted-from-AAA Chris Sampson came in and did a decent job in his first major-league appearance, giving up 3 ER in 5.2 innings.

In the best news of the day, we demoted Mike Gallo to AAA to make room for Sampson. Gallo had a 6.02 ERA and a 2.14 WHIP in 16 innings this year, and he looked even worse than that. Lefties were hitting .316 off him. Still want two lefties in the bullpen, Garner?

Let's talk about the Rocket coming back. First of all: I was wrong. I really didn't think Clemens would come back and said as much in past posts. Whoops. Now: who does he replace? According to the Chronicle, Fernando Nieve will be sent down. That makes our rotation Oswalt / Pettitte / Clemens / Wandy / Bucholz. Nice front three, again - rough bottom two. Let's ignore for a second the effect that Clemens will have on other Astros (Pettitte, bullpen, etc.) and just talk about what Clemens himself is likely to do.

Well, he put up a 1.87 ERA in 211.1 innings last year. Doing a little math it seems likely that he will pitch around 18 starts * 6.5 innings / start = 117 innings this year. In the first half of last year Clemens put up a 1.48 ERA in 122 innings. Can we expect that again? Maybe not exactly, but he's Roger Freaking Clemens. I'd guess around a 2.00-2.50 ERA.

Ok, now let's talk about the effect Roger might have on the rest of the team. First of all, it might just pump up his good buddy Andy Pettitte. Andy's main problem is batters are hitting .317 against him and he's already given up 12 HR's (17 all of last year). Both of these trends are unlikely to continue, and having Rocket there to cheer him on won't hurt either.

The bullpen should also benefit - Clemens is a lock to pitch more innings per start than Nieve, so Qualls, Wheeler and Lidge (79 IP combined) should get a little more rest.

Finally, the fans might benefit the most from Clemens returning. He guarantees a sellout crowd every 5th day, he gives us a boost, interest in the Astros shoots up, etc., etc. He makes the Astros exciting again.