Not a whole lot of positives to take away from last night's beatdown at the hands of the Oakland Athletics. Erik Bedard, after being so good in his first two appearances, couldn't throw strikes and the Astros found themselves down 6-0 after just one inning. It was a fairly ugly game, but those happen every now and then. All you can do is take your lumps and move on. You'll always have more chances for it is, after all, a LONG season. Here's some more thoughts on last night's game:
1) I'm not going to harp too much on Bedard's performance since there's pretty much nothing good to take away from it. Instead I'll focus on rookie Paul Clemens who came out of the bullpen and fired 5 1/3 scoreless innings allowing just 1 hit and 2 walks. The kid showed some real heart out there and even gutted his way through a dislocated pinky after trying to barehand a grounder up the middle. If Clemens pitches like he did last night, it creates all kinds of possibilities for him, both in the starting rotation, or in the back of the bullpen. And hey, with the way the bullpen's been pitching, there's no reason he couldn't take just about anyone's job. The only downside to Clemens' performance last night is that we won't be able to see him pitch again for like 4 days or so.
2) I heard last night that Carlos Pena now has 26 career bunt singles. I never would have guessed that. I also would not have predicted that 13 games into the season he'd have more bunt singles than home runs... Even after last night's 2 for 4 showing, Pena is slugging just .326.
3) Jed Lowrie is absolutely killing the Astros this year. After last night's 4-rbi performance, Lowrie is now 9 for 17 with 5 runs, 2 homers and 7 runs batted in in just 4 games (all A's wins). And speaking of former Astros coming back to haunt us: remember when we opted to go with Brett Wallace over Nate Freiman? Yeah, the Rule 5 draft pick from San Diego hit an absolute moonshot off of Bedard in the first inning. All together, Lowrie and Freiman drove in 7 runs yesterday. Nice to see you too.
4) It seems like every guy in the A's lineup is a tough out. They work counts, they hit for power, they hit for average, they run the bases well... There's a reason they're 10-4 right now while Houston is 4-9. Let's face it, no matter how much you love the Astros, I don't know that anyone other than maybe Jose Altuve would be characterized as a tough out. Still, it could always be worse. At least they're not striking out in double digits consistently any more.
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