The bats were lifeless for a second straight game as the Astros fell to the Rangers 4-0. The Astros racked up double digit strike-outs for a third straight game to start the year and wasted another strong pitching performance, this time from newcomer Philip Humber. Some more observations from Game 3:
1) The inability to put balls in play is killing the Astros right now. They have ten times as many strikeouts (43) as walks (4), and hit just .172 in the series while fanning in 46% of their at bats. You can point your finger in any number of directions too as every Astro with the exception of Carlos Corporan struck out at least once in the three game series. Top offenders: Brett Wallace (8), Chris Carter (7), Carlos Pena (6), Justin Maxwell (5), and Rick Ankiel (5). Even pitchers don't strike out at that rate, so you have to figure things will get better and average out, but still...
2) Jason Castro and Chris Carter both went 0 for 11 in the Rangers series. Have faith, both will break out of their mini slumps. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
3) Lance Berkman is not welcome in Houston any more. The Big Puma reached base in 9 of his 13 at bats and drove in 3. His "replacement" Carlos Pena was just 2 for 11 and as previously noted struck out six times. I say the word replacement loosely because Pena didn't really "replace" Berkman, we just opted to sign him instead. Any regrets yet?
4) If there is a silver lining, it's that Houston has gotten great starting pitching so far this season. Who really thought that Houston's starters will limit the Rangers' high powered offense to just 4 runs in 17 1/3 innings of work. Add in 3 1/3 scoreless innings from number 5 guy Erik Bedard and you're looking at a 1.74 ERA from Houston's starting rotation. Yes, it's early, but it is a positive. The bullpen? Less positive. Although Wesley Wright and Rhiner Cruz both bounced back from last night's poor showing to toss scoreless innings.
5) Should Brett Wallace continue to hit second? I say drop him in the order and move Ronny Cedeno, or Jason Castro or Marwin Gonzalez, or one of Houston's better contact hitters up to hit behind Altuve. Let Wallace toil around the 7 or 8 spot until he can get in a groove. You can't have your number two hitter fanning 80% of the time.
6) Jose Altuve is on his way to being our lone representative in the All Star Game once again. Yeah, it's three games into the season, but Altuve has a three game hitting streak and has accounted for nearly one third of our hits. Now we just need someone behind him to start driving the ball and bringing him around. I'm talking about you, Chris Carter.
No comments:
Post a Comment