Not quite the follow-up to the season opener we were all hoping for, but hey, at least we didn't get no hit. Thank you, Marwin Gonzalez. Some observations on the loss:
1) Yu Darvish made our lineup look silly. I made a comment the other day that there are going to be days where this team resembles a minor league ball club at the plate, and this was one of those days. Yu Darvish cruised through the Astros lineup retiring 26 in a row - 14 of them via the strike out - as the Rangers evened the series at one game apiece. In fact, the only Astro not to strike out last night was backup catcher Carlos Corporan. Now it's not like Darvish is a slouch. As we saw last year, he's a legitimate ace. But even as good as he is, you expect to hit more than one ball out of the infield. It's not going to get much easier today when the Astros get Alexi Ogando, but I don't think anyone will miss Darvish.
2) One of the many, many questions surrounding this year's Astros team is their bullpen. And the bullpen looked REALLY shaky last night. Yes, it's a small sample size, but it wasn't pretty. The pen inherited a 1-0 deficit in the 7th inning last night, and between Xavier Cedeno, Rhiner Cruz, Wesley Wright, Josh Fields, and Jose Veras, they surrendered 6 runs turning a close game into a rout. Only Fields managed to get through the game without giving up a run, and he pitched just 1/3 of an inning.
3) Speaking of Josh Fields, the rookie Rule 5 draft pick might end up being a keeper. We only saw him face one hitter last night, but Fields showed good composure coming back after falling behind 3-0 to Craig Gentry to pick up his first Major League strike out. Houston's had relatively good success in recent years with Rule 5 relievers (Wesley Wright, Rhiner Cruz), so hopefully Fields can continue to build on last night's performance.
4) Lucas Harrell was impressive last night. Other than a third inning jam when four straight hitters reached base, Harrell was sharp in his 2013 debut. He also made a pair of nifty defensive plays on the mound resulting in a pair of 1-6-3 double plays. Perhaps Yu Darvish should've taken notes considering Marwin's hit beat him through the 5-hole. You'd like to get a better end result when you allow just one run in six innings, but you can't win them all.
5) Speaking of Marwin Gonzalez, Marwin is my Astro player of the game. In addition to wrecking the no-hitter with an aggressive approach in the 9th, Gonzalez also played his usual solid defense at short last night. His best play came in the first to rob Adrian Beltre with a terrific stop and throw deep in the hole.
6) Houston has to start putting more balls in play. Through two games this season, the Astros have 28 strike outs. That's way too many no matter what metric you're using. If they keep this up, they'll fan 2268 times this season. I'll get back to you on how many that shatters the record by. Hopefully facing not-Yu Darvish will help that today.
7) Houston hasn't taken a series from Texas since June '08. Not coincidentally, that was the last time Houston had a winning season. Brian Moehler and Wandy Rodriguez picked up the two wins.
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