Very impressive night for Roy Oswalt tonight; by far his best outing of the year.  What a dominant performance put forth by Roy-O.  7 innings of 5 hit, 1 run ball is pretty impressive, but then add in the 10 k's and 0 walks and it really makes you feel like he may be turning a corner.  Roy has mentioned time after time that he pitches to contact in an attempt to get deeper into games and keep his pitch count down.  Well, tonight he threw 99 pitches and made it through 7 innings and only gave up 1 run.  Doesn't seem like the 10 strike outs really hurt his pitch count too much.  100 pitches over 7 innings isn't too bad and puts the Astros just where they want to be... especially when you hold the other team to just 1 run. 

Unfortunately I didn't get to watch the game tonight.  Work kept me away from most of the game and I caught the last few innings on the radio on my way home, so I missed getting to actually watch Roy be dominant... but hopefully I'll get to see some more of that in his next game.

Poll

7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 10 K... is Roy back?

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Hopefully the day off yesterday gave the Astros some time to think about how bad they have been playing baseball lately.  I can't count how many times I've heard "the Astros don't deserve to win with the way they have been playing" from friends and colleagues.  Anyways...

Tonight's game, just looking at the names on the pitching match up, definitely looks like a game the Astros should win.  Roy Oswalt, dominant ace of the Astros against Seth McClung.  McClung is only making his 4th start of the season and has a winning record.. Oswalt on the other hand, is 2 games under .500 on the season and hasn't shown many signs of being that dominant closer that we all knew and loved.  Hopefully he returns to form...

Last time we faced the Brewers, we got swept out of Milwaukee in a 3 game series... but we're home now...  time to return the favor.

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Would anyone be interested in having a Crawfishboxes night out at Minute Maid Park?  I could get together some group rate tickets(if we get enough people) and buy them before hand and we could watch the game in person, together. 

We'd probably get some of the cheaper tickets and would have to collect the $ in advance to buy the tickets... but would you be interested? 

If we get enough people, we'll all come together on a date and seat prices. 

Poll

interested in attending a game at MMP with other CFB'ers?

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Kyle Lohse	Wandy Rodriguez

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I find it at least a little odd that the 2 players on the Astros that have typically played every day in the past unless hurt, have both been given days off in the last 2 games(Tejada yesterday and Lee today)...  I know Tejada doesn't like sitting so I'm sure sitting for 2 games so far this season didn't make him really happy yesterday.  I kind of thought that maybe Matsui would get a rest tonight since Loretta had such a nice game last night... but that didn't happen either.

As most of us seen coming with hearing Cooper's recent comments, Bourn is batting 7th tonight and Pence batting 1st.  That's definitely a move int he right directly.  Nice to see Erstad get another start today as well.

As you all know, the Astros just sent J.R. Towles down to AAA Round Rock due to his ineffectiveness at the plate and brought up Humberto Quintero.  The Astros still have at least one player (in my opinion) that they need to make a move on... they need to either send Bourn down to the minors and get him some steady playing time where it's not going to kill the big league team, or keep him on the Astros as a bench player.  I suggest sending him down.  Bourn needs playing time but we can't afford him to get that playing time with the Astros.  I mean he is supposed to be our lead-off hitter of the future, but his OBP is about .100 below what a good lead off hitter should be.  He doesn't take enough walks and he strikes out WAY too often.  When he gets on base he's fantastic... he even leads the NL in stolen bases.  He just doesn't get on enough to be of any use as a lead off hitter.  Like Towles, his defense isn't a problem.  He can play big league defense... he just can't hit.  You can see his full stats below.

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	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2008 - Michael Bourn	57	215	23	46	3	3	3	10	18	51	24	4	.214	.274	.298

I wouldn't have as big of a problem with Bourn staying on the Astros if they didn't have a better option... but the problem for Bourn sits on our bench.  His name is Darin Erstad.  Erstad has been pretty good in his limited at bats.  Erstad in just under 1/3 as many AB's as Bourn has 1/2 as many hits, 2 more RBI's, 10 less runs scored and exactly as many extra base hits.  Not bad for a guy with 140 less at bats. 

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2008 - Darin Erstad	51	75	13	23	8	0	1	12	2	14	1	2	.307	.325	.453

So what do you think?  Do we continue with the Bourn experiment?? Or do we try and field the best team we can possible and start the better player?

Poll

What to do with Bourn

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 I am by no means a basketball fan, but I will admit that basketball actually gets close to watchable during the playoffs, and especially so during the finals.  It's nothing close to the NHL playoffs(which I think are the best post season sport of all the sports), but it's still much better to watch than the regular season in basketball(which I think is completely unwatchable). 

Anyways, the Celtics play the Lakers tonight in game 1 of the NBA Finals... I doubt I'll be watching much of if.. but if anyone is going to watch it and feel like chatting about it...  You're free to do so here.  Oh, and don't worry... I won't be posting about this again.

If you want to visit the SBNation blog for the Boston Celtics, you can visit the Green Bandwagon.  There is no Lakers SBNation blog.

 

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Poll

Anyone watching the NBA finals that start tonight??

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Different line up than the norm... why Cruz Jr ever gets a start is beyond me if we're actually trying to win and we have Erstad on the bench...  We got Ausmus again... Cooper says that he's giving Towles some time to work with the hitting coach... 

 

Quick reaction around the 'nets seems to be that this was a stretch, possibly because he was the best rated catcher. Consensus that this was not the "best available" talent on the board.

We've drafted catchers in several of the last few drafts, and most of them haven't worked out well so far. I thought Towles was viewed as someone who would solidfy the position for the next few years. He has struggled obviously this year, but I'm surprised the team would give up on him.

I guess the optimistic view is that the Astros' brain trust thinks this guy can be an All Star at a premium position, or has a big enough bat that he can move to one of the corner IF positions w/ tolerable defense.

No idea about signability.