The picture pretty much keys in on where our day went wrong. A few opening mistakes from Roy and things went south. I hope this isn't an indication that he'll be suffering from the WBC-itis that plagued starters after the 2006 WBC. It looked like he was missing his spots pretty consistently, at least early on. Leaving pitches up in the zone against hitters like Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez usually spells disaster- and it did tonight.
The WPA graph below pretty much hammers that home for us.
[HLP's analysis]
What can we take away from tonight's game?
- This lineup does not look long for this season. Pudge Rodriguez looked uncomfortable at the plate, and Michael Bourn looked light years ahead of where he was at this time last year. I would think that Hunter Pence will be moved up to the second spot, and Pudge will dropped down, possibly to the eight hole.
- Miguel Tejada was all over the ball tonight, collecting three of our eight hits. He didn't seem to have any problems getting his bat around on any of the Cubs' pitcher's offerings
- Cecil Cooper was calling (or at least appeared to be calling) too many hit and runs for my liking. When a team struggles to get on base, it's best to keep those kind of calls in your hip pocket. Aggressiveness on the basepaths can be a positive, but discretion is the better part of valor
- Zero XBH tonight for the good guys
- Hunter Pence is still a work in progress. With runners on first and second in the seventh and nobody out, Pence lunged at the first pitch and hit a ground ball to Ryan Theriot- a tailor made double play ball.
via www.fangraphs.com
Not too shabby...
I’m not kidding! Aside from Pence’s anti-heroics and Oswalt’s early struggles, I don’t think it was a terrible first game. I agree that Coop will shake up the lineup, and bat Tejada second like he did for part of last season. Also why was Pence hitting below Blum? I don’t think he doesa s well that low.
hunterpencefan - April 6, 2009
I agree
Batting looked a little shaky @ first but seemed to settle down. Seemed like Pudge and Pence were swinging for the fence on every swing. I agree that Tejada should be back to batting second, he may have lost the power but he still gets the bat on the ball. I also agree that Pence should be batting 5th or 6th, depending on the pitcher. All in all it looked like some players (Oswalt,Pudge,Pence) were just a little too exited for the first game of the year. I also like the way Bourne seems to be progressing with every game. Last year he seemed to degressing. Lets hope wandy can bring it in the next game.
NDAstrosFan - April 6, 2009
ESPN should fire Rick Sutcliffe
Is it just me or was Rick Sutcliffe a PR man the Chicago Cubs, not a play by play man for Espn. Since I live in North Dakota, I was stuck listening to Sutcliffe apply for the Cubs PR job all evening. It ruined my opening day game. The only time he quit praising the cubs, was the fifth inning, when Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio entered the announcers box, and even then Ricks big head blocked Bagwell until someone off screen asked him to move.
NDAstrosFan - April 6, 2009
agree
of course I should’ve just put it on mute and tuned into gameday audio from houston. but why does ESPN make me do that? maybe they can put Larry Dierker on ESPN for the Cubs home opener. just to even things up.
and while we’re balancing karma, how about for the Cubs next home game vs. us they send them to Round Rock on a few hours rest after a big storm ravages their city and let Roy O pitch? just saying…
Trei Brundrett - April 7, 2009
I'll give you that
I would probably had been miffed if I was on the other side of the coin. But, usually Cubs fans have to listen to talk about losing, curses, and Bartman on ESPN. And to be fair, he really did speak alot about Biggio and Bagwell, he gave them many accolades. I’m sure ESPN probably doesn’t give the ’stros enough respect in your opinion (heck you have to be in the AL/NL east to get any respect from them). But, seriously, most ESPN announcers shy away from too much good talk about the Cubs…they know the track record and are probably foolish enough to believe in curses — rather than poor team management.
StevenABQ - April 7, 2009
I give Oswalt credit for hanging in there
but once it was established that we couldn’t score on Zambrano, everyone on the field knew this game was going to be hard to win once they got those solo homers.
A more appropriate fangraph would be something like f ( X ) = | 1 / X |.
goingforthecorner - April 6, 2009
HAHAHA
That earns a rec.
Stephen Higdon - April 7, 2009
I still don't get Coop's fascination with the hit-and-run and stolen base.
It’s not like he was a particularly good base stealer (his career high in SB is only 17, one less than Berkman’s in a much less SB-friendly era). Well, I guess I get his thing for hit-and-run: all managers seem to have a weird thing for it. I guess I just don’t get most managers’ fascination with it.
Branch Rickey figured out it was generally a bad idea over fifty years ago. It rarely seems to work, and more often than not seems to result in the double play it was intended to protect against
And the weird thing is that managers just don’t seem to realize how bad it is. Coop eventually realized that he was running the Astros out of games when Wiggy tried to steal third in that Yankees game, but I don’t think Coop’s ever going to figure out it’s just a bad idea to have Tejada run on a 3-2 count to Blum with 1 out.
Only_A_Lad - April 7, 2009
Human nature
It’s human nature to prefer to do something rather than to not do something, even if that something is objectively to your detriment. One of the relatively few things the manager can do during a game is call for a hit and run.
I’m not sure how we can get him to stop it. Because it’s almost always a bad idea.
Xan - April 7, 2009
I can see calling the hit and run...
with a slumping player in the batter’s box, with the idea of forcing the player to go the other way with the ball. But that should be a relatively rare event. There was no need for continuially dloing it last night. But Xan is exactly right. Cooper feels helpless when the team is behinid, and this is one of the few actions he can take.
clack - April 7, 2009
yeah, it's hard for anyone to understand
that sometimes the best course of action is just to do nothing.
Only_A_Lad - April 7, 2009
Maybe I'm missing something...
When did Coop call for a hit and run last night that got the Stros in trouble? Was it the double-up of Kaz in the 2nd? I haven’t heard anyone reporting that that was anything other than a base running error, but if it was hit and run then that was probably a bad call. I just thought Matsui messsed up.
Also, the Tejada attempted steal was a bad choice, but that looked like his own fault for trying to make a play that wasn’t really there. Soto is good, you’ve got to be careful with that kind of thing.
I agree Pudge needs to be way down in the order, 8 or 9 hole, and Tejada should be farther up. More than anything, I worry that this team is going to struggle to manufacture runs by moving guys over and stringing together hits. Just too much slugging and not enough on base. It will make for a lot of frustration, but also a lot of excitement.
Zach Smith - April 7, 2009
oh, you're getting me wrong
he didn’t call for one that did anything particularly bad yesterday. As you said, that error from kaz was just that. But he had – as I described – Tejada running on a 3-2 count to Blum and no outs (I had it as one out in the description, but now that I think back, it was before the double play from Pence, so it had to be 0 outs). If Blum strikes out (pretty likely), Tejada will probably be thrown out at 2nd. If Blum walks, nothing happens. If Blum hits the ball, the chances of a dp are reduced, but it depends on the situation – what if he hits a line drive that gets snared by the SS?
The hit-and-run play is trying to reduce the likelihood of a double play, because double plays are very, very bad for one’s offense. But it’s not particularly good at reducing the likelihood of hitting into one, and it creates the opportunity for two new kinds of double plays – strikeout-throw-out and the sort of caught line-drive / shallow fly-ball variety.
I think the problem the Astros are going to have is that they don’t have enough slugging power to compensate for the total lack of on-base. They need to either get much better at not making outs, or they need to make it so that on the occasions when they don’t make outs they hit the cover off the ball.
But the appropriate strategy, when given a team without many significant on-base threats, is not to “manufacture.” The Astros will need every base runner they can get, and crap like the hit-and-run, sac bunt, etc. really just increases the likelihood that the Astros get fewer baserunners. For that matter, the only guys who should be stealing bases on the team are Bourn, Lance, and Kaz. Everyone else just needs to cut that shit out.
Only_A_Lad - April 7, 2009
Fair enough
I’m not sure I totally agree with you, but what you’re saying makes sense. I suppose this wouldn’t be any fun if we all agreed. Towards the bottom of the order I don’t think I mind Tejada running on a 3-2 count, but to each his own. I will grant you the point that the Stros need base runners and need to hit the ball hard, though.
Zach Smith - April 7, 2009
When Tejada got thrown out at second...
he was running because the ball appeared to get away from the catcher, if I recall correctly. That is tougher to criticize….that’s one of those split second judgements when Tejada has to decide if he can make it or not.
clack - April 7, 2009
just a note on attendance...
There was some discussion in the game thread that the Astros didn’t appear to have a good crowd, and some discussion as to why. It turns out that the attendance was a record level. Perhaps the empty seats in some sections reflected the difficulty getting concessions. From the Chronicle:
clack - April 7, 2009
I made mention of the sparse crowd in the upper deck
everywhere else was pretty crowded, though, so that makes some sense. It wouldn’t make much sense for the cheapest seats to be the least-filled. And I only noticed it in like one shot of the crowd, too.
Only_A_Lad - April 7, 2009
Win or lose
It’s great to have baseball back. Now get out there, Astros, and show us what you’ve got!
Caradoc - April 7, 2009
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