Richard Justice is giving the Shania Twain treatment to Russ Ortiz and Mike Hampton. A month ago, would anyone here have taken a combined 4.94 ERA from these two after a handful of starts each?? I sure as anything would have.
Moneyball the movie is taking shape.
A trio of Astros: Jason Smith, Miguel Tejada, and Roy Oswalt make Jason Stark's blog in ways they'd probably rather not.
Speaking of Smith, he's told Cecil Cooper that in a pinch, he could catch for the Astros. The way he's played, he had better be willing to sell peanuts, give Valverde calf massages, and cook for Carlos Lee as well.
Alex Rodriguez allegedly tipped pitches while a member of the Texas Rangers. At this point, if someone wrote that A-Rod was a founding member of Al-Qaeda, I wouldn't be surprised.
Brian Bogusevic has a .369 OBP in 78 ABs for the Express. He also leads the team in walks with 12.
On the pitching side of things, Bud Norris is making a case to be the third Round Rock pitcher (following Paulino and Arias) to get a call up to the big leagues in the early parts of the season.
Down in Corpus Christi, Mitch Einertson, Colin DeLome, Andrew Locke, and Jameson Van Ostrand are putting up legitimately stellar numbers through the beginning of May. In case anyone missed it, Koby Clemens was moved up to AA from Single A Lancaster. Humberto Quintero's injury-reverberations are being felt all the way in California!
It's early, very early, but which division has been the most competitive so far?
As college graduation draws near for many, it's time for fun on university campuses nation-wide. The brains over at MIT are always game for a good prank..or twenty.
0 recs | 5 comments
I hear Billy Beane is directing it
Stephen Higdon - May 3, 2009
Was Justice expecting Ortiz and Hampton to have a Clemens impact?
Maybe that is why he is disappointed. Justice’s blog is a good example as to how expectations can result in different reactions. Because I had much lower expectation of the two pitchers, I have been more than pleasantly surprised by Ortiz and Hampton.
Would you believe that Hampton’s K/9 rate is the highest it has ever been in his career? Ortiz hasn’t posted a K/9 higher than his current rate since 2003 with the Giants. That could be a leading indicator that they are effectively coming back from injury.
clack - May 3, 2009
Bogusevic’s OBP and walks are great, but his strikeouts worry me…he k’s in about 23% of his plate appearances.
Maysonet, on the other hand, is really tearing it up in Round Rock….OBP .414, SLG .408.
AstroAndy - May 3, 2009
Bogusevic's K rate is even more concerning...
as long as his isolated power (ISO) rate stays this low (.125, down from .185 in AA). This is the aspect of Bourn’s history which concerned me, too: high K rates are hard to accept without offsetting power. Now that I compare them, Bourn and Bogusevic’s AAA league offensive stats look similar, with perhaps Bourn walking a bit less and Bogusevic K’ing a bit more. Compare Bourn’s AAA season (his best minor league year):
Bourn AAA: .346 OBP, .796 OPS, .145 ISO, 11.5% BB, 19% K.
Bogusevic AAA: .372 OBP, .760 OPS, .125 ISO, 14.9% BB, 23.4% K.
What Bogusevic is missing is the .556 SLG% he posted in AA. I think it is important that he improve his K rate. But it may be more important that he improve his power.
clack - May 3, 2009
By the way, Arias pitched a good game against Albuquerque NM.
He pitched a 5-0 shutout, along with reliever J. Johnson.
Arias’ line: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 9 K, 0 R.
clack - May 3, 2009
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