Astros Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

The Astros' new fifth starter, 23-year-old Rule 5 pick Aneury Rodriguez

First of all, Nelson Figueroa's time in the rotation is up, for now. Aneury Rodriguez will take his time through, starting Tuesday against the Reds at Great American Ballpark. Good luck with that. Figueroa meanwhile will drop into the bullpen at least for now.

Brett Wallace being day-to-day with a mild hip contusion has forced Brad Mills to shuffle the cards. Sanchez is in playing second base and bats third tonight with Bourgeois in left field batting second and Carlos Lee fifth at first base. Clint Barmes, starting his second game of the season bats eighth behind J.R. Towles.

Mills has said he could have Wallace back today, but since tomorrow's game is a day-game, he thought it made sense to give him tonight off.

Before Angel Sanchez sat out the 2007 season he was a base-stealing threat, but his speed seems to have evaporated and he looks rather cumbersome running around the bases. Still, Michael Bourn and Jason Bourgeois together in the lineup should provide the Brewers with some problems IF they can get on base.

As much as something needed to be done, I'm not entirely thrilled with the first move. It might end up working well, and Rodriguez might step up to the plate, but it seems too soon to be throwing him into the fire. Hopefully this announcement has sent Brad Arnsberg into a work frenzy to get a gameplan together in three days.

Meanwhile Wandy Rodriguez will try and stop Randy Wolf from scalping the Astros twice in a week. But look out,  Braun, McGehee, Corey Hart and Ricky Weeks all rake against the crafty lefty.

Wolf has had a tidy couple of years since his brief stint with the Astros back in 2008. He had 34 starts in each of the last two seasons, easily topping 200 innings pitched, for modest salaries of $5m and $8m. His current 3-year just under $30m deal with the Brewers might be a little excessive, but early returns from his first five starts of the season look very good.

Meanwhile a few Phillies commentators have been kicking up the idea of a trade for Hunter Pence. Here is a quick sketch of my thoughts on the subject.

Jordan Lyles threw six-shutout innings last night, and Jose Altuve raised  his BA to .455, going a triple short of the cycle.

Meanwhile Jeff Sullivan looks at how much the Astros' infield defense sucks, as the pitching staff has a ridiculous .310 batting average against on groundballs. Sigh.

Lance Berkman and the Cardinals

Today the St. Louis Cardinals roll into town and a spicy backdrop in light of Milo Hamilton's pointed comments yesterday, basically accusing Lance Berkman of phoning it in during his last year and a bit in Astros pinstripes and failing in his leadership role.

Even with Albert Pujols' 'slow start' the Cardinals are first in the league in runs scored, through the awesome outfield of Matt Holliday, Colby Rasmus and Berkman. And if they don't beat you Pujols will. Even Ryan Theriot and David Freese have chipped in. Jake Westbrooke has had a pretty poor start to his season, but Kyle Lohse, Jaime Garcia and Kyle McLellan have all been dead on it.

The Astros will face all three, while sending their back three, who apart from Bud Norris have not achieved many wonders this season. Nelson Figueroa has been shelled in all but one outing, and J.A. Happ has one very good and one good outing. The rest has been pants.

Onto the Berkman saga: Tony LaRussa's comments about Lance hiring a trainer, getting himself in shape and being a leader to the younger players seem to have sparked this response from Milo.

My first caveat to this is I never fully understood Berkman's drop off in performance. It seemed to be right across the board, his bat speed seemed slowed, he wasn't crushing balls low and in like he used to (that part of the plate was off limits during his peak), and he just didn't seem to have the plate coverage he once did. It has been a small sample size, but he looks to have reversed some of this in 2011.

Even if his performance was way down on his career levels, he still managed a .781 OPS, higher than Carlos Lee's .708 in 2010. I always felt Berkman knew that his performance and the amount of money he was being paid was hurting the Astros and that was a lot of baggage for him.

I know native_astro and AC were commenting on this yesterday. Is it because Berkman is any easy target not being on the team that Milo has said these things? Why has he not said this about Lee, who seems far 'heavier' than Berkman.

Carlos Lee 2011 OPS: 614
Adam Everett 2011 OPS: 849 (tiny sample size admittedly).

I know he was paid millions and we shouldn't feel too sorry for him, but I always thought that Berkman really did not like the way Ed Wade completely cleaned house after the 2007 season. He knew changes had to be made, but I remember reading his comments at the time and believing he thought the level of changes were excessive. It was almost an entirely new team. Most of Berkman's clubhouse friends, including Brad Lidge, who Berkman has a man-crush for, were traded away.

He was a good player on a succession of absolutely awful offensive teams. Did that heap too much pressure on Lance to bear? Probably. Was he 100% in 2010? If you miss Spring Training at age 34 it can have a knock on effect to your entire season.

I have no problem with people boo-ing Lance, its your call. I wasn't happy when fans booed manager Jimy Williams at the all-star game in 2004, although I feel Carlos Beltran probably deserves some level of animosity from the fans.

But to bash him over speculation and things we can never really know, over whether he wasn't taking his performance too seriously in the tail-end of his Astros career is pretty thin. Its like bashing Morgan Ensberg all over again for playing with a bum shoulder.

That's just how I see it. You may have your own slants on it, and that's fine. My twitter account is always open if you have any major disagreements or want to present any other angle to this.

Dicing with Death? Pitch Counts

Bill Baer over at Crashburn Alley was talking about Roy Halladay and a 130 pitch start he had and whether that was the right thing for Charlie Manuel to do. The Astros had a similar thing with Wandy Rodriguez yesterday, where the left hander threw a career high 126 pitches.

Granted Brad Mills wants to save the bullpen if he can avoid it, and I can understand that, but if you wear down your starters to the point where their performance suffers, or they get injured, then you have spent a dollar to save a nickel (do they use that expression in the US? The English version is spend a pound to save a penny).

This weekend's column is up at SB Nation Houston on the comparisons between Hunter Pence and Ryan Braun.

This week's two series with the Cardinals and Brewers will be pretty crucial if the Astros want to avoid sliding further away from .500, as they now stand at 8-14. The Brewers are a solid overall team, and I do not feel too bad getting beat by Wolf last night, even if our 2-7 hitters did fare pretty miserably. The sooner Chris Johnson starts hitting the better, but I still believe Mills needs to re-jig the lineup with Brett Wallace batting third in front of Pence.

J.R. Towles and Humberto Quintero continue to impress in platoon, but the real issues continues to be our pitching. Currently our only consistent starter is Brett Myers. The other four look like they could be knocked around every time they take the mound. Sure they have good starts scattered about, but they need to keep the offense in the game every time, not just every other time.

Not Looking Mighty Fine

After seeing an interesting tweet from Troy Renck, the beat writer for the Denver Post I found out that over the past 39 the Astros, as a team have just shaded Troy Tulowitzki in the power department. Over their last 39 games, Troy (that's the player, not the writer) has 21 HR, an enormous number. Our Houston Astros? 26.
(I'm writing this in the middle of a Mets-Rockies double header so these things might change in three hours).

Yesterday was frustrating, mostly because we were out of the game almost the second it had started. But also the little things. Carlos Zambrano's home run off Fernando Abad, that was irritating. Abad should know that Zambrano is a home run threat, and pitch accordingly. At 6-0 that run might have meant very little, but it ended up being real big. It is these minor sloppy mistakes that look incidental but end up being magnified at the end of the game.

The Angel Sanchez Express slowed down a notch and Wandy Rodriguez had an awful first inning. Walking Geovany Soto on four pitches with Alfonso Soriano on deck. Not smart.

Matt Downs is in tonight's lineup against the Padres after notching his BA up to .417 with a 2-3 night (he also walked and hit a 2-run home run).

Mark Melancon struck out two in his late inning cameo before Wilton Lopez had another on-field meltdown, as 'The Shark' preserved his 0.00 ERA.

The Cubs waltz to 6-6 and the Astros drop to 3-9. Bud Norris takes on Dustin Moseley tonight.

We're gifting teams comfortable leads too early and our bullpen is still leaking runs. And guess how many holds the bullpen has, collectively? Stumped? Well I'll tell you. One. One measly hold, credited to Wilton Lopez in the opening game of the season.

Myers Twirls Third Straight Gem

Brett Myers seems to be coming down with Minute Maid Park Syndrome. Perhaps he caught it off Wandy Rodriguez. The right hander took his record at MMP to 9-0 with a 1.96 ERA in 15 starts.

Truly a transformed pitcher since his Philly days, Myers effortlessly rolled off his third straight quality start of the season, fanning 5 and inducing quite a few groundballs from Cubs hitters. Brett Wallace sat and Jason Michaels played left field, with Carlos Lee sliding to first base. He responded with an 0-5 night when Michael Bourn, Angel Sanchez and Hunter Pence went rampant against James Russell and the rest of the Chicago pitching staff.

Pence and Sanchez stole the show, but Bourn scored four times and swiped two bases, and he has the league lead for doubles with six. Humberto Quintero also went 3-3 as Houston won 11-2, easily their most comfortable win since beating the Cardinals 18-4 in early August 2010.

Sanchez's splits .395/.438/.512 make for bizarre reading. How did this happen? He has played in all 11 Astros' games, who are now 3-8 thanks to the win. They will send Wandy Rodriguez to the hill tonight hoping to record their first series win this season. They won every series against the Cubs last season by a margin of two games to one.

Still, the one thing that made me uneasy was the meager attendance of 23,523 and makes me believe we will struggle to top 30,000 very often this season. And that is terrible news if Ed Wade is going to start dealing assets before the July 31st deadline. Myers is providing to be such a hot commodity and might prove to many this season that 2010 was not a fluke and he really has transformed himself from a thrower to a true pitcher. His curveball amounted to most of his strikeouts and a lot of groundballs to third base and shortstop.

Tweet of the day: @riversmccown #facepalm RT @CampbellChron: If ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ could be a hit then why can’t the Astros?
Oh boy.
Myers ERA for the season is 1.77. 

Astros Put it all together, win 7-1

Happ threw 117 pitches in 7 2/3 IP

The Astros haven't won by more than six runs since August 3rd when they stomped the Cardinals 18-4. Long time ago huh?

Still, last night's win was satisfying in one singular respect. The Astros put all facets of the game together and produced a solid all-round win. And that is hailed as an achievement in itself, when it is an everyday occurrence for most teams. J.A. Happ recovered from a slow start, shutting down the Marlins from the second inning onwards, running up a scary 117 pitch count.

As good as Happ was with the ball, he was even better with the bat, even if he was fortuitous on the go-ahead double that squirted down the third base line, caroming off the advertising hoardings away from left fielder Logan Morrison.

Credit where credit is due, my pick of the game was Humberto Quintero's pickoff of Wes Helms at the top of the 5th. Helms was on second and Donnie Murphy was on first, with no outs. Anibal Sanchez was bunting, but instead of having runners on second and third with one out when a single would have tied the game at 3, the Marlins ended up with Murphy on 1st with two outs, as Sanchez failed to lay down a bunt.

Happ held firm and the Astros scored 3 in the bottom of the inning through a Carlos Lee single, a Brett Wallace DP and a Bill Hall triple.

Lee remains an enigma, getting his only hit in an AB where he swung and connected with the first pitch. His other ABs?
GIDP (9 pitches)
flyout (8 pitches)
Lineout (7 pitches)
flyout (1 pitch).

Odd. As Clack pointed out to me a couple of days ago a batters' BA really does decrease in really long at bats.

The other bonedead play of the game? Jim Joyce tossing Edward Mujica. The Hanley incident was two fricking games ago. Get over it. The guy probably has rubbish control. I think you have to warn both benches before tossing him out straight away. I'm sure you can draw a line straight from the incident between Ramirez and Hall to Mujica throwing at Hall, but it does not necessarily mean it is right.

Jeff Fulchino also had a solid scoreless inning in the ninth, which is encouraging. Breathing space for the bullpen at last.

Lastly considering Sanchez was 3-0 with a 0.70 ERA coming into the game against the Astros, and gave up one less hit (13) than he got outs (14), it shows sometimes you have to abandon the form book. The example I always use is our old friend Roger Clemtron who was pitching against the Cardinals at MMP. 2005. Tony LaRussa canny bird that he is, knew that Roger Cedeno raked against Clemens during his short career. But Cedeno came up twice with the bases loaded unable to plate a run.

This was Clemens and Mulder's epic duel. Astros' fans might remember it as the one Mulder blanked the Astros for 10 innings. Or perhaps they try not to remember it.

Astros continue to shoot themselves in the foot

Where's Angel Sanchez's speed gone?

The Astros might have ended their streak of 15 games where they failed to score more than four runs, but five is hardly that impressive, falling to a 7-5 loss to the Marlins last night.

Firstly, another lead, another blown lead, this time Bud Norris running into some difficulty in the sixth inning after he had cruised through the first five. We have now had numerous incidents where Brad Mills has pulled starting pitchers an inning too late. This speaks volumes about how much he trusts his bullpen. If he pulls Norris after five, he has four innings to fill and who does it? Brandon Lyon and Wilton Lopez are both on his naughty list, Enerio Del Rosario and Aneury Rodriguez have both looked shaky and Fernando Abad had a stinker tonight. Jeff Fulchino gave up a home run last night, leaving Mark Melancon. Can he pitch four innings every night?

This is not all the bullpen's fault. They are young, learning their trade and are given no margin for error whatsoever by their lineup. The Astros just do not win blowout games meaning every lead they hold is a slender one. How long can they keep holding leads night after night without buckling under the pressure?

How many games did the Astros win in 2010 by a margin of more than four runs month-by-month? In September: 1 (8-2 against Nationals), August 4 (Cardinals twice, Pirates, Braves), July 5 (including four in a row, Cubs 3, Brewers 2), June 0, May 1 (Brewers), April 1 (Pirates).

And people, me included are wondering why our bullpen is buckling every time Brad Mills chucks them the ball? They aren't being given a chance. 12 games in a 162 game season when they've beaten teams by a 5 run margin or greater. That's 12 games a season where the bullpen can put its' feet up and take the night off.

These problems are all interlinked. The Astros offense is incapable of playing add on enough to protect its' pitching staff. Hunter Pence stranded Michael Bourn on third again in the second, in the fifth after Pence had singled Bourn home with runners on first and second and none out the Astros scored no extra runs.

With Lee at the plate in that situation I would have liked to see maybe a double steal, as  Javier Vazquez does not have a huge amount of career pickoffs and John Buck's CS% is passable behind the plate. Angel Sanchez who was on second was a basestealing threat in his early minor league days, but after missing the whole of 2007 to injury he seems to have lost all inclination to swipe a big. Surely if Lee can bag 20 in a season, all you need is good nouse to steal the odd important bag. Perhaps I am reading too much into this.

But that was another high leverage situation where we needed someone to come through big. Instead Carlos Lee swung at the first offering flying out to center. What about a hit and run? What ever happened to that (admittedly not something I would do with some of the poor bat control exhibited by some of our hitters)?

Perhaps we should just ask Bourn to steal home every time he makes it to third base, or suicide squeeze every play.

Abad then coughed up three straight doubles and the Astros were finished, not before getting some men on in the eighth and ninth. Jason Bourgeois did manage not to get picked off this time in the ninth, but was out on a Sanchez forceout.

The very last note is on Sanchez, who is in a role I am not comfortable in at all. He has done ok in the last week, but he really is not good enough to be in the #2 position with absolutely no power whatsoever. He has seven singles and three walks, but very soon he will be found out. Bill Hall and Chris Johnson have yet to really get going, hence why we're scoring 3.5 runs a game.

Anibal Sanchez, who pitches today for the Marlins is 3-0 with a 0.70 ERA in four starts against the Astros. That is two earned runs in 25 2/3 innings. Good luck with that.

Pre-Game Notes for Saturday

Following a Brett Dolan tweet before gametime I looked into the Astros 15 game streak of not scoring over four runs, running back to the end of last season (obviously since we're only seven in to 2011). The Astros have scored a paltry 42 runs in that streak averaging out at 2.8 a game, which is pretty awful. They are 3-12 since beating the Pirates 10-7 last September.

Jerry Crasnick has something on Brett Wallace on ESPN today which is nice. Justice also has something on J.R. Towles, but it is a pretty standard re-hash with some stale comments from Towles thrown in at the end. Really phoning his efforts on the Astros in recently.

Steve Campbell also discusses the Hunter Pence strikeout in the bottom of the eighth inning last night with Michael Bourn on third and one out when we were 3-2 down. Good to see he can spell Bourne correctly.

I also allude to it in my SBN Houston column this week as I discuss why the Astros should be 3-4 rather than 1-6. But Clack had some slightly fleshier comments on it today:

Pence batting averages this year based on length of at bat—-1 and done 2AB .500 BAShort 10 AB .400 BALong 17 AB .176 BA7+pitches 6 AB .000 BA

In that situation I can sort of understand how difficult it was for Pence, because Nolasco arguably did not have to go right after Pence. If he'd have walked him, then he would have set up the double play with Carlos Lee up, and probably meant Pence was up there with an aggresive approach, playing into the pitcher's hands even further.

In that situation with a runner on third, and especially a runner as fast as Bourn, who could score on a groundball not hit straight at an infielder if they were deep enough, the pressure should be on the pitcher. Mentally you have to be very tough in that batter's box to not let panic to set in to think you have to drive in the run. It is imperative that you get that run home, but the pressure should be on the pitcher with the tying run 90 feet away.

Do you take a chance and hack at the first pitch? Who knows.

Bud Norris to pitch for the Astros tonight and he needs to cut out the unnecessary wildness that plagued his last start. I also wonder if Brad Mills will be smart enough to give Towles the start tonight after his HR yesterday. Humberto Quintero caught Norris last time out, but I was not too happy with the gameplan the two were following.

Towles presumably caught Norris when the pair were together in Round Rock in 2009, so I guess the two have some sort of understanding. I think Mills has gotten carried away after Quintero's ludicrous spring BA, and has concocted some idea to platoon the two. Quintero will only give you so much offensively, he should be starting one game in every five, and then the odd day when Towles needs the day off. Towles has the potential to give you above average offense at the catcher position. Quintero does not.

Astros Stun Fans By Winning Baseball Game

Gotta love them road uniforms

I think Astros fans are enjoying quite a few sniggers as they celebrate their first win of the season as the Boston Red Sox, most peoples pick for the WS, lost again, remaining rooted to 0 wins.

This game just shows that any potential success for the Astros will be faced on one fundamental: starting pitching. They won't score many runs and the bullpen is young, shakey and untested. But there is something in that rotation. If Brad Arnsberg can get it moving, then this season might not be ugly ugly. It is probably going to ugly, but we can hope they leave the Pirates in the dust and reach a half-way respectable total of wins (in the high 70s).

Before the season started I said the Astros would be lucky to start the season 2-4 when they kicked off against the Phillies and Reds away from home. That is as hard an assignment that you can get to start off the season. If Brandon Lyon had not blown the save on opening day, they might stand at 2-4 now, going into a homestand that will see the Marlins, Cubs and Padres swing into town.

They have that first win on the board and we see where things go from here. Wandy Rodriguez, who is an average pitcher on the road, but a superstar at home will go tomorrow night

Hey look, only two teams starting the season 0-5 have made the playoffs. I'm sure I should be offended at Cliff's cheap shot at the Astros, but I think the only way Astros fans will get through this season is by reveling in the small victories when they come along. Today was one of these moments. Go forth and revel.

Still lets not con ourselves. This has been an appalling start to the season in almost every facet of the game, bar Brett Myers pitching. Lyon looked like a man slowly drowning and it looks like only a matter of time before Wilton Lopez assumes the closer's mantle.

They've scored 20 and allowed 43. Brad Mills rightly dropped Bill Hall down the lineup and pulled him for Matt Downs, whose hit ended up being the game-winner. He came into today's game with nine punch-outs, no walks and a double and a single to kick out the season. He did get his first walk of the season today and a single to go with it.

Carlos Lee bagged his second triple of the season, and is now one shy of his season high of 3 back in 2001.

This Is What a Playoff Team Looks Like

What are the 2011 Phillies on course for, 90-95 wins? They have the best rotation I've seen since the 2005 Astros, fielding three legitimate aces and two of the four best pitchers of the last decade (Halladay, Oswalt, the other two being Sabathia and Santana).

Take those 90 wins and look at the Astros team. How can they match that total? They have an average offense, a solid if unspectacular rotation and a bullpen that is already starting to tank.

This is not a doom and gloom post, it is simply pointing out that most teams get beaten by Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park. The Astros have just brought their A game every time they have played the Phillies in recent years. They brought their top stuff for 8 1/2 innings but never got a sniff last night.

You can't face Cliff Lee, concede 9 runs and expect to win. Carlos Lee's three hit day was an unexpected fillip, but Wandy Rodriguez got shellacked in four innings.

He didn't pile up a lot of pitches but was just straying over the heart of the plate too much. If Brett Myers benefited Friday from the free-swinging Phillies, Rodriguez got burned from it. Howard, Francisco and Ibanez put together three straight hits in the fifth with Wandy throwing just five pitches.

I'm looking at his pitch f/x data trying to fathom what went wrong, and apart from a bit of a drop in his fastball velocity I don't see much else. The Phillies hits seem to have come pretty equally on

He obviously didn't trust his changeup throwing only 6, 1 for strikes. Of the 24 batters he faced he threw first pitch strikes to 21 of them. I think Phillies hitters just brought the right gameplan to Wandy, laying off his high fastball and not getting fooled too often on his curveball, then pouncing on anything he threw around the vicinity of the plate.

Overall the Astros pitching is not going to get much help from their offense much this season. They have scored 4 runs i each of the two games, but in 2010 they just did not put teams away. This is going to lead to a lot of strain on the young bullpen.

Next up in the series: Roy Oswalt. In his first start against the Astros.

Slightly More on Brandon Lyon

ESPN's David Schoenfield has this on yesterday's game. I suppose the LHP thing is a semi-valid point, but Abad, as good a prospect as he is, isn't the kind of guy you want chucking into a pressure cooker like that. He has thrown just 19 major league innings. There just isn't the amount of veterans in that bullpen that you really need to have.

The rest hits pretty squarely on the mark. Its a bad lineup because there aren't enough stars in there. Even the Phillies who lost Jayson Werth in the winter and have Chase Utley injured still have a very good offensive unit. I wouldn't say there are any bad players, like Kaz Matsui or Pedro Feliz last year, but their cumulative run production just won't be enough over the season.

I'm surprised that Angel Sanchez batted second and will be interested to see if he stays there with Clint Barmes on the DL. Lance Berkman made a good comment about liking to hit behind Keppinger because he was always a tough out.

However, fans slagging off the Bill Hall acquisition already is very premature, but he's another bat that is one you want in a lineup complimenting others rather than actually being a centerpiece. In fact with the exception of Pence, who could arguably slot in nicely in any lineup in the five spot, the rest are 6-8 type hitters, even if Johnson and Wallace have the potential to be more.

The Astros face Cliff Lee tomorrow whose record against the Astros is 0-2 with a 9.35 ERA in two starts. He had a rough start in the late 2009 series where Houston swept the Phillies over four games at MMP.
Wandy Rodriguez meanwhile is 2-1 with a 3.05 ERA against the Phillies, and has a 3.12 ERA at Citizens Bank Park.

As many made the point last season, Wallace actually hits very well against lefties, although Mills seemed to sit him a lot against them last season. Therefore it would not surprise me if Mills sits Wallace, puts Lee at first base and plays Jason Michaels this evening. Gametime is 6.05 CT.

Lyon, Astros Drop Season Opener

Gut-wrenching 

Well, on the positive the Astros did everything right for 8 1/2 innings but Brandon Lyon was unable to keep the Phillies bats in check. Lyon may be enemy number one, but if Quintero had not allowed the passed ball in the seventh inning Brett Myers might have got through the inning unscathed.

Bizarrely not a single Philly hitter struckout and Myers basically pitched to contact all game, and went 79 pitches without a swinging strike. While he kept his pitch count down, Roy Halladay was removed after 6 innings and a 2-run triple by Michael Bourn saw the Astros grab three runs in the seventh.

Other turning points? Ryan Howard had a check swing call that might have been a called strike three another day. Lyon broke three bats, but they all resulted in singles.

Myers might have been yanked early on in the seventh even if his pitch count was pretty meager at the time.

But the real question is whether Lyon's lousy performance will cost him his role as closer, and the other is whether Carlos Lee will flop to start the season. We have a guy on our bench who hit .373 in ST and a guy playing left field who hit .211. Michaels is a solid if unspectacular player, but Lee is going to draw the fans ire every time he has a 0-3 day. His fWAR was 1.1 in 2010 and his bWAR was 0.3 (mostly down to the difference in how the two rated his defense).

I might stick something up on SBN Houston on Michaels this weekend. Maybe.

Lyon was basically throwing too many fastballs and I only recall seeing one breaking pitch, which was the ball Ben Francisco hit into left to make it 4-3. If you aren't missing any bats then it is an indication that you aren't getting enough finish (late movement) on your pitches and batters are getting the barrel of the bat square on the ball.

Whether his velocity was slightly down from the range it was in last year is something I will check on tomorrow when the pitch f/x stats get updated, because some did comment that it barely creeped above 90 during his 'inning' on the mound.

Brad Mills could have and should have pulled Lyon, but with the relative quality of our bullpen, there is not a real wiley operator you can stick in in that situation who can keep a cool head. Who are you going to call on with the bases loaded, one outs and a tied ballgame? Mark Melancon, or Enerio Del Rosario? Gone are the days of Russ Springer, Doug Brocail, LaTroy Hawkins and Trever Miller.

But Wade just did not have the money to 'splash out' $2-3m on a reliever, but I thought adding someone like Ron Mahay, who was cut by the Dodgers a week ago (he wasn't technically cut, he had an opt-out clause if he hadn't made the team by a certain point).

Apart from Fulchino and Lyon, both of whom are 31, the rest are in their mid-20s: Lopez (27), Melancon (26), Del Rosario, Abad (25) and Aneury Rodriguez (23).

Did Lyon just get lucky with his long streak after July 31st, where his 19 saves led the major leagues? Possibly. He is a serviceable guy at best. Whether that means pulling the plug now and parachuting Wilton Lopez in there immediately will be up to Mills.

In other NL Central news Matt Holliday has appendicitis which will be another crashing blow for the Cardinals, who have already lost Adam Wainwright.

As bad as the loss was it was great to be watching proper baseball again and listening to Astros' fans being excited about what they were seeing. Also at least we competed in the game, unlike some parts of last season. We were not blown out of the water by the Phillies. After a 9.00 ERA spring Myers had an excellent start. The offense scored 4 runs in a game Roy Halladay started.

No rest for the wicked. Cliff Lee tomorrow.

Opening Day Here We Come

Some quick facts for you before gametime 12.05 CT.

No Astro has ever walked off Roy Halladay, via Astros County.

The Astros have not  been over .500 since July 28th 2009.

Brett Myers, your opening day starter is 28-27 at Citizens Bank Park with a 4.14 ERA (all but one of these 97 games being with the Phillies).

Astros are 30-16 against Phillies since 2004.

The Astros are 16-7 at Citizens Bank Park since it opened.

Halladay is 1-1 with a 1.69 ERA in two starts against the Astros.

I will stick something hefty up after the game finishes this afternoon. Enjoy, and I leave you, on April 1st, seven days since Jim Crane was on the verge of buying the Astros.