Houston Astros Week Two Recap; Where’s The Offense?
Mandatory Credit: Jim Cowsert-USA TODAY Sports
The second week of the baseball season is in the books, so the time has come for our second Astros Weekly Recap! Every week we’re going to take a look back at how they did, what we should be excited about, nervous about, and something to look forward to. If you have any Astros questions, excitements, or concerns you’d like addressed, hit me up on Twitter and I’ll address it here.
Results
Our hometown team played seven games last week, going 2-5, taking one apiece against the Blue Jays and the Rangers. We suffered two tough-luck losses to the Rangers, losing 0-1 in the first and last games of the series. They struggled to score runs in their losses averaging and averaged 1.2 runs in our 5 losses. This is probably more like the Astros that we can expect, but there is a lot to be excited about from what has happened thus far.
MVP of the Week
Unlike last week when 3 or 4 guys rightly deserved our major award, no one person really distanced themselves from the rest of the team with their stats this week, so we’re going to give the award again to Scott Feldman. Feldman went head-to-head with Yu Darvish and hung a big ND on the Astro-killer. Feldman went 7 innings, allowing no runs on only 2 hits. Feldman has allowed only one run on 20.2 IP, making the widely lauded free-agent signing look better and better. If he keeps this up we’ll have to rename the award the Scott Feldman Award of Scott Feldmanliness/Feldwomanliness.
Honorable Mention – Robbie Grossman and his two very timely home runs.
Reason for Excitement
The Astros starting pitching is this week’s reason for excitement (hold on while I try and make a case for all of them). The last four starts all went at least 7 innings, while limiting runs. Brett Oberholtzer went 7 strong IP allowing 1 ER on only 5 baserunners, while striking out 7. Jarred Cosart was touched up early, but settled in allowing 3 ER over 7 IP and 8 Ks. Feldman threw his aforementioned gem. And Dallas Keuchel went 7 innings against the Jays, allowing only 1 ER.
Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports
Clearly I left a pitcher out. We all know that Lucas Harrell has had a tough 14 months, especially after getting hit hard and exiting early in both of his starts this year. But did you know that his Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) is .419? BABIP measures how many of balls put into play go for hits, and fluctuates over a season but almost always regresses to a player’s career average. Harrell’s career BABIP is .309. I’m not suggesting that he is going to ever be a useful starting pitcher again, but there is a good chance that he will be better than he has been. Let’s just keep our expectations low.
Reason for Sadness
I did not mention this in my love paragraph to Scott Feldman earlier, but his dad passed away this last week. He was added to the bereavement list after his start Friday and can stay on it for up to 7 days. I’m sure all of Houston’s thoughts are with the Feldman family.
Numbers
.308 – L.J. Hoes’ batting average, good for highest on the team
.438 – L.J. Hoes’ on base percentage, good for highest on the team
.538 – L.J. Hoes’ slugging percentage, good for second highest on the team
16 – L.J. Hoes’ plate appearances, good for last of all Astros who aren’t Marwin Gonzalez
58.3% – Number of games that have started with L.J. Hoes on the bench
Keep Your Eye On
Despite their timely HRs last week, Jason Castro and Robbie Grossman have had slow starts to the season. Let’s look for both of their number’s to tick upward as they are both likely small sample size victims.
Again, hit me up on Twitter if you have any questions that you’d like answered in next week’s Weekly Recap. Happy Astrosing.
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