What about the Astros' pitching?
The Chronicle's Drayton McLane baseball beat writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz offers up some conventional wisdom in an article on Astros' trade efforts today:
Astros owner Drayton McLane and Purpura have explored and listened to several trade scenarios in an attempt to upgrade an offense that has been the main reason the team has fallen seven games under .500, six games behind the Cincinnati Reds in the National League wild-card race and 9 1/2 games behind the NL Central-leading St. Louis Cardinals.
The offense didn't blow the big Clemens lead yesterday, and as Tom Kirkendall pointed out in his last review, blaming the Astros' performance solely on the offense isn't quite right:
Now through 60% of the season (7-9 in the last 10% of the season; prior periodic reviews here), the Stros have not won more games than they have lost in any of the five 10% segments of the season after the first one. The club's hitting overall remains almost precisely National League average (team RCAA is -2 -- 10th among the 16 NL teams) and the pitching staff continues to toil at well below National League-average level (RSAA of -20 -- 13th in the NL). As noted in previous posts, the Stros' trend of average or below National League-average hitting over the past half-dozen seasons means that the Stros need extraordinary pitching to contend for a playoff spot, and the club received just that in the past two seasons. Unfortunately, this season, the Stros pitching staff is a bit below National League average and, thus, the Stros are currently just that -- a slightly-below National League-average club.
Unfortunately, they seem slightly below average in most areas of the game, and it's reflected in the standings.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/31/06 07:49 AM | Technorati | Comments (0)
Trackback
Unfortunately, abusive spammers have forced us to disable incoming trackback pings. The Technorati link should list related posts. Feel free to drop us an email if you've linked a post and would like to let us know about it.
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-08, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.