Great Win. The Clemens to Lidge to Dotel combo is becoming a common thing when Rocket takes the hill! This was a good win. I got a little scared when Dotel gave up that leadoff single. Hidalgo finally hit the ball hard although bocachica made a fine play to rob him of a possible triple. I think the Mariners are going to have a Fire Sale around the trade deadline. Players like Pineiro and Garcia will be on the block. If Pettite continues to have problems and the Astros are in the mix, think we should go after another starter?
Wow, we won! That made my morning. I am so glad we have Clemens this season. He has been just fantastic. He is amazing. Well, we should have torn the opponent pitcher apart, he had some horrible numbers. Either way, I am glad we won. The Clemens Lidge and Dotel lineup was perfect last night.
I'm happy with the W obviously...but its a joke that we scored one run tonight...i mean, this guy isn't Cy Young that we are hitting against. Hopefully we can stay within a game or 2 of first until our bats wake back up...because this is getting ridiculous. We are 22-26 when Clemens doesn't get a win....not good.
yeah, good point. that's generally true. so it really has little to do with it being an AL-style game, rather, it was just that strikeout pitchers were involved, i guess . . .
Well, if you factor in the fact that in an NL pitcher's duel, the pitcher will probably bat 2-3 times (since they're throwing well), and those AB's will probably not be very long. Thus, its basically like seeing 4-6 extra batters in the game total, when you take out the pitcher, and each of these AB's has the possibility of being a quality one. But still... even with strikeout pitchers, and the DH, AL batters seem to be more apt at fouling off good pitches. (or maybe its just Ichiro). Of course, they're also apt to eventually strikeout as well. I'll say this... the Astros batters did nothing to make this a long game. If it was Astros vs. Astros (even with strikeout pitchers... actually especially with strikeout pitchers), it would be done in under 2 hours. The Mariners made Roger work damn hard, which is why it was so frustrating watching him shut them down over and over again, while our batters were sucking it up.
great win for the stros. lidge pitched out of a crazy jam on that misplay that led to olerud sitting at 3rd with no outs.
Roger also walked five batters, so he put himself in some situations where he had to work hard. He wasn't allowing hits, but he did allow baserunners in almost every inning, forcing him to work from the stretch, which tended to drag the game out. And as far as I'm concerned, the Astros hitters were not "sucking it up" last night. Yeah, it may look like that in the box score, but they were absolutely tattooing the ball right at fielders all night. Bocachica robbed Astros hitters twice by himself, once on a diving catch running in toward third base and once on Hidalgos long drive that looked like hit would have hit off the yellow line. Plus, Ensberg just missed his first dinger in the 9th. In most games where the Astros were getting so few hits, I would have been cursing and throwing stuff around the apartment (and believe me, that's the way I was behaving the night before), but I just sat there and shook my head last night.
seriously... right now, he's making more of a difference by comin in the 7th and 8th innings, facing anywhere from 3-6 batters, rather than just the 9th. Kinda like Dotel was doing for Wagner... hmmm.
Why is it that, essentially, Williams has chosen Vizcaino to DH the first 2 games? Although Bagwell and Kent have done the actual DHing, Vizcaino has been the "non-regular" in the lineup. Against a couple of right handers would you rather have a lefty guy hitting .350 or .209? OBP of .384 or .284? Slugging of .613 or .224 ? OPS of .996 or .508? Those are Lamb's numbers vs. Vizcaino. Palmeiro's overall numbers are also better than Jose's. Considering Lamb's weakness is his fielding, the first 2 games were the perfect opportunity to get his bat in the lineup without having to also put his glove in the lineup. It will be interesting to see what happens today. I would not be surprised to see Biggio DH with Palmerio playing CF.
bobrek, Maybe Viz had more success against those pitchers than Lamb had? He has ungodly numbers against Suppan, which is why he got the nod on Sunday. I have no idea about the last two games, though.
The first pitcher was making his debut. They may have faced Pineiro a couple of years ago, but , if so, one game does not a trend make.
Thanks for answering my question. Maybe Jimmy wanted to give Viz some PT. Does Viz play a lot? I can recall hearing about Lamb more often in games than viz.
Because Jimy doesn't look at the DH as a chance to get an extra good bat in the lineup... he used it as a way to get his regular players some rest (by allowing them to just DH). Apparently, he didn't want to use Lamb at 1st on Monday for Bagwell's rest day, and Viz is the only other 2B on the roster that could give Kent an off day for tuesday. Today... its Biggio's turn, so Lane will be getting the start in CF (unless he just flat out hates him, and decides to put Palmeiro in again... actually, Palmeiro might be in RF anyways). Thus... the only day he really could have used Lamb was Monday... but Viz had a good game the day before, so maybe it was a semi-reward as well. You might see Lamb at 3B tonight, with Garcia on the mound.
