Bad day on the mound today for the Stros. From astros.com:

Stros at the plate: “Kazuo Matsui went 3-for-3 with a double, run scored and RBI and Hunter Pence went 1-for-3 with a double and RBI. Edwin Maysonet hit a solo home run to left field off right-hander Chad Durbin in the sixth inning.”

That’s two 3-3 days for Kaz in the past 3 games.  Maysonet showing some pop while vying for that back up infield position, making the decision even tougher for Coop. 

Stros on the bump: “Left-hander Mike Hampton allowed seven hits, seven runs, three walks and three home runs in five innings. He struck out three” From Brian McTaggart of the Houston Chronicle: “The Phillies hit four homers off the Astros, with Wesley Wright giving up four runs, a homer and two walks in one inning to raise his ERA to 3.60. Chris Sampson pitched two innings, allowing three hits and two unearned runs. ”

Tough day on the mound for Hampton and Houston but, those days are gonna happen, just ask Mike Hampton:

“”I’ll have one during the season, too, probably more than just one,” he said. “That’s just part of it. You try to minimize the damage as much as you can, but I made some good pitches at times and there were some times I left the ball over the plate and got hit.” ”

In Hampy’s defense, Coop says he got squeezed a little.

Houston’s Grapefruit League record: Astros 9-18-3

Houston scored 10 runs today to out slug the Florida Fish 10-8.

From astros.mlb.com:

Stros at the plate: “Lance Berkman homered in the third and the fifth, driving in three runs. Michael Bourn drove in a run in the fifth with an RBI double. Miguel Tejada drove in the go-ahead run with a double in the seventh. ”

Good games today from both Berkman and Bourn.  Killer B’s anyone?

Stros on the mound: “Mike Hampton allowed three runs on seven hits over five innings, striking out four. Chad Paronto left the game after one-third of an inning with a right shoulder muscle strain, and Gilbert De La Vara yielded two runs over two-thirds of an inning. ”

Hampton got hit a little but looked good on the mound as he kept the ball down for the most part.  Sampson pitched a scoreless inning, keep up the good work Samp.

From chron.com:

Cooper on the bats: “Lance put some good swings up,” Cecil Cooper said. “Lance had some great swings today. Every at-bat was good swings. It was good to see that. Kaz had some good swings today. Tejada had some good swings. They all did. There were quite a few. It was nice to see J.R. swing the bat like that. Today was probably our best day swinging the bats.”

Cooper on the arms: “Hampton was very good, got his pitch count up to the high 80s, so that’s good,” Cooper said. “He pitched down. I liked the way he pitched today. Bud (Norris) I thought was very good. His fastball was exploding out of his hand today.”

This is why I love Carlos Lee.

From Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle:

“Just days after several New York Yankees attended Alex Rodriguez’s press conference to support the disgraced steroids user, Carlos Lee, Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt parodied the Yankees as Lee held a brief press conference after his first workout of the spring Thursday.

After the Panamanian missed the club’s first full-squad workout Tuesday at Osceola County Stadium because he thought the reporting date was Thursday, Berkman chastised the slugger and Oswalt ridiculed Lee’s excuse. Once Lee was in camp, though, they all had fun with the misunderstanding.

Oswalt even suggested the gesture of mocking the infamous A-Rod press conference that was held last Tuesday afternoon in Tampa. Once practice was over, Berkman hugged Lee and sat at his side.

“We got to have one other person,” Lee said.

A few seconds later, and long after he had showered and dressed to go home, Oswalt sat nearby because he had waited for nearly an hour just to participate in the skit.

“He’s 100 percent backing me up,” Lee said as the sluggers declared love for each other.

“Let’s get through this together, Carlos,” Berkman said.

“I got confused with the reporting date,” Lee said. “I really thought it was on Thursday. It was on Tuesday, but I take full responsibility of it. There’s nothing I can do about it. All I can do is catch up with all the conditioning Lance got in the last two days.”

Berkman quickly chirped in: There’s no doubt. … It’s going to take you a lot longer than that to catch me.”

Lee has such a good relationship with his teammates and he consistently produces on the field.  What more can you ask for?  How about mocking Alex Rodriguez? That’s what I’m talking about.

In other Spring Training news, Astros non-roster invitee and veteran catcher hopeful Toby Hall is feeling discomfort in his throwing arm.  An MRI is scheduled to try and diagnose the problem.

Chris Sampson is scheduled to throw his first bullpen session Monday.

Roy Oswalt and Mike Hampton each threw batting practice today.  Oswalt is ahead of schedule relative to the other pitchers at Spring Training due to his preparation for the World Baseball Classic.

Blah, so much for a even two game series against the Cubs up in Milwaukee. First off the crowd is 99% cubs fans, so the Astros were already at a disadvantage, and then add in the fact that the team is so tired, it is no wonder why they struggled in both of the games.

In the two games, the Astros only had one hit. Yeah, they were no hit my Carlos Zambrano on Sunday night, but I figured they would have a good shot on Monday. However, Ted Lilly gave up one hit in seven innings of action as the Astros struggled once again at the plate. One hit simply won’t get it done against the Cubs.

Brian Moehler took the loss as he was charged with six hits and five runs. Moehler gave up two home runs as well in the game. Chris Sampson also gave up a home run in the game and was charged with one run. Just another bad day for the Astros pitchers.

Now the Astros find themselves 2.5 games behind the Brewers and Phillies in the wild card race. The Astros need to have a good series against the Florida Marlins before they play a weekend series against the Pirates.

Stay positive Astros fans, the teams needs some confidence and we have to give them some help.

Astros Blog

The Houston Astros got five shutout innings from Alberto Arias and went onto beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-2 on Monday night. It was a great start to the series for the Astros as the improved to 77-67 on the year.

The two runs that the Pirates did score came off of Wesley Wright in the sixth inning. He gave up rbi singles in the inning. Other then Wright’s two runs, the rest of the pitching staff pitched great. Doug Brocail, Chris Sampson, LaTroy Hawkins, and Jose Valverde all threw out of the bullpen after Wrigth was taken out. Valverde finished things up in the ninth inning for his 41st save of the season.

All three of the Astros runs came in the fifth inning when they were finally able to get to Pirates starting pitcher Ian Snell. Snell gave up a solo home run to Saccomanno and then Miguel Tejada and and Lance Berkman knocked in a run each with rbi singles.

The offense was lucky that the pitching staff threw the ball so well as they struggled against the Pirates pitchers. A win is a win however, and right now the the Astros need every win they can get.

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The Astros got on the board early and then scored a total of 6 runs in the game to beat the Nationals 6-4.

Wandy Rodriguez had a good start, giving up 4 runs over 5 and a third innings. He was cruising after giving up 2 early runs, but found trouble in the 6th leaving with the bases loaded.

Hunter Pence was the man of the night for the Astros though. He went 2-3 with 3 RBI’s, including a 2-run homer. Lance Berkman also contributed with a two run double in the fifth, his 30th double of the year. Carlos Lee continued his hot streak by going 3-5 and raised his average to .299. It’s good to see him ripping the ball.

Chris Sampson and Geoff Geary came in and pitched two and two thirds of scoreless innings until Jose Valverde came in to pitch a perfect ninth inning for his 24th save.

All in all it was a good game tonight, especially since it follwed an extremely poor outing last night.

Well the Astros pulled one out against the Pirates tonight after disappointing losses in the first two games of the series.

Before the game the Astros activated Kazuo Matsui from the disable list by designating Chad Reinke, who was only called up for barely a day.

Now on to the game…The night started off great with a three-run homerun from Geoff Blum, who was starting at shortstop to give Miguel Tejada a day off. Brad Ausmus provided an RBI single later in the first to make it 4-0 after the first.

Brian Moehler had a decent start, giving up 4 runs over 6 innings. Pitching through the 6th inning gave the Astros exactly what they needed. The Astros rewarded Moehler with 2 runs in the top of the 7th on a Hunter Pence groundout and a Kazuo Matsui double. This proved enough to give Moehler the victory, as he moves to  5-4 on the season.

Chris Sampson had another strong showing out of the bullpen, pitching two scoreless innings to get it to Jose Valverde for the save.

Another good sign from the game is Michael Bourn went 2-5. If he can start hitting with some consistency, this offense could really pick it up. When this team hits, there is no doubt we can contend. With our pitching. though, we need the offense to be rolling all the time, which is hard to expect.

Some other news is that Oscar Villareal does not want to accept his assignment to AAA Round Rock. The Astros have until Friday to either release or trade him. We’ll see what Ed Wade will do about that.

Everyone say a prayer to the basball gods that someone sends us an ace for our rotation…

The Houston Astros ran into a buzz saw in the name of Hiroki Kuroda on Wednesday night as Kuroda pitched seven scoreless innings and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Astros 4-1.  The Astros just couldn’t get anything going against Kuroda.  When they did score a run in the bottom of the ninth inning it was a little too late to make a difference.

Cliff Lee hit a solo home run in the ninth inning for the Astros only run.  There really isn’t anything else to blog about on the offense.

Runelvys Hernandez dropped to 0-2 on the season after pitching five innings and giving up six hits and four runs.  Hernandez struck out four batters but gave up a two run home run as well.  Dave Borkowski pitched two scoreless innings while Tim Byrdak and Chris Sampson both pitched one scoreless inning each.

The Astros will need to win on Thursday to salvage a split in the series with the Dodgers.

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The Houston Astros only had six hits in the game but they made sure that they all meant something as they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers by the score of 3-1.  Roy Oswalt pitched six innings and limited the Dodgers to only one run in the game and the offense did just enough to get the victory.

Oswalt gave up a rbi sac fly in the first inning to James Loney of the Dodgers but after that he settled down and when he had to he worked his way out of all the jams he got himself into.  Oswalt struck out nine batters over six innings of action.

Chris Sampson, Wesley Wright, and Jose Valverde all pitched in relief of Oswalt.  Valverde ended up picking up his 22nd save of the season.

Brad Ausmus led the Astros at the plate as he delivered in the fourth inning with a two run single.  Prior to Ausmus’s two run single, Mark Loretta had a rbi single in the fourth inning.  Lance Berkman hit his 22nd home run in the first inning when he took Eric Stults deep.

Astros will now try to go up 2-0 in the series on Tuesday night.  Astros Blog

** We should mention that Roy Oswalt left the game after six innings, but no reports have been released as to what kind of injury it is **  Let’s hope it isn’t to bad and he can make his next start.