The struggling Stros are showing signs of life thanks to the lowly Pirates as they reeled off their third win in a row at the Juice Box on Tuesday night, 5-4.
Roy O pitched a gutty eight innings, giving up nine hits but no walks, and threw an incredible 24 first pitch strikes to the 33 batters that he faced. Morgan Ensberg came up with the key hit, a two out, two run triple in the seventh that came after the Stros had left a bushel full of runners on base in scoring position with less than two outs throughout the game.
You have to feel good for Ensberg getting the big hit, but the reality is that he has been extremely disappointing this season, with no yaks (after hitting 25 taters last season) and a paltry slugging percentage of .358, which is the same as the light-hitting Viz. In comparison, Barry Bonds, Jr.’s is slugging at an incredible .633 and Bidg, Bags and Kent are all ranging between .470 and .510, which is where Ensberg should be.
Pete Munro takes the hill tomorrow night as the Stros try to keep it going in the third game of the four game set with the Bucs. After the Thursday game, the Stros travel to Arlington for the first part of their annual home and home series with the Rangers.

The Stros took advantage of Wade Miller‘s gutty pitching performance and scored runs from unlikely sources as they beat the Angels 3-1 Sunday afternoon to take two out of the three game series at the Juice Box.
Miller gave up six hits and four walks in seven innings, but the only run the Angels could plate against him came when JK went brain dead and made an error when he double clutched an easy throw to first base on a two out, bases loaded grounder in the fifth. Lidge and Dotel had a couple of anxious moments in the eighth and ninth, but muddled through to secure the win.
Meanwhile, the Stros’ fielded an incredibly weak lineup that included below average hitters Viz, Ausmus, and Eric Brumlett, but all three of those negative RCAA (“runs created against average,” explained here) hitters contributed to the Stros’ offense. Brumlett hit his second career yak in the fifth, and then Viz doubled and scored on Ensberg‘s broken bat single. Ausmus then plated the third run with a perfect suicide squeeze bunt in the sixth. Based on this veritable offensive explosion, Manager Jimy will probably play these guys for the next week.
The Stros are now 35-33 and trail the Cards (41-28) by 5.5 games in the NL Central. The Pirates (26-39) now visit the Juice Box for four games beginning on Monday night, and it would be a very opportune time for the Stros to get back in the NL Central race. Anything less than three wins over the next four games would not bode well for the Stros’ chances for the remainder of the season. Redding, Roy O, Munro and the Rocket are the Stros’ scheduled pitchers for the Pirates series.

The Angels jumped on the Rocket for nine hits and five runs in just over four innings on Saturday night as the Angels beat the Stros in the second game of their weekend series at the Juice Box, 6-4.
Bags with his second solo yak of the series and Bidg‘s two run double capped a four run Stros uprising in the seventh that made things interesting, but the rally waned as most Stros rallies do these days. David Weathers, just making it to town after the Hidalgo trade, made his Stros debut with two innings of scoreless relief.
By the way, Richard Hidalgo was 0 for 3 in the Mets’ game tonight, and is now 0-7 as a Met. Those New York sportswriters will fillet Hidalgo before long.
Wade Miller takes the hill for the Sunday matinee at 1 p.m. against the Angels’ Jared Washburn.

The Stros had a relative slugfest on Friday night as JK drove in three runs with a double and triple and Pete Munro did his best imitation of the Rocket in leading the Stros to a 4-0 win over the Anaheim Angels.
Munro was outstanding, giving up only three hits and no runs over six and a third innings. Miceli, Lidge and Dotel cleaned up over the final three innings. Bags hit a mighty yak bottom of the eight for the Stros’ final run and hopefully that will help him break out of a prolonged slump that has seen his slugging percentage drop well below Bidg‘s.
By the way, Richard Hidalgo was 0 for 4 in his first game with the Mets.
Things should be fun at the Juice Box on Saturday night as Clemens goes for his 10th win against the Angels’ Ramon Ortiz (2-5;5.32 ERA).
In other Stros news, the Padres picked up Ricky Stone after the Stros had designated him for assignment when they acquired the two pitchers in the Hidalgo trade. Also, 25 year old AA Round Rock shortstop Tommy Whiteman, who has been having a tremendous season to date (.381 OBP; .473 SLG; 8 yaks), has been promoted to AAA New Orleans.

The next time you hear the Stros’ propaganda machine touting the brilliance of Jimy Williams‘ strategy of having Adam Everett‘s sacrifice at virtually every opportunity, please recall this Baseball Prospectus analysis:

Waste Not, Want Not: We’ll use an example from the Astros game against St. Louis on June 4, but any Houston fan could name a half-dozen others. Craig Biggio led off the game with a double to left field, bringing up shortstop Adam Everett.
Nice start, right? On the way to a big inning, right? Wrong, if you’re Jimy Williams, who’s never met a pointless sacrifice bunt that didn’t seem like a good strategic decision, especially with Everett at the plate. So far in 2004, Everett has 19 sacrifice bunts in 61 games, by far the most in the majors.
So, as ever, Williams asked Everett to lay down a bunt. He couldn’t get the bunt down, and the Astros eventually stranded Biggio at second base.
In James Click’s series on the sacrifice bunt, we learned that the threshold for a bunt in a runner on second, no out situation is .249/.305/.363–that is, if the batter’s numbers are below that threshold, a bunt makes sense. Otherwise, the batter should hit away.
Everett is currently at .282/.316/.370 this year, which means that a bunt with a runner on second and no one out is a bad play with Everett at the plate (although, not as bad a play as you might think). And keep in mind, that situation is the best situation for a sacrifice bunt when you’re trying to maximize the number of runs you score; any other situation early in a game is an even worse time to lay one down.
This is old news to most of you out there, but apparently Williams hasn’t gotten the memo on this. In a lineup that features four players with a VORP in double digits, Williams’ penchant for throwing away outs and runs early in games is especially baffling, and if Houston comes up short in the NL Central, he’ll deserve a great deal of the blame.

The Stros once promising season sank to the bottom on Thursday night as the Cubs completed a four game sweep of the Stros at the Juice Box, 5-4.
The Stros are now 33-32 and in fifth place in the NL Central. Since peaking at a season-high 10 games over .500 at 21-11 and leading the NL Central by three games on May 11, the fifth-place Astros have gone 12-21 and are now four and a half games behind the Cards. They have lost four in a row, six of their last seven, and 17 of their last 26 games.
For the first part of this hideous past month, the Stros hitting was decent and the pitching generally — with the exception of Clemens — was below average. The pitching has turned around over the past two weeks, but the hitting has gone south as the Stros scored a total of eight runs in the four games with the Cubs.
Roy O battled gamely tonight, giving up 4 runs on 11 hits through seven tough innings. However, journeyman Glendon Rusch handcuffed the Stros, and a mini-uprising in the ninth spiced by Jason Lane‘s first homer of the season petered out.
The Angels come to town tomorrow for a weekend series at the Juice Box as the Stros search for that elusive winning formula. Pete Munro will likely start for the Stros, so expect some hard-hitting in this one, at least from the Angels.

The Chronicle reports today that the other player in the Stros’ probable trade of Richard Hidalgo is Mets’ right-handed relief pitcher, David Weathers. Here is what Baseball Prospectus says about Weathers:

Weathers can be a cheap, serviceable back-end piece of almost every team’s bullpen, fill 70 something innings, and not embarrass himself. There’s some value in that, but he’d be well-served to try and sneak onto a team with a bullpen in flux, steal 15-20 saves and then get someone to bite on him as a closer. Billy Beane would probably be willing to sign on for a cut of the proceeds from the subsequent free agent deal.

Weathers, who is 35 and a 14 year veteran, is earning $3,93 million this season. Hidalgo has been on the trading block for two years since he took a nosedive from a production standpoint after signing an absurdly overpriced contract on the heels of an outstanding 2000 season. Hidalgo is currently “earning” $12 million this season, and will be owed a $2 million buyout after the season because no team in their right mind would pick up his $15 million option for next season.
So, this proposed trade is a salary dump for the Stros for their mistake of grossly overpaying for Hidalgo. I think it is a mistake for the Stros to give up on Hidalgo, but there is no question that they badly overpaid him over the term of his current contract. Sometimes it’s easier for team management to trade a player rather than face their own mistakes.
UPDATE: The Stros and Mets pulled the string, as Hidalgo goes to the Mets for Weathers and minor leaguer Jeremy Griffiths, a 26 year old righthander who will begin in the Stros’ organization at AAA New Orleans. Griffiths is 5-2 with a 3.47 ERA in 13 starts for AAA Norfolk this season, allowing 63 hits while walking 29 and striking out 31. Here is Baseball Prospectus’ analysis of him coming into this season:

Griffiths managed to drop his walk and home runs allowed rate some last year, but NL hitters lit him up with a .328 batting average against. A pedestrian pitcher with a fastball that’s neither fast nor big on movement, the Mets’ 2004 season’s in big trouble if Griffiths gets those projected 15 starts.

Well, certainly not a great trade for the Stros by any stretch. However, a good trade for Hidalgo was a dream once the Stros overpaid for him after his great 2000 season.

The Stros lost their third straight game to the Cubs on Wednesday night, 4-1.
The Stros wasted a good pitching performance be Tim Redding, who gave up two runs on eight hits over seven innings. But the Stros continue to scruff at the plate, scattering a bunch of singles off of Greg Maddux around one extra base hit (a game opening double by Bidg). Nothing is looking good for the Stros right now, as Everett has a hitch in his giddyup, Hidalgo is on the trading block and not playing much, and Berkman has cooled off after being the only consistently good hitter over the past month.
Roy O tries to avoid the sweep tomorrow night. The Stros are in free fall, and it’s getting ugly at the Juice Box, folks.

Reports out of New York are that the Mets and the Stros are close to a trade that would send the Stros’ Richard Hidalgo to the Mets.
The following is recently exiled Brandon Duckworth‘s pitching line from last night’s game at AAA New Orleans:
Player Name IP H R ER BB K HR ERA
B.Duckworth 2.2 7 6 6 1 1 0 20.25
Ouch!

The Cubs scored three runs in the top of the ninth on Lance Berkman‘s two base error and Octavio Dotel‘s dubious pitching as the Cubs downed the fading Stros for the second straight night on Tuesday, 4-2.
The Stros wasted the second straight solid pitching performance by Wade Miller, who gave up only a run on four hits, one walk and struck out six in six and a third innings. The Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano was just as good, cuffing the Stros to two runs on six hits over six frames. Ensberg plated a couple of runs in the sixth to give the Stros a 2-1 lead, which they held to the fateful ninth when things quickly spiraled out of control.
Berkman’s two base error led off the frame, and then Dotel proceeded to give up three more hits and three runs (none earned because of the Berkman error) before the carnage was over.
Tim Redding, who is quickly fading from mediocrity to awful, takes the hill for the Stros in the Wednesday night game against Greg Maddux. The Stros are now 32-30 and in fifth place in the NL Central. A promising season is quickly fading away.