Newly-acquired David Weathers served up Jason Kendall‘s first career grand salami and that’s all she wrote as the Pirates cruised to a 7-2 win over the Stros at the Juice Box on Wednesday night.
Stros starter Pete Munro actually pitched reasonably well, giving up four hits and four runs over six and a third. But Weathers really screwed the pooch, giving Kendall only his second yak of the season. The Stros bats — not exactly bursting with energy these days — went into deep sleep after Kendall’s tater put the game out of reach.
The biggest Stros news of the day was the rumor that the Stros were dangling Octavio Dotel as trade bait in a proposed three way deal with Oakland and Kansas City that would bring Carlos Beltan to the Stros. Beltran, 27, is one of the best young players in baseball, so he would be a wonderful addition to the Stros. However, the proposed deal violates the “too good to be true” because the term of Beltran’s $6 million contract expires at the end of this season and my sense is that the Stros would not give up Dotel to rent Beltran for half the season. So, any such deal would probably have to involve working out a new deal with Beltran, which is a long shot at best given his prospects on the free agent market. Thus, I recommend not to get too worked up over this proposed deal — I just don’t think it will happen.
In other positive news, Andy Pettitte had a good outing this evening in Round Rock and will likely come off the DL for his next start. Look for Tim Redding to be the odd man out as Munro is pitching better and deserves a shot at the fifth spot in the rotation.
The Rocket tries to make sure the Stros take three out of four against the Bucs on Thursday night before the Stros ship off to Arlington to battle the vastly-improved Rangers in the World Series of Texas this weekend.