I’m not sure how to say this, so I’ll just say it: Andujar Cedeno was #2 on the 1991 Baseball America list of Top 100 Prospects. Number two, Second-in-line, vice president.
Ahead of Pudge Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, Mo Vaughn, Tino Martinez, Bernie Williams, Chipper Jones, Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, and Jeff Bagwell.
Marlins Ballpark–much like its occupant franchise during this offseason–had a lot going on Friday night. Fish lurked in a purple aquarium to the left of the batter’s box, carnival-style dancers swiveled behind the left field wall, the orgiastic home run feature waits in center field like a Master’s thesis in potential energy. The outfield walls a shade of neon lime a weather man could work in front of, and a wall full of ads rotates behind the hitter.
Overall, the effect is that a stadium from the 1970s was kept in shrink wrap in a broom closet for a few decades, only to be finally unwrapped this year.
The gusto is welcome in Florida, and one feels like the franchise is making up for time lost as a sleepy, teal-tinged, heat-stroked forgotten team north of the city.
Oh, by the way, J.D. Martinez is the first player ever to hit a home run in Marlins Ballpark. It takes a shot to leave that yard, and that is what J.D. delivered–still it only just cleared the twenty foot wall separating the revellers of the Clevelander club from noted evangelical, left fielder Chris Coghlan. Pity the home run didn’t qualify to activate the home run feature.
The home run tied the game up in the top of the 8th inning.
* On Jed Lowrie’s debut. The reputation preceding Lowrie was of a sweet swing. A finely squared-up single set the table for the Martinez mash, doing nothing to tarnish the reputation. What a luxury to play a shortstop who can hit! I can’t think of an Astros shortstop who could be considered even moderately competent at the plate. Lowrie walked in a crucial ninth inning at bat, and made a spinning dervish play in the field on a ground ball to his left. I’m already enjoying the kid.
*On Chris Johnson’s defense. Two terrible throws to first base that each of them threatened Carlos Lee’s safety, a costly hesitation late in the game on a ball that deflected off of the pitcher. Johnson has the time to make these plays, and his work with the glove is passable, but time seems to be the enemy of accuracy. He’s had his time in the big leagues; he should be better than this.
–\
In the bottom of the ninth, Heath Bell lost touch with the strike zone and walked the bases full, but Caballo’s RBI touch of the first few games of the season abandoned him and, with two outs, he check swung his way to an easy out to end the threat and send the game into extra innings.
We lost on a double by Gaby Sanchez, but I don’t care. The Astros played good baseball, picked each other up, took some walks, stole some bases, and pitched out of jams. In short, they didn’t need a fish tank or sequined go-go boots to entertain in Miami.
In the third game of the series and of the season, against the Colorado Rockies on a beautiful Sunday, not even 15,000 fans showed up to the ballpark. They missed a solidly played baseball game against legitimate competition. The second such showing in a row, with commendable starting pitching, professional hitting, and an overall sense of competence that has already surpassed what most Astros fans expected to see at any point during this foregone conclusion of season.
Here are some notes on the third game and on the young season:
* On Bud Norris. Norris–who I didn’t see pitch during the spring–appeared svelte on the mound, missing a layer or two of baby fat. His simple array of pitches was complemented by a heretofore unwittnessed pretty good change-up on Sunday, against a lineup whose meat featured two elite hitters in Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez and another grizzled element in the quiet but punchy Michael Cuddyer. The sharp fastball and the ducking slider that we are used to were present and accounted for. Norris worked away in the professional-grade portion of the strike zone, meaning the four-inch box hugging the strike and ball portions of the low and away corner.
My recall of Norris’ performances from last year include five excellent innings followed by shaky entries beyond. Decent, yes, but not elite. Would his improved fitness aid against that pattern?
In the 6th inning, after letting up only a run so far from a Wilin Rosario home run, Norris plunked Tulowitzki painfully on the thigh and walked Jason Giambi (who walked thrice on the day and seems programmed like a rusty android against swinging at anything before two strikes in the count). Norris threatened to repeat his pattern and flub the game after the 5th. A visit from the coach seemed to settle him. Cuddyer hit into a double play! A 2-1 lead was in tact.
*In the bottom of the 4th, Jose Altuve hit a triple. Brad Mills sat Altuve for the second game of the season. The decision was decent enough, as Jose’s replacement Bixler had a single and the Astros won the game with ease and put up 7 runs. Nonetheless I felt that sitting Altuve after just a game was a sure way to disjoint the Astros fan, who wants only to attach herself to these very young players. Altuve, who showed with his triple that he has fine bat speed and could blossom before us, is one of the central figures for admiration that this team has. He should play in every single one of the remaining 159 games. Do not bench Jose Altuve, sir.
In any event, he hit a triple to start the inning. JD Martinez failed miserably to score Jose–if JD is going to swing, he needs to swing, and end a spate of ugly half-swings that rob him of all of his power and suggest to the observer that he has no idea what he’s doing. Carlos Lee, however, hit a ringing double. An RBI! It wasn’t complicated. There was no scheme to it, no strategy. One hit followed another, and we had a run and announced that we had a game. Plain old baseball, folks, and it felt good.
When Altuve and JD Martinez each singled off of a hard-throwing reliever, Rex Brothers, there was a strange feeling in the air: a tremor of hope. Then El Caballo came to the plate and hit a solid top-spin forehand deep to the backhand of Colorado’s third baseman, who booted the throw under pressure, scoring the tying run.
Brian Bogusevic rapped another single, and we gained the lead. On Saturday, we put up 7 runs. Sunday, this. Whatever the hand of fate holds for the rest of 2012, this season has started out piping hot.
* On El Caballo. Carlos Lee has been an easy goat in this town for years. Now in the final year of his contract, and as the only proven hitter on the team, I have a funny feeling that he will experience a kind of renaissance. The Contract has always held Astros fans back from enjoying the positives that Caballo brings to the team and to the game. This season, the chains that bind the albatross of his contract to the team are slackening, and really he’s the only hitter with a history in the leagues that we can look to. Add to that the fact that he really is a likable fellow, he pals around and gestures and does other things that TV viewers can enjoy, and he’s a decent first bagger, and that’s a formula for a softening of the harsh criticism he has allowed to slide off of his back for years.
* On Brian Bogusevic. I have been skeptical of the kid for a while now. I sensed that his push to the majors was more a result of wishful thinking about a former first round pick than of outright merit. His deep bomb to left center the other night, and his very timely hit in this game are quickly chipping away at my cynicism. Anybody can hit a single. Not just anybody can launch a moon ball into the ether. In other words, he has a foundation to build on. The strength to be an MLB hitter is in place, the bat speed is there, and the rest is up to him. So far, so interesting.
So, 15,000 Astros fans, good on you. You saw a fine baseball game in an Astros era when that is a rare and valuable commodity. I’ve often thought that our starting pitching was an asset, and Wandy, Bud Norris and Lucas (!) Harrell have thus far proved out. At a time when the franchise is looking backwards to history, the immediate present presents some hope for a chance.
Last season, as a resident of Seattle, Washington, for the first half of the year, I watched Jack Cust play baseball, and it was not very impressive.
Now Cust has made the same Pacific Northwest-to-Southwest circuit that I did, signing a one-year deal with the Astros with an option for 2013, and it’s time for me to look at him in the new light that is the Astros team.
Cust certainly looks the part of a jovial masher. The big gut, the warm smile, the fluid left-handed swing, the intense focus in the batter’s box. And Mariners fans had every right to expect that he would and tuck a few baseballs into the low cloud cover above Safeco Field. In 2010, Cust hit 13 taters, and the year before that, taking some reverse-chronological bunny hops, he launched 25, and 33, and 26.
But last year, when all the Mariners asked for was a bit more of the same, Cust couldn’t seem to swing his way out of a flannel shirt.
First off, I don’t know why this happened. Could have been age or any other number of factors. What I do know is my personal experience, and it was this: Seattle is a chilly, damp place. If I was a free-swinging slugger, I would find it most unpleasant to ply my trade in Seattle.
Again, there’s likely no correlation, but I can say that Cust appeared as taught as a filled sail when he hit for the Mariners. Not knowing his hitting style before 2011, I can’t speak of a divergence from his norm. But his style last year suggested desperation and angst over “it’s a kid’s game” looseness and home run lust. An expression of concern hovered over his visage with regularity, and as his failures compounded he started leaving the batter’s box with a perplexed look, an appeal to some greater driving force beyond his understanding.
Not a good place to be for a home run hitter.
Michael Barr over at Rotographs paints an unlovely picture of Cust’s decline, and he may well be right. I’m no scientist, but most every one of the lines on his graphs is diving like a nuclear sub. What I’d offer as a response is that, if there is some psychological element to Cust’s drop-off, that a new approach might do him good.
That approach? Just mash. Swing as hard as you can. Let Houston’s warmth and humidity thaw the muscles in your arms, back, and legs, and set them free. Swing hard. Close your eyes when you do it. Laugh at yourself when you topple over after striking out.
The Astros are an unformed mass of baseball chaos, with few big names to draw anyone’s eye, and with no expectations to burden a player like Cust, who clearly sagged under the expectation that he’d anchor the middle of an order. Cust must not anchor a thing in Houston. He should swing his bat like a helicopter blade to lift the lineup one mighty, hubristic, ecstatic swing at a time.
To quote Zachary Levine in his recent post on the topic: “Despite a really down year last year, [Cust] had an on-base percentage 33 points ahead of the Astros as a team, .344 to .311.”
The stakes are low; the sky is high.
Put me on the spot and I still can’t name the new Houston Astros general manager from memory. Jeff Loon–, uh, Lunny–. Something Jerry? I know more about the Texans’ twelfth-string quarterback than I do the new head of the Houston Astros.
It’s Jeff Luhnow, of course. Add a ‘z’ and you’ve got Jeff Luhz-now, a role that the guy accepted so hastily it may well have been built into his contract (a 4-year deal).
“It’s a responsible plan,” Luhnow said in his introductory press conference, in reference to his game plan. “It doesn’t steal from the future to make things a little bit better in the present.”
Luhnow’s speech could pass for the deputy mayor’s annual address at the Elks Club Lodge in Lake Wobegon. But this deputy mayor is gonna gut the system. He even looks the part of the unassuming hatchet man. He’s taking over baseball’s equivalent of General Motors, and his job is to return a crap factory to its former glory. Not a job for a cowboy or a biker rebel. It’s an inside job, a quiet restructuring.
The next step–now that the guy has declared his unyielding patience and sensibility–is excitement. Excitement for the tumult of a team full of youngsters can bring. Excitement to watch a group of nobodies take to the field and stir the pot against all odds. Excitement about the first pick in next year’s draft. Excitement about our last year in the NL, and our future in the AL.
You’re in the front door, Luhnow, now it’s time to turn on some Zeppelin and rearrange the furniture!
It is just about official that the Houston Astros will move to the American League in 2013.
It’s real, like it or not. I feel like a child who’s been told by his parents that they’re moving across the country. Unseen powers will dictate whatever adventure lies ahead.
The move is not positive or negative; it just is. Astros fans will chase a new horizon. Change is inevitable. Unlike the proverbial child from above, I can embrace the complexity of the change.
The American League is no demon, nor is the designated hitter. I watched AL baseball for a couple of years, and it is a fresh field to till. There will be new players to learn, new visual experiences to cultivate–even watching on television trains the eye to take comfort in a familiar stadium setting. There will be a change in routine. The DH leads to a different attitude as the lineup turns over. Great hitting wins out.
If Lance Berkman would never hit without playing the field, that isn’t so much my problem. He certainly didn’t resign and forfeit his paycheck while occupying the designated hitter position in New York.
Next year, we’ll play in the NL, we’ll draft in the highest slot available, we’ll feature a new hitter, we’ll scour the West coast. The wine of novelty will overrun the cup.
This is not only the end of something, but the beginning.
“Few fans will be happy with the move to the American League.” – Chip Bailey on Ultimate Astros
Chip Bailey’s statement above is a strange one for sure, tinged with the kind of naivete and close-mindedness that represents the least adventurous of Astros fans. The assertion that a change to the AL will apply to almost all Astros fans, and cause them to grumble and moan at the injustice of it all, is presumptuous beyond measure. Perhaps Mr. Bailey will cower at the prospect of a new coast to conquer, but he should hardly apply his own quaking to the city as a whole.
In response to a general sense of unease amongst the Astros faithful, I’m calling for a more adventurous attitude, one befitting a proud state and an even prouder city. Houston is hardly a place to rest on its laurels and accept the fate that dusty history ordains. Rather this is a city of redefinitions, from the sprawling madness of its unzoned streets and the fearless richness of the local cuisine, to the gleam of luxury automobiles and the shine of our glass skyscrapers. Limitations are for others, not for us. History shouldn’t weigh us down, but lift us up.
I’m not suggesting there wouldn’t be growing pains if the Astros were to shift their gaze westward. There is a lot of NL Central charm and history that we’ll miss, like the bitter and feckless Chicago Cubs and their neverending melancholy, the St. Louis Cardinals and their history of having players who play for the St. Louis Cardinals, the Milwaukee Brewers and their legacy of changing leagues and representing the city of Milwaukee, and the Pittsburgh Pirates and their funny caps from a while back. Did I miss anybody? There are a lot of teams to remember.
I’m kidding, of course, and I love the NL. But it’s important to remember, in this 50th Anniversary year of the Houston Astros franchise, the frontier spirit that forged the team, and the state of Texas. Alamo heroes Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and William Travis weren’t bearers of old and dusty standards trying to protect the status quo. They were weirdos from the hinterlands of young America, who trekked through the woods to Texas because they wouldn’t have anybody else and nobody else would have them. They moved west because they could give a damn about back east. They weren’t afraid of the freshest, most unknown territory in the world, and they never cowered in the face of dramatic change.
Judge Roy Hofheinz, the driving force in the formation of the Astros existence, identity, and world-famous home, would as soon have brushed his teeth with barbed wire than settle for the status quo. As a judge and a mayor he pushed continually for forward motion, for better or worse but often for the better. When selling the MLB on a Houston franchise, he carried around a scale model of the Astrodome because he knew it would blow their minds. After it did blow their minds, he proceeded to build the weirdest, wildest architectural creation ever seen, based on a premise so absurd that few understood what the ramifications would be. When we sit comfortably in our padded, air-conditioned, luxury boxed seats at Minute Maid Park watching an outdoor game inside, we can thank the Judge and his refusal to accept the grumbling of the masses as rote.
I’m not ready to equate a move to the AL with pure progress, per se, and heck, it might not even happen. But it would be a grand adventure, and one that we should match in spirit as Texans. We would strike out west to places barely known. We would play our fellow Texans with great regularity and flourish as true rivals. We would watch a professional hitter practice his scientific art, rather than suffering the foolishness of a pitcher at the plate.
For all of its charms, the Midwest isn’t our home. It has been a resting point, a place to catch our breath while we cast an eager eye towards the setting sun.
From a Houston Chronicle article, 1965, on the construction and capabilities of the Astrodome:
“The loudspeakers can project a piercing noise that can kill pigeons–’but it won’t be used that way,’ said Roy Hofheinz.”
