Ugly loss but I think we learned something. One, Arias will never play center field again as long as Vogt is managing. Two, Florial can't hit a fastball. The Astros didn't even bother to pitch to him tonight. No changing speeds and locations, no throwing one pitch to set up the next. It was just fastball, fastball, fastball, right down the middle.
Florial swung and missed six fastballs tonight and bunted one foul. He grounded out to first and flied to left on two more. I know he's put up some decent numbers lately but they were just blowing 93 mph heat past him time and again right down Broadway. I really have to question whether he can hit in the majors if he can't put his bat on an average fastball right down the middle over and over.
In Rocchio's last four games he has four hits, five walks, and three stolen bases. No slugging going on, but getting on base nine times in four games from the 9-hole is great, especially if you add in three steals. Let's see if he can keep it up or if this was just a mini-hot streak.
Time to DFA Beede. After tonight his ERA is 8.36. Hentges is ready and Eli right behind. Avila was impressive in mop-up duty, retiring five straight and three on K's, including Altuve on three pitches. However, if there were men on base I'm sure Altuve would have gotten a hit.
Nice to see Josh and Jose taking some pitches tonight but they still couldn't get a hit. Kwan got Jose an RBI scoring on a sac fly to shallow left that he probably should not have tried to score on. Lucky the ball stuck in the left fielder's glove momentarily and then his throw was wide.
Bo Naylor is a mess. He can't buy a hit and he let in a run on a fastball that was just above the zone but somehow he didn't catch it.
