How does somebody get hurt hitting a home run? I’m serious. Carlos Lee hit a home run in the fourth inning on Friday night and strained his right Achilles tendon. And I don’t understand how the injury could happen.
Sure, I can see him pulling a muscle on a strikeout. And if he were to ever decide to actually run on the bases, then I could understand an injury there. But hitting a home run? Sorry, I just don’t see it. That’s about the one thing that Carlos Lee can do well, so one would think that he could manage hitting the ball without an injury.
Then again, hurting himself on a home run swing kind of makes Carlos
Lee a perfect fit for a team that has a second baseman that can get
hurt just by sitting down. Closer Jose Valverde is pitching on one leg
after hurting himself early last week. Back-up catcher Humberto
Quintero is on the disabled list after being knocked out of the game on Friday night. Reliever Geoff
Geary should be injured so that he can use that as an excuse for losing
three of the last 10 games. And one gets the feeling that Lance Berkman
would like to use injury as a way to explain his .167 batting average,
.329 on-base percentage, and 21 strikeouts.
But injuries aren’t the real problem with the Houston Astros. The
team’s real problem is just that they’re bad. Not Washington Nationals
bad, but then again, the Washington Nationals do have some actual young
talent on the team. The Astros are an old, veteran-laden team of
underperformers who, despite playing 13 of their first 19 games at
home, were able to win only six games.
The starting pitching, Roy Oswalt aside, has actually been halfway
decent, though any team that counts Wandy Rodriguez as their best
starter is in trouble. Oswalt meanwhile has struggled, giving up 29
hits and six homers in only 25 innings while failing to win in any of
his four starts. The starts of Mike Hampton and Russ Ortiz are never
pretty, but somehow, they always find a way to keep the team in the
game so that the bullpen can come in and self-destruct.
I don’t know what I’m complaining about, though. I expected this team
to be bad. I thought that they might be one of the worst teams in the
league, and at 7-12, they sit in last place in the NL Central and are
tied for the third worst record in Major League Baseball. But I
actually thought they would be worse. I really didn’t see them winning
seven games this month. So I’m actually kind of pleasantly surprised.
They have three games left this month as they head on the road to take
on the Cincinnati Reds for three games. The Reds have already beaten
the Astros in three of four games this year, and the Reds are my pick
to surprise the baseball world this season, so I expect them to lose at
least two of the three games.
The Astros will not return to Minute Maid Park until next week. After
the three games with the Reds, the Astros will play three games in
Atlanta and two games in Washington, D.C. before returning for a series
with the Cubs. How bad are the Astros going to be this season? The
series with the Nationals, one of the worst teams in baseball, should
be a key. If the Astros have trouble in those games, then it’s going to
be a long damn season.
This article appears in Summer Guide 2008.
