Bazardo Debuts With Astros And Pitches Worse Then Hampton

Hampton was his usually crappy self in the first - 1 walk, 2 singles and only 1 run. In the second, he gave up a single, then with a 1-1 count on the batter, Pudge called the trainer out, Hampton stayed to finish the inning and gave up a 2 run single to Braun. Turns out he has an owie with his knee. Whoa, injured. What a surprise. Now he can join Brocail on the DL. I hope. I guess that Coop started Bazardo warming up after that second single. I know I should have talked about him before, but I didn't think that the Organzation would actually send Paulino back down, let alone put Bazardo on the 40 man ("purchase" his contract) and I haven't figured out who was taken OFF the 40 man. Anyway, Bazardo is a 24 yo RHP, signed as a minor league FA this spring, who, at the time of his callup, had the second best ERA in the PCL, right behind Norris. He was 9-6 in 20 GS and 3 in relief over 135 IP with a 3.20 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 1.0 HR/9, 2.1 BB/9 and 5.3 K/9. He was originally drafted from Venezuela by the Marlins in 2000 and traded to Seattle in July 05 for Ron Villone. He pitched decently for AA with Seattle, continuing his pattern of low walks, low hits and low Ks. Seattle traded him to the Tigers in the 06/07 offseason for some minor leaguer and he spent most of the year in AAA, pitched well, same pattern, and bounced up and down between AAA and the ML. He threw 23.2 ML innings in 07 with a 2.28 ERA/1.09 WHIP. 2008, however, was a bad year - he threw 3 vile ML innings and also saw his hits/9 rise to an untenable 12.1/9 IP which led to a 6.72 ERA/1.70 WHIP. He was released at the end of the season and the Astros picked him up. He had just pitched 2 days before the callup (badly, too) and so JD said, wasn't expected to pitch for a few days. So he headed out to the mound in the 3rd with the score Crew 3 Stros 1. He looked unbelieveably nervous - sort of a reverse Bud Norris. WHAT THE HECK was Coop thinking, throwing the poor guy out there in the 3rd like that? He certainly hadn't come prepared to pitch AS COOP HAD SPECIFICALLY SAID HE WOULDN"T BE PITCHING!!! What, he couldn't have sent Byrdak or Wright out FIRST? He couldn't ease the guy in in the end of the game? Not smart handling of people, as usual. Anyway, Bazardo had a terrible time finding the strike zone. Of course, the ump squeezed the living heck out of the guy, which didn't help. Per Gameday, - McGehee - Ball 1 is right in the strike zone. Ball 2 was a high inside FB hit for a double- Hall - Ball 1, Ball 2 hits the outside corner, Ball 3 Ball 4 hits the inside corner- Hardy - 1 called strike (the fans gave the ump a sarcastic hand) 4 fouls, 4 balls (hey, at least he got some pitches IN the strike zone)- Rivera - Ball, foul, 2 run double to the LF corner (that Kepp missed) on an inside FB at the knees - a good pitch- Parra - ball, sac bunt back to Bazardo who whirls to third, sees no one at the bag, then hurries the throw to first and it skips by Coste for an E1 which lets another runner score- Lopez - Ball 1 which is clearly a strike inside the strike zone - not even a corner, Strike 1, ball, then 2 pitches on the inside corner called balls Bazardo looks completely frazzled - Miggy and Pudge go out again to calm him down - Cameron - Ball, foul and 2 called strikes on the Black which have previously been called balls- Braun - ball (which is the exact same pitch just called a strike to Cameron) foul, called strike, swinging strike at pitch in dirt- Prince - 2 balls, RBI single on pitch below knees- McGehee again - 2 called strikes ou the black (which have been called balls earlier in the inning) then ball (which was just called strike on Braun) than a ball, then a lineout to Tejada, who made a great catch. And that is 5 runs, 3 earned right there. And the end of the ballgame. Husband and I were wondering how many runs/pitches Coop was gonna leave the poor guy in for until he got pulled. Unless the Organization secretly has given up on the year, this was very VERY bad managing. Bazardo didn't pitch as badly as it looked - the ump was just bad. I hope he gets another chance - which he probably will, given that Hampton has another owie. Wesley Wright pitched 3 very good innings, giving up only 1 run. He is really stretching it to get that third inning, but at least it wasn't 99 degrees out as it was in Chicago. (JD says that Wesley weighs a buck thirty - guess he isn't fooled by the idiotic lies that are published by MLB.) Byrdak pitched 2 innings, giving up a 2 run job to the Prince, who hit one of those high popups just over the edge of the Crawford Boxes - 10 more feet to the right and it would have been out. Pence should NOT be hitting in the 3 hole - he freaks out/freezes with bases loaded. And he is still having very VERY bad swings and he needs to sit and not do ANY hitting at all for a couple of days. He's hitting almost everything to the SS, 2B and almost no line drives at all. Interesting that JD has only mentioned Hunter's slump once in the past couple of weeks. Tomorrow, it's the return of the Wand Man (who says he's fine) vs Yovani Gallardo. Will be nice to see a pitching duel after watching the day of the #5s and relievers.