At least there is no sweep involved today.
Today's pitching matchup, lineups, and others after the jump.
Brett Myers looks like he's making a return to form after missing most of the 2009 season due to injury. He's striking out less than he did in his early career as a starter, but his walk rate has been consistent. Age and injury-related decline's only a normal thing, and he's on track to have a season similar to his 2008. It looks like he's relying on his slider more in 2010 than he did in previous seasons. Myers has only started against the Brewers 4 times, the last start occurring on September 14, 2008 in the second game of a double-header. Myers pitched a complete game and the Phillies won, 6-1. We all remember what happened to the Brewers the next day.
Ah, Dave Bush: The less said, possibly the better. He can only go up from his performance in his last start on Friday. What's looking distinctly odd about Bush's 2010 is that he's walked the same amount of batters as he's struck out. His career K/BB excluding this season is 2.88. However, if there's one thing you can say about Bush's career, it's that he usually manages to get the better of the Astros. This may be linked to Bush's previous lack of walks; he's only walked 8 Astros batters in his career. His last start against Houston was May 19th of last year. In that game the runs happened because Russ Ortiz hit a homer and Kazuo Matsui stole home, so that's definitely not the result expected in 2010.
Lineups:
Houston Astros | Milwaukee Brewers |
Michael Bourn CF | Rickie Weeks 2B |
Jeff Keppinger 2B | Carlos Gomez CF |
Hunter Pence RF | Ryan Braun LF |
Lance Berkman 1B | Prince Fielder 1B |
Geoff Blum 3B | Casey McGehee 3B |
Cory Sullivan LF | Corey Hart RF |
Tommy Manzella SS | George Kottaras C |
Kevin Cash C | Alcides Escobar SS |
Brett Myers P | Dave Bush P |
The daily bullpen availability/usage tracker:
Jeff Suppan pitched 2 innings (25 pitches) yesterday.
Trevor Hoffman pitched 1 inning (16 pitches) yesterday.
Claudio Vargas pitched 2 innings (40 pitches) yesterday.
Todd Coffey pitched 1 inning (22 pitches) Tuesday.
Carlos Villanueva pitched 1 inning (17 pitches) Tuesday.
Marco Estrada pitched 3 innings (44 pitches) Sunday.
Zach Braddock pitched 2 innings (37 pitches) Sunday.
John Axford pitched 1 inning (26 pitches) Sunday.