Boxscore

Before the season began, the predictions for the Astros went along the lines that they had a solid offense, but suspect pitching. During the April, of course, the opposite held true. The Astros had very good pitching performances and little to no offense.

Yesterday’s game against the Giants fell into the pre-season prediction as Chris Sampson started and allowed 7 runs (5 earned) in his six innings. But that was okay, because Houston had its homer hitters ready. Carlos Lee, Darin Erstad, and, yes, Lance Berkman all powered the Astros to victory. Berkman’s knock in the 9th proved to be the game winner.

So for once, it looks like a pre-season prediction came true. So far.

Houston now travels to Texas to play the Rangers at 8:05pm EDT. Shawn Chacon starts against–holy crap!–fat Sidney? Yes, indeedly. Sidney Ponson, sporting a 2-0 record and an uncharacteristic 3.16 ERA goes for the Rangers. I had no idea he was still in baseball.

Boxscore

The Pirates have been very good so far this month. Obviously, it’s unsustainable–it is the Pirates, after all–but it’s nice to see them win some games for a change. Since sweeping the Giants early in the month, they’ve won three straight series. The Cardinals were their latest victims yesterday.

The game wasn’t a pitchers duel, with both starters leaving around the game’s halfway point and allowing way too many runs for a Quality Start. Instead, they both received a Crappy Start, which I think should be added to the official statistical lexicon.

Then it became a battle of the bullpens, and unfortunately for St. Louis, they have Jason Isringhausen, who is in a huge black funk right now.

The Cardinals try to regroup and uncover the magic elixir that helped them so much in April when they start interleague play against the Devil Rays at 8:15pm EDT, starting Braden Looper against Andy Sonnanstine. The Pirates travel to Chicago at 2:20pm EDT where Tom Gorzelanny will attempt to beat Sean Gallagher and pick up some games in the standings.

Boxscore

The Cubs blanked the Padres and former Cub pitcher (twice!) Greg Maddux behind eight-plus innings from Ryan Dempster, who picked up his fifth win and lowered his ERA to 2.35. Now I’m confident that last stat won’t hold for the entire season, but what the hell? Dempster has only been an effective starter for one year in his mediocre career.

Looking at staty stats, his ERA when removing fielding from the equation is a bit higher, at 3.50, but that’s still more than a full run lower than his career mark. All I can figure is that he got quite a bit of rest working as a reliever the last few years. Of course, that lighter workload will undoubtedly come back to bite him and the Cubs by the end of the year.

As for the game, Dempster also drove in a run, which was all he needed. Derek Lee added a couple more, and Ryan Theriot chimed in one more.

The Cubs next host the Pirates and Tom Gorzelanny today at 2:20pm EDT, sending out Sean Gallagher to keep the winning going.

Boxscore

The Astros kept pace with the Cubs and proved that they, along with all the other NL Central teams, are better than the San Francisco Giants. (With the possible exception of the Reds. I think they lost the series to San Fran, but I’m too lazy to look it up and will simply assume that the lost. With the Reds, it’s the safe assumption to make.)

Houston got on the board early, thanks to Lance Berkman hitting another homer. There was a runner on, but it wasn’t Michael Bourn. Like many other teams, the Astros don’t seem to realize that leadoff hitters with speed have to get on the bases to have that speed be an asset. Instead, Bourn, like Corey Patterson and Alfonso Soriano, loves to make outs. He makes an out 73% of the time. Ouch.

But the Astros won anyway, thanks to the rest of the offense and decent pitching. They sit in third place, 1.5 games behind Chicago.

This afternoon Chris Sampson battles with Tim Lincecum at 3:45pm EDT.

Boxscore

As Pat pointed out, Cesar Izturis went 3 for 5 against the Pirates last night, and that never portends good things.

It didn’t for the Pirates, who lost to the Cardinals. Paul Maholm was not sharp, allowing 11 of St. Louis’ 15 hits and getting the loss. Todd Wellemeyer continued to do what he’s done all year, which is pitch surprisingly competent baseball to pick up the win. It’s like Todd is the 2008 St. Louis Cardinals.

The Cardinals needed the win after struggling of late. We get to see the two teams fight again today at 1:15pm EDT when Ian Snell starts against Joel Pineiro.