Paulino Disappoints in Loss

Well Astro fans, it looks as though the magical month that was shaping up to be June has turned into a bust. Paulino surrendered 10 runs, 8 of which were earned, in less than 5 innings. Boom. Stud youngster who was on the path to a break out season gets pulled though the mud.

What is most depressing about this start is the fact we squandered a rare 3 run lead in the fifth inning. It is not too often that we can look to our offense to give us a good cushion, but when it does, we need to take advantage.

The good news is that we did score 7 runs, and I will take that any time that we can get it. We did so with timely hitting that was lacking during the Yankee series (outside of Manzella) by going 4-9 with RISP. A nice change indeed, and I will accept defeat in one game if it means that our offense is going to continue to be explosive in games to come. This could be a huge turning point for the team because unlike the two prior winning streaks we went on in late April and early June, we had to rely on arms only. If the bats start heating up, our pitchers can slowly gain their confidence back and hopefully work in games where they can be comfortable and not worry about squandering a hard earned one run lead in a 2-1 game.

It is more than acceptable to get a blow up game from Felipe at this point in the season or early in his career. Hopefully, he was working on new stuff or quite possibly just missing targets, but if he continues to pitch as he was in the games prior to last night’s, he could possibly be the most valuable asset pitching wise to this team. He wasn’t expected to post an ERA below 5 by many, so finishing last night with an ERA of 4.50 is a lot better than what it could have been.