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CTH’s Houston Astros Players of the Week (Aug 3 – 9)

By Thomas O'Banion |

The Houston Astros word of the week is “disappointing.” What a bad stretch of baseball for the Good Guys. After starting the week with a slugfest against the Texas Rangers, where they lost 12-9, the Astros played in six consecutive one-run games. They won one of those games, for a combined record of 1-6 this week.

The team got some decent pitching from the rotation, aside from Monday night, but the offense was just meh. Lots of missed opportunities on the basepaths…

On to this week’s awards:

Pitcher of the Week: Scott Feldman

It’s not often you find Feldman’s name on these lists, but this week he earned it. He was the only Houston Astros pitcher to pick up a win this week, and he got the W with a excellent start against the A’s on August 6. Feldman’s line:

6.0 IP, five hits, two earned runs, two walks, three strikeouts

The only knock on Feldman was that the two runs he gave up were solo home runs, but that’s just nitpicking in my opinion. This is what the Astros needed on the road and it gave the team a good start to the Oakland series.

Hitter of the Week: Luis Valbuena

That’s right, fans. Luis “Batflip” Valbuena earned Hitter of the Week honors. Val has been plagued by the BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) gods this year, but he must have done something to appease them this past week. He was smoking hot at the plate, throwing out this line:

.400/.478/.750, three runs, eight hits, a double, two home runs, three RBI, and two walks

He’s been making good contact for a while, though the balls haven’t been finding a place to fall. Thankfully things are starting to look up for Valbuena.

Oh, and his BABIP for the week was .429, in case you were wondering.

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Weekly Goat: Lance McCullers Jr

This hurts to put McCullers here, but in all honesty, he had a terrible outing against the Rangers on August 3. Not really sure what McCullers was doing differently this go-round, maybe he was tipping his pitches or perhaps they were stealing signs, but the Rangers’ hitters seemed to know what was coming. LMJ’s line:

0.1 IP, six earned runs, a walk, a strikeout

We all know what he’s capable of, and this will probably be anomaly on his season. He was making a strong case for AL Rookie of the Year up to that point.

Redemption Player: Colby Rasmus

Colby Rasmus has had a rollercoaster of a season. He’s hot some weeks, and ice cold others. This week he was tepid (.200/.333/.250), until he came through when his team needed him most.

During yesterday’s loss, Rasmus was up to bat with two men on in the top of the ninth, and the Houston Astros were down 3-1 to the A’s. Rasmus blasted a ‘Colby Jack’ to right field and gave Houston a short-lived lead. You could tell by the dugout’s reaction how huge that home run was.

He was perfect in that situation and breathed some desperately needed life into the team during a bad stretch. That’s why he was this week’s Redemption Player.

That’s it for this week. Here’s hoping next week is a drastic improvement.

Next: Interview with Tri-City No-Hit Trio

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