Losing hurts.

 

No matter how you cut it, no matter how we try and rationalize it, this was a game didn't have to lose. No doubt there will be many more this season.

 

But in the end, I have to agree with Ramp. We didn't lose 11-0, we lost a 1-0 nailbiter. A whole bunch of young men now have a better idea what is expected of them and tomorrow they get to do it all over again, and hopefully with a more rewarding result.

 

In some ways facing Oswalt and Lidge was just what the doctor ordered. You learn by facing the best. No one is going to hand them a game, they are going to have to fight and claw for every victory this season and there was enough good in this game to build on.

 

Go Fish !

On the down side, Shadez had a serious case of the nerves while Uggla really is as bad as they say at 2B.....

I didn't see Uggla do anything wrong at 2B at all. He almost turned a DP, & the little flip to Hanley should've turned another one.He didn't mess anything up today, he just looked ackward. Didn't plant his feet, didn't set himself up to make throws.Glad to know I wasn't seeing things

and it's not like we got dominated by a couple of has-beens

 

Roy Oswalt and Brad Lidge are awesome

Only negatives were in the defense/fielding, IMO.

Not to put words into 2003's mouth, but I must agree that losing this game, especially the way it happened, was disappointing.

 

If we had lost 2-0 or 3-0, I think it would have been easier than 1-0...coming off a pastball no less.

 

However, I will always take a game where you out hit the opposition with both teams' aces on the mound...more times than not, you're going to be on the winning end.

 

Here's to hoping that those first game jitters are out of the way and tomorrow produces a much more favorable result.

Only negatives were in the defense/fielding, IMO.

 

 

I agree, with also hitting thrown in there, to an extent

 

I saw some good at bats, but you have to capitalize on those

 

Also, though, have to give credit where credit is due, and oswalt and lidge are both spectacular

If Willis had only been more effective, I think we might have won that game. But well, if's and might have's dont' work. Good game though it seemed, I couldn't watch it here in Boston . anyways, go get 'em tomorrow boys!

If Willis had only been more effective, I think we might have won that game. But well, if's and might have's dont' work. Good game though it seemed, I couldn't watch it here in Boston . anyways, go get 'em tomorrow boys!

 

 

 

:plain

 

He gave up 1 hit. You scored 0 runs, nothing Willis could have done on the hill to WIN you that game.

Losing hurts.

 

No matter how you cut it, no matter how we try and rationalize it, this was a game didn't have to lose. No doubt there will be many more this season.

 

But in the end, I have to agree with Ramp. We didn't lose 11-0, we lost a 1-0 nailbiter. A whole bunch of young men now have a better idea what is expected of them and tomorrow they get to do it all over again, and hopefully with a more rewarding result.

 

In some ways facing Oswalt and Lidge was just what the doctor ordered. You learn by facing the best. No one is going to hand them a game, they are going to have to fight and claw for every victory this season and there was enough good in this game to build on.

 

Go Fish !

 

 

I agree 100%

If Willis had only been more effective, I think we might have won that game. But well, if's and might have's dont' work. Good game though it seemed, I couldn't watch it here in Boston . anyways, go get 'em tomorrow boys!

 

 

 

:plain

 

He gave up 1 hit. You scored 0 runs, nothing Willis could have done on the hill to WIN you that game.

 

No no, that's not what i mean. I mean effective as in that he would have lasted more than 5 innings, then maybe we woulda had the game. He was awesome it seems, but he had some control problems and his pitch count was too high when he finished the 5th inning. That's what i meant by effectivity. I know that we didn't score runs, that is why we lost, bottom line.

after watching a number of games on espn, mlb.tv., and now the a's-yankees, i gotta admit that basically every team looks worse than we do. good pitchers getting rocked, veterans making very bad decisions defensively, people getting thrown out when they shouldn't. don't think it's just our guys. in fact, we were fundamentally pretty sound tonight. shadez went on a 3-0 count in the first inning. shadez made two errors... but that happens. other than that, we didn't make any glaring mistakes.

 

 

 

If Willis had only been more effective, I think we might have won that game. But well, if's and might have's dont' work. Good game though it seemed, I couldn't watch it here in Boston . anyways, go get 'em tomorrow boys!

 

 

 

:plain

 

He gave up 1 hit. You scored 0 runs, nothing Willis could have done on the hill to WIN you that game.

 

No no, that's not what i mean. I mean effective as in that he would have lasted more than 5 innings, then maybe we woulda had the game. He was awesome it seems, but he had some control problems and his pitch count was too high when he finished the 5th inning. That's what i meant by effectivity. I know that we didn't score runs, that is why we lost, bottom line.

 

it was hard for him to overcome the two erros by shadez. that extended the astros' inning twice. and they weren't really giving him much of a strike zone. he did fine, imo.

Ok, i figured the errors must have extended the innings for him but he still walked three and I saw him go into some very deep counts. Anyways, he did fine imo too, i just think with a bit better luck and better defense behind him, he might have gotten farther. I was not watching the game, it was not transmitted here in Boston obviously, so I did not see what happened after both errors.

Only negatives were in the defense/fielding, IMO.

 

 

I agree, with also hitting thrown in there, to an extent

 

I saw some good at bats, but you have to capitalize on those

 

Also, though, have to give credit where credit is due, and oswalt and lidge are both spectacular

 

That pretty much sums it up.

 

The fact that we outhit them tonight is awesome. :thumbup

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

Not many positives. I suppose only allowing one run against the defending champs has some upside by not much.

 

Get used to games like this this year.

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

Huh?

 

D-Train was over 100 pitches on his first start. Girardi even let him have another AB.

 

And Johnson looked great in his 1 2/3 innings.

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

D-Train is a competitor... so he was going to be upset. But he was up to 107 pitches in the first game of the year. He needed to come out. We can't afford to lose D-Train to some injury, especially this early in the season.

 

 

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

Huh?

 

D-Train was over 100 pitches on his first start. Girardi even let him have another AB.

 

And Johnson looked great in his 1 2/3 innings.

 

He looked pretty good in his first inning. He was wild in his second inning of work. JJ needs to work on his control.

Any manager with a brain would've taken Dontrelle out. He hadn't had an inning with less than 15 pitches yet. Did anyone really want to see him get over 120 in his first start of the year? Especially when we all know that realistically we're not going anywhere. Let's not kill Dontrelle this year, please.

True. But it's the dissension factor that I don't like. Maybe Girardi is just trying to establish who's boss.

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

D-Train is a competitor... so he was going to be upset. But he was up to 107 pitches in the first game of the year. He needed to come out. We can't afford to lose D-Train to some injury, especially this early in the season.

 

 

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

Huh?

 

D-Train was over 100 pitches on his first start. Girardi even let him have another AB.

 

And Johnson looked great in his 1 2/3 innings.

 

He looked pretty good in his first inning. He was wild in his second inning of work. JJ needs to work on his control.

his pitches looked pretty good... McClelland was killing him.

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

D-Train is a competitor... so he was going to be upset. But he was up to 107 pitches in the first game of the year. He needed to come out. We can't afford to lose D-Train to some injury, especially this early in the season.

 

 

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

Huh?

 

D-Train was over 100 pitches on his first start. Girardi even let him have another AB.

 

And Johnson looked great in his 1 2/3 innings.

 

He looked pretty good in his first inning. He was wild in his second inning of work. JJ needs to work on his control.

his pitches looked pretty good... McClelland was killing him.

 

Without a doubt, he threw two nasty pitches to Berkman that were called balls.

I can name one big negative already: D-Train is upset with Girardi. He said he felt like he shouldn't have been pulled after 5, and looking at what Johnson did, he may very well have been right.

 

 

Huh?

 

Girardi even let him have another AB.

 

And was does that tell you what Giradi thinks of the bench?

I think everyone here is being a little too optimistic and congratulating. Let's be fair. The hitting was pathetic. Oswalt looked good but not unhittable. He threw mostly fastballs that we fouled off or took for strike three 7 times. I can only recall one at bat in which a ball was hit somewhat solidly and that was Hermida's single (I did miss the first inning.) Other than that everything was a SO, pop-up to an infielder in foul ground, or a weak ground out. The only two balls I remember being hit into the outfield were Cabrera's routine fly balls. Oswalt is a great pitcher but he did not have dominant stuff today. I am not sure what good at bats people are referring to. We had 4 hits (2 of which were infield singles), very few well hit balls, and a couple walks.

 

Also, Lidge did not look good. He had no command of his pitches tonight. But I will disegard our at-bats against him because it was such a small sample.

 

The defense was bad.

 

The pitching was good, but let's remember that this is a mediocre to below average hitting team in the Astros. Willis looked ok. He was wild and couldn't locate pitches the majority of the time. He had very few swings and misses and his SOs came on pitches way out of the strikezone that I feel batters may have swung at because it is still early in the year. Johnson's stuff looked good, but he had inconsistent command. Martinez looked very good.

 

Just because the team is young is not a reason to hold them to a different standard. This is supposed to be a major league team, though a bad one at that. I think everyone is congratulating this team too much for losing and looking quite pathetic in a number of areas. I don't really care that they are rookies; if they play poorly they should be treated as any other poor performing team.

 

I do see this team losing close to 100 games. There will be many many games this year in which we don't come close to providing adequate run support. Also, remember that tonight was our best team with Willis on the mound. He may not have had his stuff tonight but he fought through five innings. Let's see how everyone feels with the other starters on the mound when we lose 5 or 6 to nothing. I don't expect us to come within 5 runs of the Astros tomorrow with Mitre pitching.

 

I just wish that people on this board wouldn't delude themselves into thinking this is a decent team.

and I wish you would just give them a chance...

 

who writes off a team before the season starts? that's no fun... unless you think it is

 

I dont think we had our best lineup possible in there either...

Someone explain is to me how losing by more than one run would be considered better than losing by one run. I don't think I'll ever get that one. Anyway, the season is underway. Wild optimism is maybe tempered, but regardless it'll be entertaining to watch these kids grow.