So it's fairly well-documented that last night I attended the Nashville/Round Rock game. 48 hours ago I was pretty excited that I would get to see Brett Wallace before all of you, but that was not to be. And I'm not bitter about it, though any of you in attendance at the last two Astros games can kindly go to hell. Some thoughts:
-Andy Van Hekken can pitch pretty well. He throws to contact, has a seemingly easy delivery, but it can all go wrong very quickly. I sent a tweet in the 5th inning that he had only allowed one run - a solo homer. He then followed that up by getting flat-out rocked in the 6th.
-Jack Shuck is one fast dude. He almost beat out a routine groundball to third for his first hit as an Express (-er?). Later, he hit into what would have been a double play, but beat the throw to first by about four steps. He also turned a double to the gap into a pretty easy, sliding 2-run triple, later scoring. He looked far more comfortable in his last three ABs than in his first.
-Collin DeLome hit two homers - both pulled to right-center - but neither of them in doubt. He had some good ABs.
-Mark Melancon threw well, too. He gave up a couple of sharply hit grounders, one right through his 5-hole, and one that was an error on 3B Matt Kata. It was a tough, though, make-able play.
-Brian Esposito needs to riot if Edwin Bellorin keeps getting playing time.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
