A host of tranzactionz for your reading pleasure, courtesy of Alyson Footer (and here):
*The Astros claimed outfielder Luis Durango off waivers from the Padres, and sent him to Oklahoma City.
*They then transferred Alberto Arias to the 60-Day DL.
*They then optioned Brian Esposito back to Oklahoma City...
*...And called up David Carpenter from OKC to Houston.
*And according to Farmstros, Chia-Jen Lo has been put back on the DL, after two injury-free outings.
Durango is a 25-year old switch-hitting outfielder who has been in the Padres' system since 2003. He did spend some time with the Padres, hitting .305/.369/.305 in the admittedly small-sample 37 games (67 PAs).
In seven minor-league seasons, Durango has hit .315/.406/.366, with 73 career extra-base hits (46 2Bs, 24 3Bs, 3 HRs) in 2410 plate appearances. Encouragingly, however, he's managed to strike out just 283 times (11.7% of PAs) and draw 296 walks. Still, there's not much pop in his bat. He was hitting .243/.328/.294 in 61 games for Triple-A Tucson before getting placed on waivers.
So the question for Durango is, should we read anything into this? Bogusevic is up, leaving Shuck, DeLome, Barnes, and Locke as your OKC OFs. Is Durango better than what the Astros have at OKC now? Does it indicate that there's an expendable outfielder or two at OKC, or that J.D. Martinez won't be coming to OKC in the near future? Who knows what lurks in the mind of the Apparatus?!
Also, good for David Carpenter. Even if it's just a cup of coffee, we're happy for him, after the position change, and all. And we're happy for the Astros, who got a potentially viable bullpen piece out of the Cardinals in the Pedro Feliz trade.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
