With June officially underway in what seems to be a very entertaining baseball season, we have seen a lot of surprises in baseball, in terms of teams as well as players.
With a third of the baseball season over, Jason Heyward has led the Braves to the best record in the NL East division so far; the Cincinnati Reds' 40-year old set-up man in Arthur Rhodes has proven that hardly anyone can get on base when he takes the mound; and the Blue Jays' batting lineup has been crushing the ball so well that people are pondering whether or not they'll be able to break the single-season team record for home runs.
I was checking out the current standings on MLB.com, and I discovered that there is only one team left who stands undefeated in June.
There is still one team that is riding on a four-game winning streak. I'm talking about the team that started off with an 0-8 record and still has the worst record in the National League— the Houston Astros.
I would consider the Astros' start to be pathetic.
In their eight straight losses, their offense was horrible, as they scored one run or zero runs five times; they averaged 1.75 runs if you count the other three games.
Just when it looked like they might have been starting to win again, winning eight of their next 10 games, they continued their dreadful run when they lost another eight straight; they averaged 1.625 runs during that stretch.
There was a whole lot of disappointment, not only in terms of the standings, but with regards of the productivity of the star players, as well.
Astros' ace Roy Oswalt, for instance, wants to be traded because the Astros' bats are silent whenever he's on the mound.
Who could blame him, really? He is debunking his season's 3-7 record with his 2.78 ERA and 1.079 WHIP. Lance Berkman has been more aggravated than anyone on the offensive side.
Going into June, his batting average was .227 with five home runs and 17 RBI. That is not too great for a five-time all-star.
Berkman, who has been on the Astros since 1999, took charge by waking up early in the morning and trying to get a better feel of hitting the ball; you can click on the link below to hear what he has to say about his recent struggles.
After working hard on his swing, he told reporters that he established a better feeling and a good swing pattern, thus taking a step into the right direction.
On that very same day, Berkman and the Astros defeated Matt Capps and the Nationals, 8-7, thanks to Berkman's two-run walk-off single with two outs.
In just one game, Berkman turned his whole season around, driving in [almost] a third of the runs that he drove in during the first two months.
Since that batting practice session, he has hit .500 with a homer and eight RBI in the last four games. He's also increased his batting average from .227 to .260 in that short amount of time, so it looks like he has found his swing.
Another star on the team who hasn't been performing to his potential this season is Wandy Rodrgiuez. He had a pretty solid April, but he started having problems, and wasn't performing up to par with his decent numbers in the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
He currently has an ERA of 5.07, and is looking to do a lot better with locating his pitches in the near future.
He had a pretty solid outing on June 2, pitching five innings, striking out eight, and allowing only five hits and one run. Hopefully, this is his way of redeeming himself to what was an awful May: 1-5, 6.75 ERA, .349 BAA, 1.887 WHIP.
Carlos Lee made an impact in Thursday's game when he hit a walk-off home run against Matt Capps two games later.
As of June 5, he's batting 16 points above the Mendoza line, and in his batted .324 with two home runs and nine RBI in his last eight games. Things are looking up for the stars of Houston.
I think it's safe to say that the Astros have some sort of bipolar disorder if you look at the first two months of the season: they're either red hot or ice cold.
They will face their NL Central rivals, the Chicago Cubs, for their second game of this three-game series. And guess who's starting for Houston? None other than Roy Oswalt.
The offense will have to be dealing with star-veteran Ryan Dempster, who just came off a 125-pitch outing, and a pretty bad start (six 2/3 innings, six ER, nine H, three BB.)
Now's the time for the 'Stros to take advantage.
Will the Astros make it five out of five? Even though they have the second lowest run support in the National League, it's improving day by day. Plus, they have a pretty solid starter on the mound... so it wouldn't would be a bad bet to go with the Astros on this one. In addition to that, Oswalt only threw 53 pitches during his last outing, so he should be coming back strong.
Also, since we're seeing some signs of improvement by Houston's star players, do you think that there is a chance that the Astros could turn this season around and make something out of it?
I don't think anyone in their right mind would think that Houston is going to come back from a bad start like this and clinch the division in September but you never know.
You never know what the 'Stros can accomplish. Just look at September 2006.
Link to Lance Berkman's recent struggles: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=8598843
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