Double Plays Doom Astros

Do any teams in baseball lose more potential rallies to the double-play than the Astros? Yes, quite a few actually, but it sure doesn't seem that way. According to Baseball Reference, the Astros were actually below the league average for grounding into DP's. However, with the Astros notoriously having a tough time scoring runs, last night was poor timing for hitting into 3 twin-killings. One of the culprits, Miguel Tejada, seems to be working on repeating as king of the double play ball. Last season, Tejada led the majors in grounding into double plays, doing the deed 5 more times (32 of them total) than the next guy, Derrick Lee. To give you an idea how dominant Tejada was in the category, the next highest Astro is Hunter Pence (28th in the league last year), and he only hit into 14 DP's in 157 games. It seems as though teams are willing to allow the Astros base runners and wait for them to kill the rally themselves.

Last night, double plays were a problem, but so was a lack of clutch hitting. The Stros continue to get into the opposition's bullpens, but not early enough, and they aren't working enough counts. The Astros have always been a team that kills middle relief pitching, but in the last 2 or 3 seasons, they have not been able to put themselves into a position where those guys are in the game. I do remain positive however. I believe this is a team that is poised to click soon, and if they are able to start getting some big hits with men on base, this team could rattle off a bunch of wins in a row.