I relate to Bay, a few years back to started playing baseball again after 13 years away from the game. I was never a great hitter when I was young, but I struggled my fist year back…I had some really good games, but I K’ed a lot too. I got cut from the team the next year and picked up on another team. That whole year, I wanted to prove that I could still play the game and tried everything I could to get better. I over thought every AB… I changed my stance, changed my hands, changed my swing, I opened up, then closed up, I changed my head position, moved my hands, moved closer to the plate, then backed far away. I did one change every time I went to the plate…non of it worked…I had my worst season ever…it wasn’t until one game late in the season that I was warming up in the pen and had to run in quickly to bat…I didn’t have time to do any thinking…I was just worried about getting back to warming up…I got out, but made real good contact…I then just went back to what was the most conferrable and stuck with it…I did much better hitting the next year…and last year, I moved up in the plate a bit and had my best power numbers ever…

This is the problem I’ve seem with Bay…you can’t get a hit every time out…you’re gonna have slumps and hot streaks…but you can’t “fix” you approach every time you go to the plate.

Bay? I have no expectations of him being good again. I think you pretty much said it all, when you were looking for positives in his DP GB being well struck, and his K not waiving at quite so bad of a pitch! He has the smell of washed up all over him.

Murph is doing better, but he still looks a little “unsure” what to do when the ball is hit to him…I have seen some really good feeds from Murph to SS to start the double play. Maybe I’ve just missed it, but I haven’t seen a SS/3rd to Murph to first double play…that worries me a little because that’s one major play that I’d really like to see to feel better about Muprh at 2nd.

As for Bay, while I’m not happy about where he is now…he’s been looking better at the plate. He had a nice solid single in the 1st, he did ground in a double play, but it was a hard hit grounder…he looks to be more selective at the plate and even his strike out wasn’t his typical waving at a bad pitch and pulling off like we’ve seen in the past two years.

http://web.sny.tv/media/video.jsp?content_id=20248305&topic_id=21536544&tcid=vpp_copy_20248305&v=3

Still waiting for Bay to find his bat.

Astros really don’t have much talent on that team. Crane’s got some work to do.