Houston Astros Look to Continue Winning Ways Against Milwaukee Brewers

The Houston Astros are looking pretty good these days. After taking two out of three on the road against the New York Mets, the Astros look to continue their winning ways against the Milwaukee Brewers and Yovani Gallardo, the young ace who has struggled in his last two starts. 

The Astros look to Nelson Figueroa to turn in another good start after he went six and two-thirds innings against the Padres on Saturday, giving up just two earned runs (and one unearned). Before that, he had struggled in his other starts, giving up 11 earned runs in nine and one-third innings.

The Astros are 7-7 since starting the season 0-5. Part of the reason for the turnaround has been the play of Angel Sanchez and Matt Downs. They have been hitting the ball well recently and seem to be making the timely hits needed to get Houston going offensively.

Also, they have seen the emergence of some unexpected offense from the catcher position.

J.R. Towles and Humberto Quintero have been doing good things with the bat. They are batting a combined .320 early in the season, well above anything they have accomplished in the past seasons. This is very comforting after seeing Jason Castro go down for the season earlier in the spring.

However, no one can expect to win with just Sanchez, Downs, Quintero and Towles. The Astros will need to get Carlos Lee going. He has just 10 RBI in 19 games and is batting .227. If he does not perform soon, Mills will need to consider dropping him down in the line up. He still holds the role of main run producer in this Astros line up. He has to come through.

Getting Lee going could be the key to getting the rest of the line up going. Brett Wallace has been doing very well this year, but Chris Johnson and Bill Hall are both under performing. Neither are doing what anyone expected. Hall has just one home run and is batting below .200, and Johnson is batting just .213 with just one homer and seven RBI.

Hunter Pence in the only Astro with multiple home runs this year. He has two. The Astros need more home runs. They rank last in the National League in that category.

The Astros have a line up with thriving hitters, but there are sprinkles of hitters in the line up that are just killing any chance of momentum this line up builds in an inning.

As with any team, the Astros need their pitchers to be consistent. Their bullpen has seen some strong appearances from Jeff Fulcino, Mark Melancon and Brandon Lyon.

Lyon has shut the door for six straight appearances, including four saves.

Many saw the Astros starting rotations as one of the most underrated rotations in all the majors, but they have not shown it. J.A. Happ and Wandy Rodriguez both need to find a groove to help Brett Myers solidify the rotation. Bud Norris has done well recently, as his ERA dropped below five after a couple of strong outings against the Padres and the Mets.  

Rodriguez is coming off of a solid seven inning start against the Mets. He struck out seven and only allowed three hits and one run. He also earned his first win of the year.

The Astros seem to be on the way to being a very competitive squad (By competitive, I mean playing around .500 baseball). They just need a few things to fall into place.