Live From Spring Training ’09: Houston Astros

A standing room only crowd was on hand today to see the New York Yankees play the Houston Astros in Kissimmee. The Astros erupted for a rare run in the first inning on a triple by Jason Smith and a single by Carlos Lee. That was the extent of their offense as the Yankees came back in the late innings for a 4-1 win. In a battle of sinker ball pitchers, Mike Hampton out-dueled Chien-Ming Wang through 5 innings, departing with a 1-0 lead. Hampton gave up 4 hits and no walks and was effective in mixing up his pitches and changing speeds.

The Yankees scored two runs off Doug Brocail in the 7th inning and two more off Geoff Geary in the 9th, helped by some shaky defense on the part of the Astros. The loss was ran the team’s record to an embarrassing 1-15-3 with the only win coming in their first game on February 25. The pitchers have compiled an ERA of 5.24 coming into the game today but have shown some improvement the last few days. The defense has been disappointing and the team’s .209 batting average is a continuing concern.

• Spring training this year for the Astros has been bad by any measure but became even worse today with the announcement that Aaron Boone has a serious heart problem that will require surgery and, in all probability, end his career. The problem is with the aortic valve and will require delicate surgery to replace the valve. From what I was told, Boone has been dealing with this problem since his college days 15 years ago, and knew that surgery would be required at some point, which he believed to be possibly in his 50s. However, he is now being advised by his doctors to deal with the problem sooner rather than later.

• Now that Puerto Rico has been eliminated from the World Baseball Classic, catcher Ivan Rodriguez is expected to be ready to play on Saturday.

• Regarding the rumor that Pedro Martinez might sign with the Astros, I was told that it is completely unfounded and there has been no contact between the parties.