Houston Astros pitcher Bud Norris made his Major League debut last week in a loss at Wrigley Field, giving the Astros three innings in relief duty.  He made his debut as a starter over the weekend at Busch Stadium, and he looked spectacular in the process as he allowed no runs on only two hits in seven innings of work.  Tonight will be another debut for Bud Norris when he takes the mound in front of the home crowd for the first time at Minute Maid Park to take on the Milwaukee Brewers.

The 24-year old Cal Poly graduate was taken by the Astros in the sixth round of the 2006 draft, and he came into this season as Houston’s number two rated prospect behind only Jason Castro.  After working his way up through the farm system, he spent all of 2009 at AAA Round Rock where he finished with a 2.62 ERA before being called-up by the Astros last week. 

Norris features a mid-90’s fastball and a slider as his two main pitches.  He doesn’t show his changeup too often, especially the first time through the lineup, but it can be a go-to pitch when he finds himself in trouble and in need of a punch-out.  Control can be an issue at times for Norris, shown by his high rate of 4.0 walks per nine innings at Round Rock this season.  He walked four in seven innings against St. Louis in his debut start, but he proved to be unhittable enough in that given game to where the walks didn’t really matter.  That won’t always be the case, however, so the young right-hander will need to work on his control issues and keep the free-passes to a minimum if he hopes to become a permanent member on the Houston staff.

And the Astros are hoping he’ll be able to do just that, because outside of Wandy Rodriguez and Roy Oswalt, Houston’s starting pitching is repugnant.  Mike Hampton and Brian Moehler both have ERA’s north of 5.00, and Russ Ortiz’s arm ended up rotting to the point where the Astros felt it necessary to fire him last week.  So Norris now steps in and takes Ortiz’s spot in the rotation.  The playoffs are probably just a fantasy at this point for the 53-55 Astros, but if Norris can step in and give the Astros a solid ten or 11 starts the rest of the way, they’ll have to feel good going into next year with Oswalt, Rodriguez, and Norris anchoring the top of the rotation. 

But first things first, as tonight Bud Norris will look to build upon his first start which saw him take a no-hitter into the sixth inning.  The Astros desperately need a series win over the Brewers if they have any hopes of staying in the NL Central race, and Norris can get them off to a quick start tonight with another solid outing. 

Welcome to Houston, Bud.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Baseball, Houston Astros, NL, NL-Central. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.