New Year’s Greetings, New Astros & More
Hello everyone,
I hope that you all had a Happy New Year! For New Year’s Eve, me and my roommate, Ryan Patterson, whom I have played baseball with since I was 8 years old, made a road trip to Houston, Texas. We met up with a bunch of our buddies including Tommy Manzella from the Astros. Tommy came all the way from New Orleans to celebrate with us. We also had friends come from Austin and Mississippi. On New Years Eve, we had a small get together and broke the News Year in right!
On the baseball front, the newest from me is that the Astros just signed Darin Erstad. I am really excited about him joining our team because we brought in another guy who plays the game with the right mentality. Having watched Darin play, he seems like a hard nosed ball player who will do anything to win. The Astros have brought in a lot of guys with this attitude, which makes this an exciting off season! I keep looking more and more forward to Spring Training. As far as I am concerned, we have made a lot of adjustments in the bullpen as well. I feel like our starters from last year are going to do a lot better because the defense that we have added to the team with guys like Matsui, Bourn and Tejada. Everyone knows that defense is a pitcher’s best friend. All and all, it looks like we are solid with the pitching and have added a lot to our bullpen.
As far as my training, I am still working out six days a week. We have added hitting, throwing and defense to my daily routine. Basically I have the typical “January Swing”. My strength is back, I feel really strong, but I have a little work to do as far as my timing is concerned. So my goals for January are to get my timing and rhythm back.
Okay, do you have time for a quick training story…
During one of my running days, I was running with Sean Danielson (AA Red Sox player). We were running 40 yard dashes at the end of our workout (after running for 45 minutes). After three 40’s we kept tying each other’s marks so our trainer, Steve, finally put us against one another to see who the fastest runner was. And sure enough, we tied again with a 4.47. We were both really proud of our time and are very happy with how far we have come with our workouts because a month ago, we were not able to do this. It’s nice because we are feeling our improvements. We owe a lot to our trainer and REPS. What’s even more exciting right now is that we still have a month to go with our training!
So stay tuned until next week.
–Hunter
Tags: baseball, baseball-training, darin-erstad, Houston Astros, hunter pence, hunter pence blog, hunter-pence-off-season, miguel-tejeda, mlb, tommy-manzellaRelated Stories
POSTED IN: From Hunter, Off the Field
8 opinions for New Year’s Greetings, New Astros & More
Joel B.
Jan 5, 2008 at 12:21 am
The changes have been exciting to watch. It also makes the anticipation for the start of the season grow.
I think the pitching will be better than most think or at least I hope. But come on you and Oswalt are acting like its the nuts. I guess you have to, you can’t call out your buds in a blog. Its not they’re fault anyways.
We all know you guys need more pitching.
What do you think of Freddy Garcia? MLBTradeRumors.com thinks the Astros are in the mix for him.
Joshua Smolik
Jan 5, 2008 at 1:39 am
Hello Hunter, Happy New Year to you as well! I was happy with the Erstad signing. He is excellent at defense, has been a gold glove winner at 2 different positions which he is the only person in the MLB to ever do that. So he brings great defense to the team and even has some power.
As far as the bullpen goes, more than half of the relief pitchers are new. Although I think y’all are better off this year with the new signees than last year.
As for the starting pitching, Oswalt will always be the ace but I liked what I saw him Sampson. I think he can improve on last year, he was a bit inconsistent. Then Backe is back and hopefully healthy as can be. He has great potential and could be the #2 starter soon. I still believe that the Astros need to acquire at least one more pitcher that is a veteran and will play well for the whole season.
I have hope that this season will be up there with the 2005 season.
After all of those thoughts, I am glad that you are training well and getting better. I hope you continue to grow and become a great player for the Astros. As what I tell people, the only way to work is to work hard. So keep working hard!
Can’t wait for the next update!
Pence on Erstad
Jan 5, 2008 at 6:47 pm
[…] Pence has posted his latest blog entry. In it, he talks more about his workout regimen, as well as offering thoughts on the Astros’ […]
Amir
Jan 6, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Hunter,
I like the blog and I’ll be sure to let the fans know about it. I’m glad to know the excitement factor is there. Though I’ll miss the Biggio era, I can’t wait to see the new look Astros! I think change has been needed for some time now, and I think it will do the team some good (as well as Lidge and the others who will have new surroundings). Bourn, Tejada, Matsui and Erstad are particularly intriguing to me and I think they’ll be upgrades to the roles they’re filling, especially on offense.
As a side note, I plugged the new players into MLB08 for PS2 and the Astros won the Central! A good omen IMO!
Matt
Jan 6, 2008 at 9:09 pm
I don’t have much to add right now. Just a fan letting you know I’ve been checking out your blog since you started it a few days ago and I’m marking off the days on my calander until pitchers and catchers report. Can’t wait!
Joel B.
Jan 10, 2008 at 1:17 pm
From the looks of it this wont be an interactive blog?
Kori Ellis
Jan 10, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Hunter will be writing a blog post every week. I’m sure he will try to answer some questions when he can.
–Kori
Jessyka
Feb 19, 2008 at 10:52 am
Hunter, NEW Year’s for me was the BEST! As always, that is the ultimate holiday besides my bday, but GLAD TO KNOW YOU ARE STILL AN ASTROS!! Do you think you will retire as Astro? Curious, ive been a baseball fan since i was a kid, and a bigger Astros Fan now at 28, but whatever you do or where ever you might be in life, continue to be all you are!!! xoxo
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