Troy Patton looked great Friday night in his AAA debut with the Round Rock Express allowing only four hits and one earned run over seven innings as the Express defeated Omaha 3-1. Patton picked up the W. The 21-year-old is the youngest player currently on the Express’ roster and looks to be a solid candidate for a late-season call-up to Minute Maid. Straight out of Tomball High, he was a ninth-round pick for the Astros in 2004 and posted a nifty 2.99 ERA with the Corpus Christi Hooks before his Fourth-of-July call-up to Round Rock. Maybe ’07 will be remembered as the year Patton and Hunter Pence broke through to the Show en route to lengthy and successful careers with the Astros. Maybe not. Jason “Turnin'” Lane went 0-3 Friday night and is batting .265 since being demoted to AAA.
In other good pitching news for the ‘Stros, Wandy Rodriguez pitched his first-ever shutout complete game against the Mets Friday night allowing only four hits in the Astros’ 4-0 victory. He walked one Metropolitan while striking out eight. His season numbers currently reside at 6-7 with an impressive 3.87 ERA.
This article appears in July 6 • 2007.