Houston Astros rookie Blog: Hunter Pence

Wow! My first year in the majors, and what a rollercoaster ride so far.

It has been a big change from toiling in the minors last year to this year. We fly everywhere, no more busses, we stay in luxury hotels, no more motel 6s! And we eat much better than I did when i played with Corpus Christi. The players have been very accepting of me, and once the rookie hazing ended (sorry, I am not allowed to go into details on THAT subject!!!) Chris Sampson has taken me under hsi wing and shown me a lot of the things I need to know to make it in the majors as he was a rookie himself last year.

The season has not gone as well as we had hoped. We started out the season with a win at home vs. Florida. It is always nice to give the hometown fans an opening day win! It was also nice to get my first major league hit in my first major league game, it took off a lot of pressure. Unfortunately we lost the last 2 games of the opening homestand. The rest of April we played decently, but ended the month at 11-12. A little disappointing after winning our opener, but that is life in the big leagues, every team is full of talented players.

On May 10th, I got another major league first. My first inury. In the bottom of the 9th vs. the Padres, I fouled a ball off the inside of my kneecap. I tried to shake it off, and finished the at bat with a strike out. I limped off the field, figuring it was just a bruise, but when it had swollen up so bad I could hardly get out of bed the next morning I knew it was serious.

It is hard to watch your teammates play while you sit on the bench, unable to walk without crutches, let alone play. The month of May was rough on the team as a whole. On the 12th, Luke Scott had an injury freakishly similar to mine, and on the 31st Brad Ausmus was blocking the plate when the runner slid home and took a spike to the ankle. He held onto the ball, and got the out, but needed help getting off the field. In May we went 15-14 so an improvement over April, but we still need to do better.

Thanks for listening, and until next Time!

Hunter