Grace and peace from Levine

Zach Levine's new blog post has a few things to say about Brett Myers and Jose de Jesus Ortiz:

On Brett Myers:
He's been described as pitching with an edge. As a person who usually goes to the stats first, it's difficult for me to comprehend how that will translate to the standings. The only "edge" that I see is the need for him to get the Astros off the edge of last place in the pitching categories. There's no doubt an edge can be a good thing; it translates to fearlessness, though we've seen that it can lead to home runs if fearlessness is misplaced. It can also mean a kick in the pants to the team.

This team needed a kick in the pants, and in part, that's why they made a change in the manager's office. But you could fill a clubhouse with preachers, cheerleaders and other portraits of enthusiasm, and come 7:05 p.m., you'd still need them to get the right grip on the seams or have enough bat speed to catch up to the fastball.

And on JJO:
First, I would like to thank Jose de Jesus Ortiz for his excellence on the Astros beat, but more personally, for being exactly the right combination of a father figure and a big brother figure to a young writer.

In the two years that I got to work by his side, he often talked about the influences in his writing career from the various papers at which he's worked and other friends in the business. Some day, if I'm lucky enough, I'll get a chance to tell a young writer about what a tremendous influence Jesus Ortiz was in getting my writing career started...

...I would also like to congratulate Bernardo Fallas on becoming our new Astros beat writer. He's another one whom I'm lucky to be able to call a friend, and he'll do a tremendous job on the team. I'll continue to lend a hand to the Astros beat as needed and I'll keep doing some writing on the minor league system as well as my "day job" on the Web site.