Starting this year, the age of no-hit, good-D catchers in Houston was supposed to come crashing to an end. After seven years of Brad Ausmus and his career OPS+ of 7, JR Towles was supposed to arrive and provide Houston with a bat to go with great defense behind the plate. Towles is instead hitting .145/.270/.282 (for an OPS+ of 46) and that's earned him a demotion back to AAA Round Rock. At least he's taking it in stride:Towles cruised through the minors with a .301/.389/.471 line, showing that he's got a good approach at the plate to go with his hitting talent. It seemed like he was just over his head as a 23-year old dealing with learning a pitching staff and hitting major league pitching at the same time. It shouldn't take him long to straighten himself out in AAA and be back in Houston, though."Since I wasn't playing the last couple of days, I figured it was coming," Towles said. "I guess I wasn't too surprised. I'm not happy about it, but I'm going to work hard to get back up here."
[...]"Maybe I was thinking too much," he said. "I was trying to get things figured out and people were saying, 'Do this; do that.' I was trying everything. I think I needed to go back to the basics and work things out."
