Welcome to Inside the Ballpark

Welcome to Inside the Ballpark, a new blog featuring Hunter Pence of the Houston Astros. We are very excited about Hunter joining us on the b5media Sports Channel.

Hunter will personally pen a weekly blog post to detail the latest happenings in his life as an Astro. Additionally, this blog will be updated on a daily basis to keep everyone updated on Hunter and the Astros. Hunter is entering his second season for the Astros after completing a very successful rookie season. As a rookie, Hunter hit .322 with 17 homeruns and 69 RBIs. He also collected 30 doubles, nine triples and 11 stolen bases.

In his second season, Hunter and the Astros are hoping for big things and an improvement on their 73-89 record from a year ago. Hunter, who played most of his games in center field as a rookie, will be moving to right field in his second season. He will be joined in the lineup by returning stars Lance Berkman and Carlos Lee along with newcomers Miguel Tejada, Kazuo Matsui and Michael Bourn.

Hunter was born April 13, 1983, in Fort Worth, Texas and attended the University of Texas at Arlington. He was drafted in the second round by the Astros in 2004. His breakout year in the minor leagues came in 2006 when he hit 28 homers and had 95 RBIs for the AA Corpus Christi Hooks. Hunter made his major league debut on April 28th, 2007 and despite missing a month with a chipped bone in his wrist, he finished as one of the best rookies in all of the major leagues.

In 2008, Hunter will not only hope to lead the Astros to the playoffs, he’ll do it while giving everyone a glimpse inside the ballpark!