My last LT was written in the state of euphoria that followed the home-sweep of the 3rds by an on-fire Astros team. That was three months ago. Since then, every day has seen a sliver of that euphoria shaved off by paper, until all that remains is bare, exposed, cut-ridden flesh. That, plus the halitosis and indigestion resulting from the massive shit sandwich served up by Messrs Beltran and Boras, has made it a very crappy to start the New Year for Astrodom.

The Astros, on a triumphant march back to St. Louis, stumbled, righted themselves and then had a kneecap smashed in by Edmonds. Game #6 is where the NLCS was lost, seemingly no sooner than it had been won in Houston. The controversial decision to start Munro was negated when the Astros rallied to tie the game in the 9th. The 3rds were shell-shocked and they must’ve been having visions of themselves having visions of deja vu …all over again… as the Astros put the go ahead runner in scoring position. A base hit…a ground-ball…a ground-ball with eyes… But it was not to be. The Astros fail to deliver the killer blow and the game rolled on for a few more innings until fate and a depleted pen conspired to set up the horrendous mismatch of a now very fallible Miceli vs. a dyed-in-the-wool Astro-Killah in Edmonds. Paybacks are hell, and the fuck-you-back walk-off homer was as hurtful as it was inevitable.

Game #7 put the ball in the Rocket’s HoF hands, but I truly believe the 3rds were resurrected by Edmonds blast. They’d left Houston beaten, crushed, mashed, shredded and humiliated. They stirred against Munro in Game #6, but really should have demolished him. They left the door open for an Astro revival, and when it occurred, they were dead. The Astros just had to call it, but an ill-timed strikeout let them off the hook and they never looked back. Fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck. Game #7 started brightly, but ended up a water torture as the Astros slowly sank below the waves.Read More

After making harder work of the Hated ATL than they should have been, the Astros and (most of) their fans were just happy to be here. The NLCS. In some ways, it’s a marvelous achievement, but considering the hype and expectations swirling around this team in March, this was considered the bare minimum before the wheels fell off in the middle of Summer. Now, some people like to do the bare minimum, and that’s ok. Others like to do more, and we encourage that.

Hunsicker has said repeatedly that there was never any question of breaking up this team in July and August. Baseball is a game of failure, and yet the dick-tripping going on in May, June, July and early August had large sections of Astro-fandom and the media abandoning ship. Yours truly most definitely included. Of course, when fans agree with mediots (coming to Fox this Fall), it could not be clearer that we were all completely wrong. The highest kudos to Astros management, without whom I may be able to speak today.

I’m sure all of you reading this upon its posting will know what’s going on right now. However, for the record, and for those who may read this in the future wondering (a) who gave this tool the bandwidth for this drivel? and (b) WTF is he talking about? I will say this:

(a) Hudson, Noe, Arky, Andy, and Waldo; and

(b) The improbable yet almost expected sweep of the mighty 3rds in Houston this week.

The 105-game winning rock just got hit by a wave of orange whoopass. And the rock moved.Read More

Garner says (grabbing his package) “I got yer double-digit win-streak right here!” Yep, the streak that people kept telling me could happen (but hadn’t since moving out of the ‘Dome – and that was a while ago now, folks)…happened. And the other thing that people kept telling me would happen when the win streak happened, getting back into play-off contention, happened too. Shows what I know.

So what now? Well the Astros have (following Monday’s slaughter of the Reds) 25 games left and a 1-game deficit to make up over the Cubs. The Giants are also in the way, but unlike the Cubs, the Astros have 3 left with them in SF which will decide that little battle one way or the other. The Astros have to keep winning at a ridiculous clip as the Cubs have a schedule softer than my dog’s poo after he’s been in the garbage, and they have three more games to play whilst being 3 games better off in the loss column.

Mushrooms

My sympathies to the residents of Florida, but the Astros have a wild card to win and you poor folks are just in the way. The BBGs appear to have enlisted the help of Mother Nature to mess with the Cubs. The rain-out of the weekend series in Florida means that (a) they still have one tough opponent on their schedule; and (b) they will have to gorvel their pitchers to make up those games. One game may be made up in Chicago this weekend (which ain’t so good for us), but there’s also a double-header likely on 9/20 that will mess with their rotation and have them traveling through the night on consecutive days.

Oh, and Hurricane Ivan is a possibility to arrive in Miami at the same time as the Cubs. Sometimes, the BBGs just don’t know when to quit. Read More

Back in April, I wrote a column where I expressed nagging fears that this season might blow-up, destroying all our hopes and dreams for the glorious campaign to come. “BANG!”, I said. I was wrong. This is no bang, this is a whimper. OK, so Miller and Pettitte have spent some time on the DL, and Oswalt is nursing a bum rib, but that matters ought when you look at any or all offensive categories. “Operation Shutdown” has been executed flawlessly, and the Astros’ season has been scuppered as a result.

As I write this, Scrap Iron appears to have beaten some life into the Astros offense. This, coupled with some unexpected pitching fortitude from Munro and Redding, has resulted in a rally that has reinvigorated certain sectors of the fan base, and seemingly convinced the organization to press on with this campaign instead of cutting bait. They announced this renewed commitment to winning by trading for Darren Oliver. Of that I will say nothing except, “WTF”? Read More

Bearing down on the quarter pole

39 games under their belt, the Blud ‘n’ Mudders sit atop the Central by 1 game, a tidy 9 games above .500 which is the best record on the Senior Circuit. There’s been some oddities for the team: Ensberg’s cold start; Redding’s frigid start; and Roy O’s inability to garner a win despite pitching well. There’s been some fantastic positives too: Clemens; Miceli; Berkman; Everett and even Ausmus.

The Cubs, as expected, are right there, despite having Prior, Wood and now Sosa struck down by the BBGs. Alou must be slaughtering chickens like he’s Colonel Sanders. It will be interesting to see how things go once we (finally) play each other head-to-head. As last year, the Cubs’ stretch run is the soft part of their schedule, so the Astros need to put them away early and often to avoid repeating last year’s disappointment.Read More

It took a couple of days, but after Clemens grabbed hold of the Can o’ OrangeWhoopAss and shook it up on April 7, the Astros have been riding a wave. Who knows how long this run will continue, or if it will still be ongoing by the time this piece is posted, but 9-2 since that glorious day is blitzkrieg in its most literal sense.

It has been a joy to watch. For the most part, each facet of the game has picked up the others when they’ve faltered. Admittedly, on two occasions, the defense looks like all 8 position players arrived at the game in one VW Bug, but there have been some games where the leather has been flashing like Vegas at Christmas. Even without the services of Pettitte, the pitching has been fantastic (AP’s fateful start and AutoPop’s ignominious outings notwithstanding). But replacements Backe and Gallo have been great, while Duckworth has taken up enough of the slack to allow the offense to win.

Remember: Short, Controlled Bursts

Oh, the offense! Almost everyone is playing over their head. Biggio’s shorter swing has allowed him to lay off the low-and-away shit yet still give him gap-power. Bagwell claims that his high walk numbers are because he’s fouling off a lot of pitches instead of hitting them, yet he’s still hitting near .400! Hidalgo is just a brute, and must put the fear of FrankenBarry into pitchers at the moment. Berkman has come alive, even poking a granny right-handed (only in a baseball forum is that an acceptable phrase).Read More