Monday, July 25 2011

Astros 5
Jakes 10

W: McClellan | L: Happ | S: Boggs

I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.

No, I had already resigned myself that this team would be shit. What I was dreading was…dreading watching the Astros. It’s a tough muster as most of you already know and admittedly, I haven’t been watching much. That may have as much to do with work-related issues – our office and it’s many, many feet of cabling is relocating – than with lack of interest in this woeful group of not-quites. But maybe not.

Tonight’s game was a typical shitfest. Positives are hard to pick out of this pile and I found myself with my head in my hands more often than focused on the screen. Despite a more direct approach, Happ still blew and the fielding behind him was creative at best. The lineup made the Jakes’ McClellan look better than his .500 record and 4.34 ERA. Really just hard to watch, so I didn’t. Much.

Which makes this one hard to recap. Quite frankly, it’s difficult to keep up with the literary firepower that emits from recaps these days. It’s hard enough for me to string a coherent sentence or two together, much less tie this team’s problems – and my frustrations – to a pop culture reference or historic event. I commend those with that talent and I love reading them. The bar gets higher as the team gets lower and they’re a great read. But I’m just not that clever.

What I can do though…is make an animated GIF.

Cubs 5, Astros 4 (10)

W:Grabow (2-0)
L: Carpenter (0-1)

Waiting for the mercy of Jim Crane

“Relax, I’m not gonna kill you.

Did you serve? In the war?

Three years. France, mostly. It’s almost impossible to describe the horror. It’s a living, waking nightmare.

There was a soldier, a German. Him and his men tried to attack our position in the Argonne Forest. It was night time, our boy was trying to climb through some barbed wire.

I shot him. Twice. Once in the stomach, once in the neck. Slumped over the barbed wire, no matter what he did to get free, it just got worse for him.

I left him there like that, listening to him for days. Moaning. Crying. “Mutti…mutti.” That’s german for mama, mama. That’s what he kept saying.

The curious thing is that despite the situation, which was utterly hopeless, he didn’t want to die. I offered to kill him several times. He just…kept fighting. Like some miracle would befall him, get him out of this predicament.

To hold on so desperately to life. Some people feel, certainly that soldier in that situation, that being alive is much, much worse.

I’m gonna go now.

I don’t want to ever see you again.”

Another game with plenty of opportunities. Lyles took the hill and struggled early, relinquishing the lead of Barmes’ solo homer in a fog of mistake pitches and poor fielding. The only reason this one was so close so late was due to the crappiness of the opponent, not to the scrappiness of the traveling nine.

Kabong’s go-ahead two-run shibby in the eighth was only a cruel joke, a tweak of yet another knife wound as Lopez gave it right back in the bottom of the frame. In the top of the ninth a faltering Marmol loaded the bases with one out. Pence, hell-bent on minimizing his trade value, struck out swinging on three pitches, the first two well out of the strike zone to complete a 1 for 13 in the series. Lee popped out to continue the commonplace result in bases loaded situations for the Astros this year.

After that, it wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ but more one of ‘how.’ Those hoping for a spectacular display weren’t disappointed when Thunder Pants lost a routine fly in the sun, turning it into a standup leadoff triple. Carpenter’s task became Herculean but, in a metaphor for this team, he just didn’t have enough for the job and a single by Baker brought home the game winning run.

————————–

Twisting on the barbed wire, shot through with the weak personnel, the poor management, the lack of help and the constant waves of loss coursing through them. Loss after loss, from every conceivable angle, flowing through the veins of this team and then out, spilled onto the green carpets of our dreams, taking this season into the ground with it.

Safely berthed in the bottom now, having been swept by the worst and most ignoble, humiliated in front of everyone. Naked now, but soon to be with even less as the trading deadline brings close the only hope for the future, to have some sort of influx of talent and redemption through the marriage of serendipity and growth.

Acceptance is the final stage. Grace is the gift to pass on as well as receive. Spread your hope and care thin as pressed luck, spread it against the wind until it dissolves to return in the days to come. New leaders, new joys, new dreams will be built on the ashes of these seasons.

Ooh woe is me I feel so badly for you
Ooh woe is me I feel so sadly for you
In time bound to lose your mind
Live on borrowed time
Take the wind right out of your sail…

Marlins 5, Astros 4

W: Volstad (5-8)
L: Rodriguez (6-6)

Staggering through the desert of the 2011 season, your Houston Astros really do seem to be on their own version of baseball’s Death March. It’s the mark of a truly bad team that even when the law of averages comes into play and some part of the team works well, there are other pieces just as important that come up woefully short. Teasing us with these fragments of competency seems to be the hallmark of this season.

Staked to an early 2-0 and 3-1 lead, Wandy the Enigma lost his way and couldn’t get the strikes he needed, handing out free bases and hard hits until the Fishmen had a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The pressing, frazzled Astros appear to be incapable of any approach at the plate other than “Swing hard!” and the result is popups, strikeouts, pitcher’s counts and out after out.

The latest meme is that the starters are walking too many leadoff batters, taking an expected ERA from 3.5 to 7+ with that act. The truth is that this team doesn’t have a single achilles heel to overcome – the losing comes from a systematic failure to be good enough to win. If the starters are walking leadoff batters this week, next week it’ll be that the relievers are giving up 0-2 home runs. The week after that it’ll be that the hitters aren’t getting on base, or maybe they’re trying to pull sliders into the Crawford Boxes instead of going with the pitch. One day it’s the umpires squeezing the zone and making the pitchers come over the plate too much, the next day it’s bumbling in the field. It’s all of these things and more, all mixed together, all season long into some kind of Carousel of Suck and we can’t get off the damn ride.

Shuffling toward the break, this team seems to have ‘gone French’ and is waving the white flag. An extended team meeting may have helped clear the air but unless they come back next Friday with a new attitude I’m afraid Mills may become the sacrificial lamb, taking the heat for the collection of dry turds that take the field these days.

Enjoy your All-Star break. Perhaps you can come back to support the spirit that once was the Astros, until the ghost is made flesh again for all of us to celebrate.