After an opening day aberration that raised some eyebrows and had frontrunners grabbing their ankles and running for the latrines (not an easy feat, you should try it sometime), the Astros settled into what’s hopefully a routine for the year. Pounding on the also-rans. It appears that, aside from Ben Sheets, the Brew Crew have little or no pitching. They have (so far) cut down on the strikeouts but still make outs anyway which is a very Chip Carey / Alan Ashby kind of improvement.

The ship was righted very quickly and with some style in the remaining games to record an acceptable home series win. I still don’t think that the Brewers have given us an adequate read on the 2002 Astros, but that will come this weekend and next weekend against the Cardinals. One thing I like from next week’s schedule is that, after an arm-sapping, bull-pen draining trip to the Rocky Mountains, the Astros have an off day before they roll into St. Louis. That’s a nice bonus for the good guys.

Yoinks and Away!

I was at the Game #2 romp. Here are some observations:-Read More

With one more day of Grapefruit League and a couple more warm-ups at the AFUS to go, things are pretty well set with the Astros. As I type, the only decision left to be made by the club is between Linebrink and Stone for the final bullpen slot. But wait! What’s that noise? That’s the clamoring of minor league scrubs all over Florida: begging for one shot at “Set it up on a” Tee J. Mathews. They want to earn slots on their clubs too, and an at-bat against Tee J. is the quickest way to impress a manager.

This guy is only earmarked for the Astros because of his guaranteed money. He’s now pitching worse than C.J., has been doing so for longer, and he doesn’t even have the benefit of C.J’s left-handedness. He flat out sucks. I know we’ve only seen him in Spring Training, but how much more do we need to see? He’s pitched 14 innings and given up a very symmetrical 14 earned runs. His latest disaster occurred when he gave up a titanic, three-run stinker to a Bravo prospect who is the size of Gary Coleman and makes DB’s spring output (’til now) look positively studley. Cut him! Rip! Rend! Tear!Read More

Well, almost a week into Spring Training and we have had some fun. The Hernandez-Redding battle for the 5th rotation spot is going to be a knock-down drag out strike-fest. It’ll be great watching this one pan out. Fox should televise it. It’s much better than the Tonya Harding vs. Amy Fisher / Paula Jones / Darva Conger fight.

Adam Everett can hit, it seems. A long way to go yet, but he’s been making contact and getting results with the bat. Lugo better get well soon otherwise he could find himself out of a job before he’s even muffed play #1 at SS.

Daryle Ward “has to hit somewhere”, says Jimy, so why not 2nd? Well, I say, why not lead off? He’d break Bones Sr.’s NL record for lead-off homers in next to no time. He doesn’t walk much these days, so he would clog the base paths behind him either.Read More

This is a move as welcome as it was unexpected (by me). I never thought that Enron would accept so little money – just a little less than half of what they’d coughed up for the 2002 season – to walk away from the naming rights contract. This still has to be approved by the bankruptcy judge, so there may yet be another twist, but I hope that his honor slaps his rubber stamp down on this deal and gets it over with.

Next up, what to do with all the signage? Dismantling all the Enron references around the park will be a time consuming matter. And the replacement name won’t even be known for a couple of months according to the Astros. I can’t imagine that Drayton will spring to have the word “Enron” replaced with the word “Astros” everywhere, but he may do it in a select few, high-visibility locations. It’s either that, leave it as it is for now, or have “[Blank] Field” all over the place. On the positive side of things, my ticket stub from the opening series against the Yankmees just got a little bit more valuable.

Hopefully, this will put an end to the hackneyed plays on the old name such as “HomeRun Field” and “TenRun Field”. Read More

Really? You could’ve fooled me! Pitchers and catchers report, and we get nothing. Position players report . . . nothing! Everyone’s pussy-footing around the new manager, saying all the right things and showing up for camp early (brown-nosers!). This all leads to Spring Training reports with all the incite and pep of Alan Ashby’s play-by-play. Yawn.

I know ST games mean nothing, but I’m wasting away waiting for someone to actually throw a pitch in anger!

The Power Station

Naming rights issues mean that, rightly or wrongly, the name “Enron” is stuck on the Astros’ crib for a while. The nickname EFUS is a derivative of that name, and needs to be retired. I always thought it was a little contrived in any case ? and I have bad memories of it as I was laughed off the air by Charlie and Rich when I suggested it to them in my one and only appearance on Houston talk radio.Read More

Going back to the well a second time in the space of a week is pretty ambitious. It’s not really that soon, though, as my debut effort had been written for about a week before K&S got it up on the site. There was a delay while they made room for me in the database – suddenly Dierker’s recent quote about shoveling ten pounds of (manure) into a 5-pound bag seems relevant. Of course, Breedlove went for two columns in as many days, and look what happened to him! The “Brushback” feature doesn’t even get a link on the front page any more.

Franklin

The Astros kissed off their very un-special, lefty specialist this week. Unable to get out hitters of any orientation, Wayne has languished in the Astros system. The only thing of note he’s done is to cause some of the TZ Popes to get all in a tizzy about his presence on the 40-man roster, exposing some of the potential talent on the farm to the Rule 5 draft.

Hipolito Pichardo takes his place, ensuring that the tizzyness over unprotected prospects will continue.Read More