The Astros (8-10) have won their last three series and abandoned the cellar to its rightful owners, the Pirates. And even climbed over the Reds to boot. Even after that shitty 0-8 start, a winning record for April is still possible.

Now the Reds (8-11) come slinking into town after their own 3-3 homestand. Dusty Baker had a come-to-Jesus meeting with his team over the weekend to address several cases of slapdickery. Jesus Himself couldn’t actually attend the meeting, since he’s recuperating from Tommy John surgery with the rest of Dusty’s projects.

Since the Dickities’ last roadtrip went 2-5 and ended in a five-game losing streak, Dusty is insisting on a good trip this week. After visiting Houston the Reds will be going to St. Louis, so good luck with that Dusty. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to remember that last year the Reds were 12-4 against the Astros and 5-2 at Minute Maid.

For the good guys, Lance Berkman has 48 homers against the Reds, which is one behind the Astros’ team record held by Jeff Bagwell.

Minute Maid Park

Tuesday, April 27, 7:05 p.m. CDT – FSH-HD
Wednesday, April 28, 7:05 p.m. CDT – FSH-HD
Thursday, April 29, 7:05 p.m. CDT – FSH-HD

Notable giveaways

Thursday – A reusable totebag from Methodist Transplant Center. You don’t want to know what they used it for the first time.

Projected Matchups from Astros.com

Tuesday
Aaron Harang (0-3, 8.31) v. Bud Norris (1-1, 4.26)

Harang is having a harrable season so far. In just under 22 innings, he’s given up 29 hits (including six homers) and 22 runs. Like Carlos Zambrano, Harang may get bumped down to the bullpen, though in his case it would make sense. But for now he’s the official starter Tuesday.

Berkman and Blum have worn out Harang in the past. Lance only has 13 hits in 51 at-bats against him (.255), but seven of those hits ha-rang the bell. Blum is 10-for-17 against Harang, with two doubles and a triple. Lee, Feliz, Bourn, and Quintero have all homered off Harang as well.

Norris hasn’t faced the Reds before. The Astros have won his last two starts, but he hasn’t lasted more than five innings yet.

Wednesday
Mike Leake (1-0, 3.92) v. Felipe Paulino (0-2, 5.94)

The Dickities’ took their Leake in the first-round of last year’s draft. He’s already made three starts this year and finally got a win against the Dodgers. It was the first victory by a Reds starter in 16 games, so you can tell Dusty’s Baker’s plan is working to perfection. Leake’s given up two homers and nine earned runs in just under 22 innings.

Paulino has already faced the Reds five times but only has a 1-3 record against them. Jay Bruce has two homers off him, and Votto and Nix each have one.

Thursday
Bronson Arroyo (0-2, 7.43) v. Roy Oswalt (2-2, 2.42)

Arroyo has 17 appearances and an 8-6 record against the Astros, which sounds pretty good until you realize that Roy Oswalt is 23-1 against the Reds. However, last year Roy got four no-decisions in four starts against the Reds.

Berkman (14-for-47, five homers) and Carlos Lee (13-for-38, four doubles, two homers) have blasted Arroyo in the past. Hunter Pence also has four doubles and a triple off him. However, Blum is only 4-for-24 against Arroyo, and Quintero is 1-for-15.

Current Reds are a combined 50-for-177 (.282) against Roy. Brandon Phillips is 10-for-31 with five doubles, and Laynce Nix is 5-for-12 with two homers.

Injury Report

Cincinnati – Edinson Volquez is out until at least late July with his suspension and injury. A suspinjury, if you will.

Houston – Alberto Arias is out for the season, and Chris Johnson is out until mid-May. Matsui might be back for this series.

Loose Dribblers

* It’s just not Carlos Lee’s month. In addition to the obvious batting woes, he also got ticketed by Houston police over the weekend – Impeding the Flow of Traffic, and Failure To Signal.

* Did you see that Bobby Bonilla will go back on the Stem payroll next year? The fucking Mets still owed him nearly $6 million when they waived him in 2000, so his agent got the dumbasses to agree to pay Bonilla $1.19 million every July from 2011 to 2035. The $1.19 million payment is more than a dozen Mets are making this season.

* Do you know why you can’t take Hunter Pence to White Castle? He’ll never stop eating sliders.

* I’m keeping the TV sound turned up during Saturday home games now, just to listen to Jeff Bagwell. His mumbly voice is kind of hard to hear, but the comments are excellent.

* On the other hand, I’ve added a new insta-mute commercial to the list – the one with those fucking hipster douchebags singing about “take this town” or whatever the fuck. It usually takes Dane Cook or that douchebag Frank guy to get onto the Instant Mute Button list, but the opening notes of that Fox commercial do it. In fact I can hear those goddamn notes right now in my brain, so fuck you Fox.

Discuss today’s game in the Gamezone.

SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. II, NO. 1

April 23-25, 2010

Pirates (7-8) vs. Astros (5-10)

Pam Gardner’s Boudoir Brick House
501 Crawford
Houston, TX 77002

**********

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, Part 33. They are 4-2 recently, but the Astros started 2010 by going 0-8, which is fucking scary, I don’t care what anyone says. Will they ever win again? Are they a lot worse than even my low pre-season opinion of them? Jesus Christ!

To answer those questions, yes, and maybe. They finally won, and then went on a 4-game winning streak, but I still suspect this Astros team is really, really bad. I think what struck me most about the sorry start was how Lee and Pence totally folded without Berkman in the lineup for an extended stretch. Thanks, guys, for showing what you’re really made of.

The Astros are now back on track for their 65 wins or whatever, but I will not soon forget the stark wake-up call the first eight games of this season turned out to be.

**********

An 0-8 record to start the season is kind of like waking up on Monday morning and stubbing the fuck out of your toe on the way to the bathroom to take a piss. You knew you should’ve shoved those boots further up under the edge of the bed when you took ‘em off last night, but. . . Goddamn, it’s painful, and you’re thinking, “What a way to start the week, this is probably a vivid precursor to the next five days. Motherfuck!”

After several minutes of impressive if pointless anger directed at inanimate objects, the pain begins to recede a little, and you start to get your perspective back. The stubbed toe is going to be tender well into the coming week, but it doesn’t hurt anymore on its own. Just have to make some adjustments until it heals, and deal with it. Only a pussy whines for very long about a stubbed toe.

A 0-8 record to start the season is sort of like lying in bed asleep at night, and feeling a familiar stirring in your loins. “Oh boy, we’re about to have a sex dream,” your unconscious mind tells you. “Sweet. I wonder who it’ll be this time?”

Will it be an old girlfriend from college? Maybe the really wild one you loved so much even though everyone you knew told you she was wrong, wrong, wrong for you? Will it be the older lady at your church, who always smiles at you and finds socially acceptable ways to put her hands on you whenever you meet? She is very pretty for fifty-whatever, and your secret fantasy is that she is also very uninhibited, once you get away from the Divine Mercy thing your parish is having and find yourself alone with her somewhere. Or, will it be the neighbor down the street’s wife, the one with the sizeable endowments who is always doing something out in the yard, planting hibiscus and shit, and flashing major cleavage, thus spinning you off in a confused mix of lust and guilt every time you see her?

Your sleeping head sinks back into the cool, goose-down pillows, and you wait for your interior movie to start. You’ll happily take any of those options for this evening’s entertainment. Imagine your dismay, then, when you open the bedroom door in your dream and you see lying there, reclining in white silk sheets and staring at you intently, none other than Houston Astros Chief Financial Officer Pam Gardner, clad in a red silk bustier, black garters with snaps, black thong panties, and sheer black hose. A smile steals across her lips as she spies you, and she heartily beckons you to join her in her bed. “Come hither,” she warbles, in a distinctly baritone voice. “Come and get what you have coming to you, boy,” she says, as she luxuriates in the sheets and bats her eyes in your direction. Against all your instincts and all your will, you feel yourself being sucked inexorably toward that bed, and the hideous thing occupying it, who is ready now to satisfy your every desire, even if you really, really would rather she didn’t.

Hey.  It’s a fucking 0-8 record to open the season, baby, and no one ever said it would be pretty.

I went out last night and I got messed up
When I woke up this morning
You shoulda seen what I had in the bed with me
She comes up at me out of the bed
Pulls her hair down over her eyes
Looks at me like a dying can of that commodity meat
And she says, and she says
Woo ee ah ah! [1]

**********

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday April 23, 2010
Game Time: 7:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FISH-HEAD
Promotion: The first 10,000 fans get a 45th Anniversary Blanket, which actually looks pretty cool, only there is no size listed; so don’t be surprised if it turns out to be more like a 45th Anniversary Hand Towel. But the question I have is, 45th Anniversary?? For whatever reason, the franchise is apparently intent now on pretending the first three years of its existence never happened.
Matchup: Pittsburgh – Paul Maholm (1-1, 4.58) Maholm (Mah HALL um) is a decent-looking lefty, a solid middle-of-the-rotation starter like every team needs. If he is ‘on’, he will be hard for the Astros to score on. Of course, pretty much everyone is hard for the Astros to score on. Houston – Roy Oswalt (1-2, 2.37) Roy-O has pitched better his first three starts this season than I can remember in awhile. He’s been the victim of poor run support, but don’t let the W-L record fool you. Oswalt is pitching like the old Oswalt, and that is a very good thing.

Saturday April 24, 2010
Game Time: 6:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FISH-HEAD
Promotion: First 10,000 fans get a Jose Cruz bobble head, which is definitely worth making the trip out to the ballpark for. My only complaint is they didn’t get Cruz’ hair quite right. It’s not nearly big enough.
Matchup: Pittsburgh – Chris Jakubauskas (0-0, 0.00) It is described that his body was discovered by a Brother of the Order, in a perfect state of conservation, 120 years after his death (which occurred in absolute secrecy) – as had been predicted – in a chamber erected by himself as a storehouse of knowledge. It is described that on the sarcophagus in the centre of his crypt were written, among other inscriptions the words, “Jesus mihi omnia, nequaquam vacuum, libertas evangelii, dei intacta gloria, legis jugum,” (being in translation, “Jesus is everything to me, by no means a vacuum/a vacuum by no means exists, the freedom of the good news/gospel, the inviolate glory of god, the yoke of the law”) testifying to the builder’s Christian character. The crypt, according to the description presented in the legend, seems to be located in the interior parts of the Earth, recalling the alchemical motto VITRIOL: “Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem (“Visit the Interior Parts of the Earth; by Rectification Thou Shalt Find the Hidden Stone.”). Houston – Wandy Rodriguez (0-2, 4.67) After shaky outings in both his first two starts of 2010, Wandy pitched well last time out, in Chicago. He is 4-4, 4.60 in 11 career starts vs. Pittsburgh.

Sunday April 25, 2010
Game Time: 1:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FISH-HEAD
Promotion: Some bullshit family day discounts, whatever.
Matchup: Pittsburgh – Charlie Morton (0-3, 16.55) In addition to this season’s horrific start, Morton is 0-2, 7.88 in three career starts vs. the Astros. Talk about adding salt to the wound. When it rains it pours, I guess. Houston – Brett Myers (0-1, 4.05) By the late 1970s, his use of cocaine was becoming a serious problem. It affected his ability to maintain an erection. To support himself and his drug habit, he ventured into crime, selling drugs for gangs, prostituting himself to both men and women, and committing credit card fraud and petty theft. In 1976, he met a 16-year old girl who became his girlfriend. After he fell on hard times, he prostituted both her and himself, as well as beating her in public.

**********

TRANQUILITY LAKES BLUE(AND CLEAR)S, Part 1.

Sam Houston Beltway
Ridin’ on a wet day
Beneath the San Jacinto
Out where the great ship channel flows

Driving past the stadium
I’ll never get in
Listenin’ to Mr. Ray or Mr. Doe
Mindless drivel on the radio

Hey, Pam Gardner, please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me

Maybe you got a dish
Maybe you got a package on your PC
The only thing that I got
Is the AM in this Mercury

Hey, Pam Gardner, please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me

In the wee, wee hours
I don’t know what I’m living for
Radio relay towers
‘Sposed to transmit me the final score

But the radio’s jammed up
With talk show dickheads
Just give their take, take, take, take
Who won the game? They never said

Hey, Pam Gardner, please don’t stop me

Hey, somebody tell McLane
Who’s driving his choo-choo train
A Nazi dyke with an MBA
Gonna drive me fucking insane [2]

**********

INJURIES

Pittsburgh
•Andy Van Slyke, Van Der Sloot La Roche (3B) and Ross Ohlendorf (RHP) are both out with back spasms. At the same time. Hmmmm. (NTTAWWT)

Houston
•Alberto Arias (RHP) – Decent-looking righty relief pitcher, IIRC Cooper overworked him at the end of last season. He is on the 15-day DL with right rotator cuff weakness, and still down in F-L-A trying to work things out. Thanks, Coop!

•Yorman Bazardo (RHP) – Erratic starter/reliever has a strained shoulder, which landed him on the 15-day DL. He should have begun rehab assignments this week.

•Sammy Gervacio (RHP) – Still another right-handed reliever, he of the spastic mound presence. I like having Sammy G. around. He is fun to watch. Too, there is always the chance that, after another of his singular gyrations during and after a meaningless 2-1 pitch, an opponent will stride purposefully out to the mound and kill him. He has been on the 15-day DL with a strained rotator cuff, and is currently rehabbing in Round Rock.

**********

TRANQUILITY LAKES BLUE(AND CLEAR)S, Part 2.

He will bring happiness in a quote
To him everything is just a joke
And apart from that he’ll hit the ball
Fifty feet over the wall
Yes, he will

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

He’ll go the other way with the pitch outside
Back up the middle if he’s of a mind
Then lay his bat down on the ground
As the bases he circles ‘round

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

He’ll knock in the run with a single thru the hole
Or with a drive off the Chick-Fil-A pole
Puts so much backspin on the ball
It accelerates over the wall
Yes, it will

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

He’ll bring happiness in a quote
To him everything is just a joke
And apart from that he’ll hit the ball
A hundred feet beyond the fucking wall
Yes, he will

Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time
Fly Fat Elvis Airways, he gets around on time

We’ll be flying at an altitude of thirty-nine thousand feet
The Big Fat Puma at your service [3]

**********

DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. The dregs of the NL Central meet up this weekend for a three-game set at MMPUS which will decide absolutely nothing. These games make up the middle section of a home stand which will likely mark the last time until late September – by which time both these clubs should be tied for last, 56½ games out of first place – that Houston fans can watch a home game actually being played outdoors.

The Pirates played pretty well the first couple of weeks of this season, but they often do. Then along about mid-April, reality begins to set in. In fact, right now the two teams are streaking in opposite directions. The Pirates, after sweeping the Dickities at home last weekend, got taken apart by the Brewers. Not only did the Gay Swashbucklers lose all three games to the Gay Brewers in front of the home fans, they did so by the combined score of 1-36. Ouch. That’s some serious pipe-laying going on, there.

Meantime, after a truly horrific start (see above), the Astros have rebounded the last two series. First they dispatched the FTCs two-games-to-one last weekend in the Friendly Concubines; then they slapped the Fish down onto the old newspaper and cut them into filets this week at Minute Mermaid. Or something.

Truth is, I think I learned more about the 2010 Houston Astros during their 0-8 start than I have during this current string of mostly wins. As far as what to expect for the rest of this season, I mean. Maybe for the next several seasons.

This is the first team in the last several mediocre versions of the Astros that actually reminds me of what it was like in the 1970s and the late 80s/early 90s to be a fan of the Houston club. In a way, following teams like those can make one a better baseball fan. Knowing there is no point to it, one can completely shed the guise of the über home team fanboy and all the angst and sturm und drang that goes with that, and instead in a slightly detached way can get a better angle on the baseball itself. I know I have found myself recently appreciating the opposing teams more, and taking more than a passing interest in the other team’s players. While I would much rather be living and dying with a contending team, I am not really enjoying baseball in 2010 any less than I ever have.

**********

By the way, I can take or leave Bart Enis, but more and more I am thinking I’d like to go a few rounds with Patty Smith. Mmmmmm.

**********

I was settling in to watch the game the other night, but I was in more than a little pain – I’ve recently taken up tennis again seriously, for the first time in thirty years, and my knees and shoulders in particular are in open revolt against this decision. So I’d come home and gone through my wife’s bag of tricks, the one she keeps hidden in the back of the vanity in the master bathroom, and I fixed myself what she likes to call The Magic Cocktail – couple of Vicodin, backed up with Flexeril and Toradol, all of it washed down with an ice cold Heineken or three – and after awhile I realized how much I was enjoying just watching the game, even though the Astros were losing handily. And I remembered how many evenings I spent just like that back in the old days, under the spell of a sort of pleasant season-long somnolence, while the home team lost mostly, but the baseball was always good, anyway. I don’t think it was the pharmaceuticals – okay, maybe it partly was – but I had a feeling of peace and well-being wash over me the other night. I knew I was good to go for however long it took, watching baseball like this, waiting for the day when the Astros are contenders again, and I can go back to being a results-oriented, angst-ridden fool.

I look forward to that day, but in the meantime I’ll be just fine. And, hey, while you’re up, would you go to the fridge and get me another beer? Thanks.

**********

Astros get swept by the Gay Buccaroos, 0-3.

Mother, Mother Ocean, I have heard you call
I wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall
You’ve seen it all, you’ve seen it all

I’ve watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam
And in your belly you hold the treasures few have ever seen
Most of ’em dreams, most of them dreams

Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothing to plunder
I’m an over forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late

I’ve done a bit of smuggling, I’ve run my share of grass
I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast
Never meant to last, never meant to last [4]

THE WEATHER

[1] She Said
[2] State Trooper
[3] The Fat Angel
[4] A Pirate Looks At Forty

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