Will They Even Get To .500?

I have been moaning and wailing a lot because of my beloved Astros. Houston is the team I like. They are the only ones I really care about. I try to get involved with KC now since I live here but it is hard. I know I like John Buck behind the plate more than LaRue. Mark Teahen and David DeJesus are awesome to watch. But they still lose a lot and if I want to watch losing games I just watch my Astros. My poor Astros. They have so much talent that is NOT be reached. Last night they managed to win but only after Dan Wheeler blew the save twice and went into extra innings. The bullpen sucks these days and Lidge is only guy looking like a winner. Of course he is on the DL and is not available to pitch. Qualls is next best but he is going to be serving a 3 games suspension soon. Still, starting pitching has been pretty good. Even Woody Williams. I know a lot of fans don't like him but the offense should be able to score more than 3 runs in a game. My question is: Will the Astros play .500 by the end of the season? I am beginning to have my doubts. It is okay though. As long as they play their hearts out and give their all, I love them for that. All you can ask is for someone to give it their best shot, right?

Mojo

The Astros have been playing very well lately. After poor Adam Everett got his leg broken the offense has finally turned on. Some people say it is because Everett is out of the starting line up but I do not think one broken leg can account for 8 other guys FINALLY hitting the dang ball. They swept the Mariners over the weekend but the real story was the amount of runs the guys consistently put up last week. Then they went to LA to play the Angels and lost game one 9-10. That was still a lot of runs against a team that is supposedly smokin' hot themselves. They won game two 9-5 and lost game three 4-8. It is game three that got me thinking of mojo and flow. The guys were doing well. Winning 4-2 then the homeplate umpire went beserk. He got made at a facial expression that Wandy Rodriguez made and actually went out to the mound and yelled at him. Now that was uncalled for on the umpires part. But as soon as it happened, I felt this shift. The mojo was gone. The umpire got everyone all fired up and Mike Scioscia capitalized on it. Great manager for noticing when to pounce, total asswipe for taking advantage. Anyhoo, after Garner got mad at the ump and Wandy got a little emotional then things went from bad to worse. The umpire started making sure no borderline calls went to Houston at all. What a jerk. It was blatant payback for daring to question his skills as an umpire. But that's baseball.

Sunday Losses

Baseball in recent years has been a game of stats. I discovered one myself this weekend. I noticed that it seemed like the Astros never won on Sundays. When they lost to the CWS yesterday I decide to look it up for myself. Here you go:

April 8: LOSS to STL
April15: Rained out
April 22: LOSS to MIL
April 29: LOSS to MIL
May 6: LOSS to STL
May 13: WIN to ARI
May 20: LOSS to TEX
May 27: LOSS to ARI
June 3: LOSS to STL
June 10: LOSS to CWS

one win and one rain delay out of all that. I hate Sunday baseball this season. This stat needs to be shuffled around a bit, don't you think?

Fighting Spirit

Last night Lance Berkman got thrown out of the game for arguing a strike call. He was fuming. I had never seen him so crazy with rage. Last season he got pretty mad about an ejection but this year tops them all. Then the very next inning Lee got beaned by a pitcher. He got into words with the guy and the benches cleared. No punches were thrown but Garner got thrown out of the game. Lots and lots of yelling. I was expecting Garner to throw a folding chair like last season but he just yelled alot. The Astros had lots of spunk. Tonight they have already scored 4 runs. Unfortunately so have the Rockies but I still feel like my guys will prevail. I love seeing that anger in their play. There is lots of life left in the Astros. I believe it is the start of something good.