GAMES 71-73 - June 17-19: Going on Strike

Tuesday, June 17: Baltimore 6, Houston 5
Wednesday, June 18: Baltimore 2, Houston 1
Thursday, June 19: Baltimore 7, Houston 5

Quote of the Day: "The last two days are the way we should play. We play aggressive, we play solid defense, guys pitch real well. We just have to get some timely hits now. That's all we need." (Cooper, Wednesday night, after losing the second one-run game)

With all due respect to Coop, here's the thing about close games and win-loss records in baseball: At the end of the season, these Astros' one- or two-run losses in Baltimore don't buy you any more than that 13-0 Fathers Day Fiasco against the Yankees. They're just losses on the slippery slope to the Astros players' spending this coming October on fabulous vacations. Yeah, it's a lot less embarrassing to lose by a single run, but in the scheme of things close losses are just more losses.

With seven straight blown series. and eight straight losses this is getting to be kind of an ugly habit. I think I'm going on a temporary strike - it's just not that fun to write up the losses night after night. I'll leave that to Alyson, who does tough love angst so much better than I do. So if you want the gory details of the Astros being swept in back to back series, go to astros.com and read all about it.

Despite the fact that these games were in my neck of the woods - Baltimore isn't that far from where I live - I didn't make it to any of these games. It is pretty far from where I work in Virginia, and I couldn't really get off of work in time to make it to the game. I suspect that I might have put a little more effort into it, though, if the Astros weren't playing so miserably. Due to the mlb.tv blockage of "local" games, I couldn't even watch the games - I just listened to them on the live audio stream, while playing Text Twist.

It might be good not being able to watch. A month ago, it was awesome watching the guys grinning and high-fiving, looking relaxed in the dugout, having fun on the field. Now, they all look a bit shell-shocked, depressed, or angry. Brocail, who figured in Tuesday's loss, is reportedly icing a swollen hand that might have been injured in a run in with a wall or water cooler. I keep reminding myself - as they surely keep reminding themselves - that they can't lose ALL the rest of the games of the season. But it's getting to be hard to remember what is was like to win one.