Just Plain Swwwweeeeeeeet!

Not a sight of Brad Lidge on Sunday and Monday, as the Astros completed their four-game sweep of the World Champion Phillies. I have to say it again, it sounds so good: The Astros swept the Phillies.

A couple of True Fan Confessions:

Confession 1: The win today brought tears to my eyes. Not out-and-out sobs like when the Astros won the pennant, just little tears of joy. This far behind, this late in the season, it's hard to get very emotional about the outcome of a game, especially when you're watching on the Internet from Exile. But still, those last three really really close games were pretty exciting. And sweeping the Phillies - a great team - was fantastic and worthy of just a few tears. Now, if we'd swept the Cards and advanced 4 games on the division leaders, I probably would have burst out in tears.

Confession 2: I was not at all gracious about it. I posted uppity messages on the Facebook walls of my Philly-loving friends. Yes, I'm referring to you, Bob, and you too, Cara. I sent emails too.

Just to net it all out: The Astros pitchers were outstanding. Wandy did his usual magic on Friday night, pitching 6 shutout innings. The Wiz didn't let a run score on his watch Saturday night either, before he come out with a sore back - his pair of ERs were courtesy of the bullpen. (His situation is TBD - they're checking out flu symptoms now.) After a couple of rough starts, Bud Lite came back to his top-prospect form in Sunday's game, allowing only a pair of long balls to the homer-hungry Phillies. And Moehler didn't do badly today either - giving up 3 runs (including a pair of solo shots) in his almost-six innings.

Really nice work by most of the relievers as well. Special kudos go to Valverde who logged 2 saves and a win in 3 hitless innings - he only gave up a single walk, and has reduced his ERA to a sweet 1.96. (By the way, in case you haven't seen it yet, check out Valverde's website. It's a hoot.) Welcome back to Brocail, who pitched the ninth on Friday night. I almost didn't recognize him without the beard.

Bourn continues to be everything we wanted him to be, and more. He was so terrific this holiday weekend that one would think that he had something to prove - to the team that traded him to the Astros! He went 6 for 16, with hits in every game, with 3 stolen bases, and made some terrific fielding plays.

Pence is back on his game, with 3 home runs, and 8 RBI in the series. Tejada went 4 for 4 on Sunday, pushing his series batting to 7 for 15, and his BA back over .300. On the flip side, Berkman is way off his hitting - he got more walk (3) than hits (2) against the Phillies this weekend. He hasn't hit a homer in more than a month - a time frame that aligns pretty closely with the Astros slide from close contender to the losing side of .500.

But today's not a day to dwell on negatives. Our "E" number is up to 14 - hope springs eternal. With 4 wins against the mighty Phillies, who knows - maybe the Astros will win all the rest of the games of the season! If they do, you heard it here. (If they don't, it was just a joke.)

In expansion news today, the Astros are bringing up shortstop extraordinaire Tommy Manzella, along with Chris Johnson and pitcher Billy Sadler, who was picked up last month from the Giants. Although Coop hinted that there was to be a surprise in the September callups, it's hard to imagine that any of these players were what he was alluding to as a real surprise.