GAMES 22-24: ...and When She Was Bad, She was Horrid...

GAME 22 - April 30: Braves 4, Astros 2
GAME 23 - May 1: Braves 10, Astros 1
GAME 24 - May 2: Braves 7, Astros 1

Let's just say that the 2010 Astros are not a team that is blessed with consistency when it comes to wins and losses. They lost the first 8 games of the season, then won 8 out of the next 10, then they were swept in two consecutive series. First it was the Reds, who had been swept by the Pirates, who were then swept by the Astros.  (What does that say about the NL Central Division?) And now the Astros have been swept by the Braves, who were just coming off a nine-game losing streak. This is not pretty.

The Astros are actually very consistent when it comes to offense stats - they're at the bottom of the league in just about every batting category. With very few exceptions (namely, Bourn and Kepp) the rest of the lineup is spectacularly underachieving. I'm stretching my imagination to figure out how Carlos Lee could be batting under .200 a month into the season, with only 5 RBIs and no home runs. Our $100M slugger has a slugging stat of under .250. Lee might have a bit of a slacker reputation, but Pence? He's a really hard worker, who had a good Spring Training, yet he's only batting .213. At least he has a couple of homers. Berkman's had a slow start, but he's only been off the DL for less than 2 weeks, so I cut him some slack. I didn't expect anything from either Matsui or Towles, but I'd kind of hoped for someone on the team to bat over .200.

Other than the scores, which are listed at the top, I'm not going to bother to write up this weekend's depressing games. I came home from work on Friday feeling sick, and spent Saturday lying on the couch, hoping that I'd at least have one or even two good ball games to watch after the Sabbath ended. When I saw the results, I went back to the couch. I only watched one play from either of those games - Pence's homer-robbing leaping catch from Friday night's game. By Sunday, the antibiotics were kicking in, but I was still under the weather and feeling too puny to rally much optimism for a big turnaround. So in a strange way, the Astros didn't disappoint me by losing. Let's see, what to like in today's loss...? Lee got a pair of hits - but they were both singles. Bourn and Kepp each hit a single and a double - but that's not a surprise. They're the only consistently good batters in the lineup so far. And, oh yeah, after Norris melted down, the bullpen was totally solid. Fulchino threw two 1-2-3 innings, with 4 Ks.

The only optimistic message I can take from the double-sweeps is this: With their record now at 8-16, the Astros are perfectly poised to repeat their historic 2005 15-30 season start. And we all know how that ended - the Astros won the NL Pennant. (Let's just ignore for a minute the fact that the 2005 team featured a rotation with Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, and Roy Oswalt.) We might stink, but we are not yet mathematically eliminated.