Ending an Era...

Oswalt got his wish: He was traded to the Phillies, who -- if they weren't already headed for a pennant -- just upped their chances with another big arm in their rotation. Tonight he will be pitching against the Nationals in a Phillies jersey. I'm sure there's a picture of him wearing one on their website; I haven't really wanted to look. Here are some pictures of him wearing our jersey, just for memories... There are a bunch more on my Astros Fan in Exile Photo Album.

The Astros gave the Phillies the Wiz and $11M to decorate his locker. In return they got a lefty pitcher and a couple of minor leaguers, one of whom they immediately flipped to the Blue Jays. When the dust settled they ended up with:

J.A. (say "Jay") Happ - young lefty starting pitcher in his second big league season, who has only had 3 starts this season, due to an arm strain. But supposedly he's healthy now, and fans will get to see in tonight's game.

Jonathan Villar - 19-year old shortstop, with lots of speed on the base paths, good range and good arm at short. The Phillies signed him from the DR in 2008, and he's in the low minors. He'll be in line behind the Astros 2009 first-round draft pick, Jio Mier. It will be a while before the Astros find out what they've got from him.

Brett Wallace - Minor League first baseman, acquired from the Blue Jays, who got him from Oakland, who got him from the Cards -- their #1 draft pick in 2008. He's been traded around in some big deals, involving marquee players (Holliday, Halladay, and now Oswalt). He started out as a good hitting third baseman, who's been converted into a third baseman. He's a big guy (6'2", 205 lb), who's been hitting around .300 with a nice collection of homers in Triple A for the past couple of seasons. So he could be close to hatching from his position as the starting first baseman in Round Rock. Do the Astros need a new first baseman? They might, depending on whether they hold on to the Puma or let him become a free agent at the end of this season -- or trade him now. Rumors today are that the Yankees are just on the verge of snaring the Puma, and the Red Sox are sniffing around too.

Bagwell. Biggio. Now Oswalt. Maybe Berkman... Bit by bit the Astros' lifers are moving on. I think it will be exciting to watch the team rebuild with younger  players. On the other hand, for a fan in exile, who only gets to see the team in person at Spring Training and the occasional road trip to where I live, getting attached to the players is how I stay a fan of my home team. My last trip to the Astrodome was in 1991, when I was on a business trip to Clear Lake with an IBM colleague. We decided to take in a ball game one night -- the Astros lost badly and I noted that the team was mostly young guys. I think I might have seen one of them, a kid named Bagwell, hit a homer that night. Or perhaps I might be just embroidering on my memory. At any rate, back in those days, when the only access to an out-of-town team was a blurb under the box score in the next day's paper, it was hard to stay really connected. Now, with mlb.tv live games and a yearly pilgrimage to Kissimmee, it's much better. Still, it's going to be weird without the heart of the team there.

Goodbye and good luck, Roy O. And maybe Fat Elvis too. Looking forward to seeing you play against the Nats when you come to Washington. I'm not one of those fans who will boo you. But I might not cheer for you either.

GAMES 99-101: What is it About Winsdays?

GAME 99 - July 26: Cubs 5, Astros 2
GAME 100 - July 27: Astros 6, Cubs 1
GAME 101 - July 28: Astros 8, Cubs 1

I'm writing up this series while watching this afternoon's game on the mlb.tv archive. It's the bottom of the first, and if I didn't already know the outcome, I'd make a couple of predictions:

1. Bud Norris is going to have a really bad day. After loading up the bases with no outs to start the game, he managed to wiggle out with only one unearned run. But it was a shaky start.

2. Carlos Lee is going to piss everybody off. Came up to bat in the bottom of the first with 2 runners in scoring position, and bounced to first to end the inning. So what else is new?

As it turned out, my predictions would prove to be totally off target, as Norris went on to throw 5 more innings without giving up another run, ending the day with 1 unearned run on 4 hits, 3 walks, and 7 strikeouts. And El Caballo, after doing nothing at all to help 4 base runners in his first two at-bats, went on to hit a pair of 2-run homers, accounting for half of Houston's runs today. So go figure. Happily, baseball is full of surprises; otherwise, we could just run the stats and skip the games!

Like last night's game (more on that in a minute), all of the Astros' offensive fun came in late innings. I'm only in the second inning of the recorded game, so I haven't yet seen the Astros score 8 runs in the sixth through eighth innings. They waited so long that they just barely gave Norris the chance to get his first win since the middle of May. The Astros tied the game in the bottom of the sixth, when Puma walked  and Pence doubled to score him. Then came the first of Lee's homers, to put the Astros up by 2. In the seventh inning, Berkman doubled, and Lee scored them both with his second homer. In the eighth, the Astros put some icing on the cake, with 3 more runs. Bourgeois led off with a triple (he's really fast!), then scored on Sanchez' single. Berkman and Pence singled, scoring Sanchez. The fourth ball of CJ's walk was a wild pitch, allowing the Puma to score to make it 8-1.

So, while I'm still watching a pretty unexciting third inning, I know from the box score and Gameday pitch-by-pitch that great things are going to be happening about an hour from now. The Astros are going to look like the team we've wished they'd be: Berkman getting on base in all 5 plate appearances (single, double, 3 walks), Lee whacking 2 homers, Pence going 3 for 5, and Bud Lite throwing some sweet baseball. It all added up to yet another Wednesday win -- the 12th consecutive mid-week win for the Astros.

If I just had the past two games to go on, I'd think this team was headed for the pennant. Yesterday's game featured another yet another solid start by Brett Myers - probably his best of the year. I came into the season prepared to dislike Myers, who has some less than savory issues off the field, but it's hard to fault his performance on the mound. He might look like a billy goat in striped pajamas, but he can throw a baseball. Last night, it was a complete game, shutting out the Cubs for the first 8 innings.

It looked for the first six innings like Myers wasn't going to get any offense to help his cause, but in the seventh, Mills maneuvered the Astros into finally scoring a run. He got more than a little help from some really slopping pitching by Houstonian Andrew Cashner, who started the inning by hitting Quintero with a pitch. Mills replaced Q with the speedy Bourgeois, a move that paid off with stolen base. Myers put down a pretty two-strike bunt (while I was tweeting "SWING!") to move Bourgeois to third. The Cubs decided to go for a DP by walking Bourn, and pitching to Sanchez. But the crafty Mills put on the squeeze. Sanchez laid down a great bunt, Bourgeois scored from third, and both runners were safe. Astros lead 1-0!!! But then small ball turned into some pretty big ball. Pence singled, scoring Bourn, and advancing to second while Sanchez was thrown out at third. Lee walked. Kepp was hit by a pitch. And that brought up the Puma with two outs and the bases loaded.

Did I mention that Berkman has a miserable record against the Cubs' lefty starter Ted Lilly (no relation to me), and that he'd fizzled batting right-handed in his first two at bats? Well, by the seventh inning, Lilly was out, and the Puma was batting left handed when he hit that grand slam. SLAMMMMMMM!!!!

With a six run lead, Mills let Myers finish off his gorgeous start. The Cubs got their only run on a leadoff homer in the ninth. No problem -- Myers then went and struck out the next last three batters to end the game. Total line for the game: 9 innings, 1 run, 4 hits, 1 walk, and 12 strikeouts. That performance was, by the way, just what Nationals fans were hoping to see last night, when Strasburg was due to pitch. For a few minutes, I even toyed with the idea of going to the game, instead of coming home to watch my guys. But Stras was a last-minute scratch, and the crowd at Nationals Ballpark booed the poor replacement, Miguel Batista. Bad fan form. Batista and the pen threw a shutout.

It's now in the fifth inning of the recorded game from this afternoon. Even though there hasn't been any Astros scoring, there's always something interesting going on in a ball game. Norris got spiked covering first base -- the culprit was the opposing pitcher, Randy Wells. In a tight game, anything goes. Norris stayed in the game. And Angel Sanchez ended the inning with an awesome fielding play at short. I love good defense.

Unfortunately, the games yesterday and today (great starting pitching, good relief, late-in-the-game offense, homers by Berkman and Lee!!!) weren't really as typical of the season as the first game of this series on Monday -- a 5-2 loss. In his second big league start, Wesley Wright lasted 5 innings (a tad more than last time), giving up 4 runs on 8 hits, a walk, and 4 strikeouts. Meanwhile, his teammates managed to abandon 12 runners, squandering any benefit they might have had from 11 hits, a walk, and an error.

Just got to the sixth inning of today's recorded game. The fun is going to start in a minute, when Pence doubles to score the Puma and tie it up, and then El Caballo's going to knock one into the Chick-fil-A fowl pole (free chicken sandwiches for everybody!)... I'm going to wrap this up now, since you already know how it turns out: Fun and games, homers, and another Winsday! 

GAMES 96-98: Has Oswalt Played His Last?

GAME 96 - July 23: Reds 6, Astros 4
GAME 97 - July 24: Reds 7, Astros 0
GAME 98 - July 25: Astros 4, Reds 0

The chatter gets louder as we get closer to the end-of-July trade deadline, wondering when and where things will be happening for Roy Oswalt. By now, we're all used to the idea that he might be pitching against us soon, and at this point, I'm not even particularly sorry about it. Time to move on to a new phase in our Astro fan lives - it's not as if he asked to be traded in a year in which he's leading the league in wins. But I'd sort of hoped that he'd do something remarkable on his way out. Take over the Astros all-time wins record from Joe Niekro, for sure -- he's only one win away from tying it. Pitch a perfect game - or at least a no-hitter! Unfortunately, if yesterday's loss to the Reds was the last time we'll see the Wiz in an Astros uni, he didn't achieve any of these. He threw a quite unimpressive game, losing it on a  first inning homer. He should know by now that the Astros aren't going to score for him. Perfection is the only possibility. Oswalt still has one more chance to pitch for the Astros before the end of the month, if he's not traded to the Phillies or Cards by then. Still time to tie Niekro. Still time for a no hitter. Of course, it would probably be another bad luck loss.

It's vilely hot in the DC area this weekend, with temperatures and humidity readings reminding me what I hated the most about growing up in Houston. I suspect that my love of baseball began with the building of the Astrodome and the urge to be somewhere -- anywhere -- air conditioned in nasty Houston summer.

I haven't posted much on Astros fashion statements in a while. In my 2005 game journal, I used to note which uni they wore in each game, as well as oddities of hair styles, socks up or down, and so forth. But I do have one thing to say: The Astros should get rid of the throwback uniform games once and for all. For some perverse reason, they always seem to lose in throwback games. Yesterday's 7-0 beating isn't the worst. Remember the July 4th, 2004 shellacking while dressed up as Southwest Airlines planes -- Rangers 18, Astros 3.

Happy ending to an otherwise sorry weekend series against the Reds: At least they didn't sweep us. Wandy did everything anyone could want him to do: Seven shutout innings, 1 hit, 2 walks, 7 Ks. Lyon and Lindstrom each threw a scoreless inning in relief to seal the deal. It wasn't exactly a blowout for the Astros batters, but Michael Bourn led the charge, going 3 for 4 with 2 RBI -- half of the Astros' 4 runs. Cj and Pence were good for the other two runs with solo homers. Unfortunately, I had to spend Sunday in the office, where I put the game on for a little while. Then we had to huddle in the kitchen through a tornado warning and sudden ferocious squall. When I got home, we'd lost power, so I didn't get to watch the happy win straight through.

Cubs coming to town next. Let's see if we can keep taking series from them.

GAMES 90-95: On to the Second Half,,,

GAME 90 - July 16: Astros 5, Pirates 2
GAME 91 - July 17: Pirates 12, Astros 6
GAME 92 - July 18: Pirates 9, Astros 0


GAME 93 - July 19: Astros 11, Cubs 5
GAME 94 - July 20: Cubs 14, Astros 7
GAME 95 - July 21: Astros 4, Cubs 3

The All Star Game has come and gone. The good news is that the National League won, for the first time in a century or so (they hadn't won in the 21st century)! The bad news is that it happened in a year that the Astros won't benefit from home field advantage in the World Series.

I'm dutifully reporting game scores in my blog, for the sake of completeness. But at this point the wins and losses are about as important as the games in Spring Training. It won't affect the outcome of the season - it's likely to be a gruesome record. Bad enough to give Houston a sweet pick in next year's draft, but unlikely to be bad enough to get the first pick. The Astros, with their 39-56 record (holding at 17 under .500), are still doing much better than Orioles (only 30 wins), and a bit better than the Mariners (sorry, Mom!), Pirates (sorry, Bob!), and DBacks (sorry, snakes and scorpions!).

We're really past the point of watching games for the effect on the record. At this point, it's more about the individual performances, the chance of something amazing happen every time someone yells "Play Ball," and the chance to see the youngsters. Take the game on Tuesday, in which the Astros blew away a 7-1 lead in the fifth inning, and lost 14-7. It was ugly, for sure, and starter Wesley Wright didn't make it out of the inning. He gave up 5 runs in the bottom of the fifth, and you could sure see it coming, after an error put two Cubbies in scoring position with no outs. A hit batter. A walk. A homer (one of three by Aramis Ramirez). Before you know it, the game's tied up, and it was all downhill from there. Bummer? Not really, not totally.

Hey folks, that was little Wesley, the diminutive 25-year-old relief pitcher we got in a Rule 5 deal a few years ago, starting his first big league game. So he was gassed, big deal -- he's a kid trying out for a starter job. He pitched shutout baseball into the fourth, and all 5 of those runs in the fifth were unearned after Kepp's wild throwing error. Who cares if Lefty Wright wins the game (he didn't get the loss, Lyons did) -- in a crappy season like this, the Astros can afford to let a young player like Wright get a try out, experiment with minor league players, fiddle with lineups. It doesn't really matter. The best part of the game for the rest of the season isn't going to be watching El Caballo try to get his BA up to .250, or to wonder if and when the Wiz will get his wish. It's going to be getting to see a preview of future players, who -- just maybe -- will help to lead us to a very different kind of season in a few years. And, of course, seeing Jeff Bagwell in the dugout wearing #5 again.

So I'll try to focus my blog for the second half of the season on the young guys, whether they flame or fizzle. How bad can it be? What's the worst that can happen -- we get first draft pick next year?

Astros in Cincinnati this weekend. Sorry, Cousin Bill -- I'm still hoping we win.

GAMES 87-89: Break Time -- with Bagwell Photos and Video

GAME 87 - July 9: Cardinals 8, Astros 0
GAME 88 - July 10: Astros 4, Cardinals 1
GAME 89 - July 11: Cardinals 4, Astros 2

This is just a teaser. Keep going -- there are lots more pictures (and a video) of Baggy below...

Time for the mid-season All Star Break. For me, that translates into a full week without any live Astros games -- first the 4 days off, and then the Sabbath games that I catch up on when three stars appear in the Saturday evening sky. A whole week! I'll go into withdrawal! It's just not normal to come home from work and face night after night without watching my guys. Tonight I was so discombobulated that I went to the gym after work by accident.

On the other hand, the weekend Astros series against the Cards hardly left devoted fans panting for more. If I were a Cardinals fan, I'd probably be checking the National League scoreboard all the time (Woohoo - Reds lost again!). As an Astros fan, I'm freed from those tiresome tasks - when you're 17 games under .500 going into the All Star break, the standings aren't meaningful to everyday life.

Here's the one-line version of the Cardinals series: Failure to push across runs Friday and Sunday and a terrific start by Myers Saturday. Rather than focusing on the weekend disappointments, let's just go straight to the big Astros news story: BAGGY'S BACK IN UNIFORM! He's going to be the new pitching coach, taking over after Sean Berry got stuck as the fall guy for the terrible offensive performance of the team so far this year. You can check out the blogs of Alyson Footer, McTaggert, and others to get the details of the new position, and how happy everyone is to have Bagwell back, and how sorry they are for Berry because it wasn't his fault that Astros batters suck. As long as you're here on my blog, you might as well look at some of my pictures of Bagwell from the past 6 years. (If you want to see more, check out the Bagwell page of the photo album on my Astros Fan in Exile website.)

Here's a rare one for me, since almost all of my thousands of Astros pix are taken at Spring Training: Bagwell in 2004, playing a home game in Houston (the only time I've ever been in MMP):

Here's Bagwell playing at Spring Training 2005, the year I had a vision in Kissimmee of the Astros in the World Series. (I know, you're tired of that story.)

Here's Bagwell when he tried to make a comeback (unwelcome by the management) at Spring Training 2006:

Here's Bagwell at Spring Training 2008, a couple of years after he retired, hanging out in the dugout and coaching minor leaguers on the practice field:

Here's Bagwell at Spring Training 2009. I missed him in 2010. :-(

Happily there should be many more opportunities to photograph Bagwell in uniform, including when the Astros come here to play the Nats in September. 

There's still a lot more baseball to play before then. (Sorry, Alyson! I know you're tired of this season!) Although we passed the midpoint a week ago, the All Star break feels like the middle of the season. Going into the break with a 36-53 record, on track to lose 97 games this year. I don't think that they will actually manage to accomplish that, given that they've played much better baseball in the last month than in the preceding ones. But, who cares -- if they'll go young, it would be worth losing lots of games for the rest of the year. Who knows, maybe we can really bottom out and get the first pick in next year's draft. 

Meanwhile, enjoy your break from the Astros. Cheer for Air Bourn in the All Star game. Maybe they'll put him in as a pinch runner. See you next week!

GAMES 84-86: Clean Sweep! (Even if it's Just the Pirates...)

GAME 85 - July 6: Astros 6, Pirates 2
GAME 86 - July 7: Astros 6, Pirates 3
GAME 87 - July 8: Astros 2, Pirates 0

SWEEP!!! How cool is that on a hot day? Even if it's just the Pirates, one of only 2 NL teams with a worse record than the Astros this season! Here's what's to like about this sweep - and even the lost series that preceded it...

In the past 8 games, dating back to the last game of the Brewers series, Astros pitchers have held the opposing team to just 16 runs, average of 2 per game, and not more than 3 in any of them. (How's that for fancy stats - and I did the math in my head!) Even better, the starting pitchers in those 8 games have given up only 5 runs in 51 2/3 innings. That comes out to a combined ERA of 0.87.  (I used a calculator for that one.) Sweet.

Let's just take a look at Roy O (look fast, while he's still here). In his two starts in the past week, he gave up 0 runs in 16 innings. Seven scoreless innings for a no-decision on Friday, then a one-hitter complete game shutout today. The Wiz might be auditioning for a new job on a team that's going somewhere this year, but we can enjoy watching him while he's still wearing an Astros jersey.

Another thing to like: The Puma found his swing! He's hit 5 homers in the past 4 games, including two in today's sweep. (Oswalt owes him -- those were the only 2 runs the Astros scored to back up his shutout.) Thank heavens for the Crawford Boxes! But hey, a home run is a home run. The first homer, hit in the first inning, to get the Astros off to a good start, was Berkman's 1000th career run scored, all of them for Houston of course. Good timing for this power hitting demo: Berkman's name has been coming up a lot recently in the trade rumor mill. Seriously, can you imagine Fat Elvis in a Yankees uni? NOT! 

In other exciting news, someone named LeBron picked Miami. I'm not sure what sport that is, but it's not baseball.

GAMES 80-83: Didn't Miss Much (from the Astros) While I Was Away...

GAME 80 - July 1: Astros 6, Padres 3
GAME 81 - July 2: Padres 3, Astros 0
GAME 82 - July 3: Padres 1, Astros 0
GAME 83 - July 4: Padres 3, Astros 2

I escaped the 100 degree heat wave in the Washington DC area by flying out to the other Washington, where the 50-something degree weather was downright refreshing. Four days in Seattle, for a delayed celebration of my mom and dad's May birthdays (with Mothers/Fathers Day thrown in for good measure), was a good opportunity to ignore the Astros. Their Independence Day weekend series was a prolonged demonstration of how not to support their starting pitchers. Here's the stats for our rotation in the series:

Game 1: Moehler - 5.2 innings, 1 run on 4 hits, 2 BB, 2 K

Game 2: Oswalt - 7 innings, 0 run on 3 hits, 2 BB, 7 K 

Game 3: Norris - 7 innings, 0 runs on 3 hits, 3 BB, 5 K

Game 4: Myers - 6 innings, 2 runs on 4 hits, 1 BB, 2 K

That looks to me like pretty solid starting pitching overall -- and was just enough to earn each of them a no-decision. Let's not talk about the Astros hitting. The fun seemed to end in the tenth inning of Thursday night's game. Michael Bourn hit a tie-breaking two-out triple in the top of the tenth, scoring Quintero and Navarro, both of whom had walked. Bourn then came around to score on Kepp's single, leading to the Astros' 6-3 win to start the series. That was about it in the fun department for Astros batters this weekend, as they went on to score only twice in the next three games. Roy O and Bud Lite were positively cheated in the Shabbat shutouts. (And NO, I did NOT watch these games after the Sabbath ended.)

I think I've already worn out the subject of this series, so let's just get on to other interesting news... A couple of days after the Astros claimed that they weren't looking for another option at short, they picked up a shortstop, Angel Sanchez. The need for additional help in the infield became more acute when Blum (covering short for Manzella, who's out for another month with a broken finger) hurt his elbow while putting on his shirt. No joke. Something popped, and now he's on the DL too. The Angel Sanchez that the Astros got in trade from the Red Sox for Kevin Cash is not the fashion designer. He's a 27-year old minor league shortstop who has only appeared in a handful of major league games -- 8 for the Royals in 2006, and 1 this year with Boston.

In other young player news, Chris Johnson has continued to hit well since he's become the Astros' everyday third baseman a couple of weeks ago. He's gone 17 for 40 with 6 doubles. He's had a few glitches in the fielding department, resulting in 5 errors. Jason Castro hasn't been too exciting at the plate (he's only batting .182), but he's thrown out 6 runners in the 11 games he's played. Hopefully, the Astros will stay with their young blood and keep him in the lineup, even if he can't maintain his current offensive pace.

Meanwhile, Bourn has been selected as the lone player to represent the Astros on the All Star roster. It was pretty slim pickings from the team this year, with a good case to be made that none of them should make the trip to Anaheim. But every team gets at least one player, and Bourn is ours. (Probably doesn't hurt that Charlie Manual, this year's NL ASG manager, knows Bourn from his days with the Phillies before the Lidge trade.) It's kind of a shame for Oswalt, who's pitching really well this year. But with all of the great NL pitchers to pick from, why take a guy with a 5-10 record, even if it's not his fault?

Strasburg Watch: Stephen Strasburg had his shortest outing of the year on Saturday, pitching only 5 innings, giving up 2 runs on 4 hits, 3 BBs, and 5 Ks for a no decision. The Nats ultimately won the game 6-5 in the bottom of the ninth. Strasburg wasn't selected for the All Star Game, which (in my opinion) was the right decision. If he's as great as he seems, he'll have plenty of chances in the future. Meanwhile, the NL is full of other deserving pitchers.

Astros are back home now, hosting the Pirates and Cardinals before taking off for the All Star vacation. July is a big month for home games, with a 14-10 split of home to away games.