Let's Just Move On...

I'm not going to bother posting the numbers for the past few games - times like these are worth forgetting. Just when Houston was on a roll, with a winning record, just a game or two out of the division lead with critical games scheduled against the big competition, the wheels came off...

It's hard to say whether the Astros would be living high right now, if they still had the Wiz and the Puma and Wandy and the whole bullpen hale and hearty. It takes the whole team to go from being winners to losers and back again. But having our most reliable pitchers and our franchise star hitter out injured has put the club on the wrong side of .500 again. Losing 3 of 4 games to the Cubs, and then dropping the first 2 games in the Cards series was nearly the worst scenario for a team that was poised to go to the head of the division. Instead, they find themselves 2 games under .500 and 5 1/2 games out in was a very close competition just a week ago.

Oswalt came out of the game right in the middle of an at-bat in his last start, poking at his side, and appearing to limp a bit. The back injury hasn't yet landed him on the DL, but that's still an option. Then Wandy pulled up lame base-running in yesterday's game, and now he's day to day. The remaining guys in the roster aren't doing so well either. Ortiz was doing so badly that he was given his walking papers as the team was packing to leave Chicago, after being crushed in his past few starts. Hampton's still around, but was the cause of one of last week's embarrassments in Chicago. In his last 4 starts, the Bulldog hasn't made it through 6 whole innings, while giving up 22 earned runs. Moehler's the only pitcher left in the rotation who's solid.

The bullpen has had its aches and pains too, which has been a killer given the few innings that the starters have survived. After Oswalt's premature exit, the Astros overwhelmed their diminutive lefty reliever, keeping him on the mound for 55 pitches on a hot day - Wright ended up in the hospital with dehydration. Sampson and Brocail are just back from the DL.

The Astros are filling in from Round Rock, which will please the fans who have given up on 2009 and want to just start building a younger team for next year. In particular, fans of the Future Astros are cheering to see Bud Norris called up, earlier than expected, and probably earlier than his coaches wanted. He'll get his chance for his first big league start in about an hour, when the Astros try to avoid a St Louis sweep. Gervacio has also joined the team. He's not a big-name prospect like Norris, but perhaps his weird sidearm will confound some opposing batters.

The Astros have been stung at the plate also. Berkman's still on the DL, after trying to play on an injury before he was ready. (Remember what happened when Valverde tried for heroics earlier in the season - he was out for weeks.) Tejada and Lee are doing okay, but Pence has been in a slump for the past couple of weeks. Bourn's slowed down a bit (although not on the basepaths). After going 4 for 5 in Game 2 of the Chicago series, Kepp's been 0-fer since.

When you put it all together, we're kind of stuck in a rut.

All this bad news does not, however, dissuade me from cheering my team on to a pennant victory - not until we're mathematically eliminated. It does make it hard to get up any enthusiasm for watching the reruns of the losses in the Sabbath games I missed.

Let's hope that the guys in the line up today go all out for Bud Norris' first ML start. Give the kid (and this old lady) a thrill.