NEW BLOG FEATURE: 2005-2014 Astros Comps

Horrible, terrible, awful, dreadful season start. And then they got warm, and then they got hot, and then hotter, and HOTTER, and then they won the pennant. That was the 2005 Astros.

For those who haven't already heard this 1000 times: I had an epiphany in 2005 at Spring Training. In what can only be described as a miraculous vision, while watching Bagwell and Biggio tossing the ball back and forth before the game in Osceola County Stadium, I saw the Astros playing in the World Series. Yep, play the Twilight Zone theme here. I don't tend to have visions of this sort, so it was pretty convincing to me. I was sure that the Astros were going to win the NL Pennant. Then they started the season with that 15-30 record, and the Chronicle published a tombstone with "RIP Astros Season" on it on June 1. And I was still sure that the Astros were going to win the pennant. I was so sure that I started writing up a season game diary at Spring Training, and kept it up through the whole season. You remember that season -- it was the one when the Astros did win the NL Pennant and went on to the World Series, just like I saw in my vision. (We don't need to talk about what happened in the Series; I only had a vision about playing in the World Series, not winning it.)

This was all before free blogs, and my 2005 season diary lives in 2 thick binders, complete with printouts of my own write-ups of every game, best/worst things of the game, photos, daily box stores and daily standings.

Okay, I'm not going on record to say that the Astros are going to win the 2014 AL Pennant. That was a team that featured great big league star pitchers (Clemens! Pettitte! Oswalt!) and terrific batters. Conservatively speaking, we should be looking for a winning Astros record in 2015, making the playoffs in 2016, and the AL Pennant in 2017. By then all those Worst-Team-First-Draft-Picks will be big league players and the Astros will have more than one courtesy slot in the All Star lineup.

But we did lead off 2014 with a horrible, terrible, awful, dreadful season start. And then right around Mothers Day, they got warm, and then they got hot... So just for grins, I'm adding another occasional feature to the Astros Fan in Exile blog: A comparison to the 2005 Astros at the same point in the season. Here goes...

2005-2014 ASTROS COMPS

2005 Game 70 W/L record: 30-39 (.443) (4th worst in the NL); 13 1/2 games behind in NL Central
2014 Game 70 W/L record: 32-38 (.457) (3rd worst in the AL); 10 games behind in AL West

And just a stroll through memory lane:

2005 Game 70 lineup: Taveras (CF), Biggio (2B), Berkman (1B), Ensberg (3B), Lane (RF), Everett (SS), Burke (LF), Ausmus (C), Clemens (P)
2005 Game 70 pitching: Clemens (W, 6-3), Franco, Springer

2014 Game 70 lineup: Fowler (CF), Springer (RF), Singleton (1B), Castro (C), Dominguez (3B), Carter (DH), Presley (LF), Gonzales (2B), Villar (SS)
2014 Game 70 pitching: Cosart (W, 6-5), Sipp, Fields, Zeid