Coming Up: Two Losing Teams, Strasburg, and the Ten Year Anniversary of 9/11

The long awaited Astros trip to Washington to play the Nats is almost here! Unfortunately, it's a weekend series, so (due to Sabbath observance) I'll only be able to make it to the Sunday game. Thanks to my friend Chuck, who will be off on a fabulous vacation, I have most excellent tickets to this game. I'm expecting it to be quite a notable event, considering that it's a late season game between two losing teams. But with Stephen Strasburg expected to pitch for the Nats, and the momentous date (tenth anniversary of 9/11), it's likely to be a full stadium with quite a bit of pomp and ceremony.

After watching Strasburg pitch yesterday for the first time this season, I'm really looking forward to seeing him on Sunday. He's great and it's hard not to cheer for him. So here's the deal -- I will hope that he throws a perfect game for 6 innings, and then after they take him out, I hope the Astros go on a binge and win the game. The Nats left Strasburg in for 5 innings yesterday, and I doubt that they'll take a chance with letting him pitch much more than that in what remains of the year.

On Sunday I'll be sitting in the sixth row, ground level, behind first base. You can look for me during the televised game, wearing my Sunday red jersey with FAN IN EXILE on the back! But since Fox Sports Houston (which sometimes shows Astros fans in the stands between plays) isn't broadcasting, I'm not likely to appear.

Suddenly September...

After six long grueling months of Astros Spring Training, suddenly it's September. Can anyone really say that the games this season have seemed like anything but months and months of training camp? When our team is eliminated by the beginning of September, the outcomes of the games are not really important. When most of the players have spent more time in Corpus and OKC than in Houston, there's more of a sense of "Spring is in the air..." than anything else.

You might have noticed that my blog postings this year have been remarkably free of my Spring Training photos. The Astros are playing a team full of youngsters, most of whom don't appear in the thousands of Astros pictures I've taken. Three reasons:
1. I didn't make it to Florida for Spring Training this year to see the latest crop of minor leaguers get their cup of coffee -- first time I missed since 2004.
2. Some of these kids were still low minor leaguers when I was at Spring Training last year, and not all of them were considered top prospects. Who was really watching J.D. Martinez a year ago? Jose Altuve started the year playing A ball - has he ever appeared in a Spring Training game?
3. Many of these guys came to us in trades during the season, so I wouldn't have seen them in Kissimmee anyway. At least not in Astros jerseys; some of them might have been there playing for the other teams. More likely they were in the other teams' minor league camps.

Seriously: Who would have guessed that our lineup would have changed this much since opening day?
1. Schafer (Braves) or Bourgeois (AAA), CF  (Bourn to the Braves)
2. Altuve (A/AA), 2B (Bill Hall to the Giants)
3. JD Martinez (AA), LF (Lee to 1B)
4. El Caballo, 1B (Wallace to the minors) 
5. Paredes, 3B (CJ to the minors)
6. Bogusevic (AAA), RF (Pence to the Phillies) 
7. Barmes, SS (Sanchez to the minors)
8. Quintero or Corporan (AAA), C (Towles to the minors)

And the starting rotation? We started the season with Wandy, Myers, Happ, Norris, and Figueroa. All but Figueroa (now Pirates) still pitch for the Astros, but don't expect to see Wandy or Myers back next year. They're likely post-season trades. By next year, Norris may be our "ace," along with some combination of Happ, Lyles, Clemens (Paul), Cosart, Sosa, Harrell, Wright...?

I hope this is not coming across as negative -- that's certainly not my intent. I'm really glad that the Astros have finally faced the truth and have embraced "rebuilding" as a team theme. I'd rather watch the young players go through growing pains than to see random combinations of veterans year after year. How great is it to see Martinez (no prospect buzz) with RBIs in nearly every game? Who doesn't love Mighty Mouse Altuve? I hope the Astros will continue to collect prospects (including our 2012 first pick!) for a brighter future.

On a related note, among the rare surviving veterans on the team, Carlos Lee has gone on a late season hitting spree -- going 15 for 27 over the past week. Too bad he didn't have a solid power year, so that there might have been any chance of dumping him and his mega-expensive contract on some AL team that wouldn't expect him to field.

All season the Astros.com headlines have read like today's "Wandy Aims to Get  Astros on Track in Finale," in some strange fantasy that our starting pitcher can somehow rescue them. Enjoy watching Wandy -- the last member of the pennant winning 2005 team still around -- in what may be one of his final starts for the Astros.

The Danger of Watching Baseball in Bed...

Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes in bed is dangerous. Well, here's a lesser known danger: Watching baseball games on an iPad in bed. So you may wonder, why is that so dangerous? Look at what happened to me last night and learn...

With the Astros playing just over .300 ball (that's wins, not batting average), on a 7-game losing streak, and trailing since the first inning, who could blame me for deciding to turn off the iMac before Take Me Out to the Ball Game? Instead, I went to bed with my iPad, planning to watch the rest of the game on the At Bat 11 app. But then, because it was late and the bed was comfy and the game was dragging... I fell asleep. That's how I came to be dreaming of next year's Spring Training when Bogusevic hit his walk-off grand slam in the ninth.

First thing in the morning, I grabbed the iPad to check on the ending of the game. I was brushing my teeth when Bogus' swing was anything but bogus, the ball was flying out over the center field wall, JD and Brownie were hyperventilating, and what was left of the crowd was going crazy. Then the Astros players jumped out on the field for Bogusevic's ritual head bashing. He may have lost a standard deviation's worth of IQ points from that, but, hey, it was worth it! I watched the ninth inning twice while I was getting dressed for work, then came downstairs and watched the Cubs broadcast of it while I was fixing my breakfast, so I could gloat.

It's kind of fun watching a surprise win when you already know the ending. It gives an extra depth to all of the broadcaster's comments -- that Dempster, the Cubs' starter, was probably in the clubhouse, icing his arm, with one eye on the game. Or that Bogusevic really does have it in him to hit one out of there, even though they didn't sound very convinced that this would be anything other than another routine loss. As JD and Brownie noted, it's a "bleak" season, to say the least.

Bogusevic didn't do it all himself, of course. After Paredes lined out to start the ninth, Shuck hit a single just past the first baseman. Barmes managed to knock a not very promising pitch into left field, to put runners on the corners with one out. Then Downs pinch hit for Q. Gotta like your chances with Downs off the bench, and he did his best to hit it into the seats. But he was patient, didn't go for Marmol's slider, and walked to load the bases. Then Bogusevic came up, got down in the count with two quick strikes, before whacking a 2-2 fast ball over the center field fence, way over the 404' sign. A thing of beauty. It brought tears to my eyes, even the fourth time I watched it.

Today's an afternoon game - I should be able to stay awake till it's over!

Special shoutout to my Spring Training pal Carole, who was there for the game -- guess you got your money's worth!!!

Cheering for the Twins!

Every so often, I have to take a quick detour from baseball to remind you all that in my Real Life I'm a secret Twins fan. Not the ones from Minnesota, dontcha know -- the ones from Brooklyn. Just had a two hour (much-too-short!) visit with my grandsons Oscar and Oren, who are passing through Maryland on their way to the beach. Now going on 9 months old, they are full of tricks - walking around the furniture, escaping when you're trying to change their pants, waving bye bye (alas!). So cute. We were too busy playing to take many pictures when they were here this afternoon, but here's one of Robert (AKA "Saba") making the airplane full of baby food fly into Oren's mouth, as Oscar looks on.

With Oscar in his helmet (for reshaping a flat spot on the back of his head), they kind of remind me of Doonsbury and BD. Here's a picture with the helmet off, so you can see how cute they are. That's Oscar in blue, Oren in brown.

So if that's not enough of a case for being a Twins fan, there's always this: their 3 1/2 month old girl cousins Lyla and Sylvie. 

Okay, this is a baseball blog, so I should say something about the game. Having cleaned house, and sent Pence and Bourn packing, the Astros are mostly playing their new baby players -- just a little bit older than my grandkids. (They're all closer to the babies' age than mine!) I'm just learning to recognize the new players, since I missed Spring Training this year, and some of them were acquired since then in trades. It's kind of refreshing to see young players running hard, trying their best, knowing that this is their chance to get a spot on a big league team. Lots of hits, lots of diving plays, lots of running. We may not win many games, but the kids are fun to watch. Almost as fun as the Twins.

Strangers in a Strange Land...

Some years ago, my IBM colleague Sam and I went down in Texas to teach an "Object Oriented Design" class at the Clear Lakes office. Like most of the guys in our group, Sam preferred to stay in a Marriott. He was collecting frequent-sleeper points in hopes of someday going on vacation to somewhere exotic -- where he would reside in a hotel that was just like the ones he stayed in on our business trips. Back then, Clear Lakes (home of the Space Center) didn't have a Marriott, and the closest one was in Houston. I didn't care about collecting Marriott points, and would have preferred to stay close by the IBM office, so I could get a little more sleep and a little less commute. But this time, I didn't argue -- the closest Marriott just happened to be in the vicinity of the Astrodome.

So the deal was, I'd agree to stay in the Marriott near the Astrodome if Sam would agree to go to a ball game in the evening, after we got back from Clear Lake. Deal. We went to the Astrodome -- a huge thrill for me! I hadn't been back there since I'd moved away from Texas some years earlier. I picked the seats -- out in the bleachers, where I'd always sat as a kid growing up in Houston. The game started...

...and the Astros stunk. And worse, although I could rattle off the names of every starter on the team back in the day, I didn't recognize any of these guys. The year was 1991. 

[Side note: Remember what it was like before the Internet? Although I've always been an Astros fan, there were a number of years after I moved away from Houston when it was very difficult to be a very engaged fan-in-exile. Until the Internet came along - game stories, then pitch-by-pitch, the online radio, and finally streaming live video - my daily source of Astros news was generally limited to a sentence or two and a box score in the Washington Post. I became a fanatic in exile with my first subscription to mlb.tv in 2004.]

So back to 1991... Who were these guys? A quick review of the roster in my program explained why the players were so foreign to me. Many of them were in their first year in the big leagues -- like Jeff Bagwell, who went on that year to be the MLB Rookie of the Year. Other rookies: Darryl Kile, Luiz Gonzales, Kenny Lofton. There were some other young guys I'd never heard of, who were in their first (or only) year with the Astros: Curt Schilling, Steve Finley, Pete Harnisch, Mark McLemore. And a few others, whose names I'd know better in later years: Craig Biggio, Ken Caminiti, Casey Candaele, Jim Deshaies...and coach Phil Garner. I don't remember who I saw on the field that night -- not even who pitched. Mike Scott, one of the better known Astros players, was in his last injury-plagued season, and didn't pitch that night -- I would have remembered that!

The night I went to the Astrodome, the Astros lost -- badly. It was one of many bad losses that year, as they went on to finish with a 65-97 record, one of the worst seasons in franchise history, tied for the most losses in a season. As we are all well aware, the 2011 Astros stand to demolish that record.

I'm telling this story for two reasons: First of all to celebrate how the Internet has made it possible for fans to really stay in the game for their home teams, even if they are exiled far away. Second, and more importantly, to remind us all that a team full of young nobodies one season may be a team full of winners later. The Astros had a .500 season in 1992, and did not have another losing season until 2000. In the meantime, they were first or second in the division 6 times in those 8 years.

So 2011 is a throwaway season - one to groan about or laugh about, depending on your outlook. Maybe both. One long Spring Training, without the nice Florida-in-March weather.  But in losing Oswalt and Berkman and Pence and Bourn (and Wandy today?), we've picked up some young quality players. We've signed a lot of our draft picks, and who doubts that we're due to get the first pick in next summer's draft? By stocking up on prospects and rebuilding our miserable farm teams,  the Astros just might have some fun years ahead.

Now back to our regularly scheduled loss...

Midway Through the Season from Hell

With the All Star Game now in our rear view mirror, the second half of the 2011 season looks like an interminable drudge to the finish -- one where the only thing that the Astros will be competing with is themselves: Will they or won't they be the worst Astros team EVER?

Please do not call think of me as a traitor, but I actually have money on this question: An $18 bet with my sister Elizabeth (the one who has braved Kissimmee with me twice) that the Astros won't win 65 games this year. I actually offered to go lower than that. I was willing to put down money that they wouldn't hit 60. I'm not being negative or unfaithful, just honest: That's how bad this team seems to be. At 94 games, they have a 31-63 record. So unless something happens to drastically improve the team, they are on pace to win about 53 games. Record book stuff indeed.

One could point out that the Astros have often been a late bloomer, with a big bang finish to the season. But there's really no reason to think that's going to happen this year. If anything, it's possible that the Astros' in-flux owners will sell off any of the "stars" who can command some value, reducing the winning rate even further.

Given that I had expected this to be a losing season, I'm actually more cheerful than I sound in this blog. I'm pepping myself up with phrases like:

First Pick
Fresh Blood
Rebuilding
Hope for the Future...

It's what it takes to get through a season that looks like Spring Training for six months. But there are some ominous things floating around that worry me and threaten my longer-term loyalty.

First and foremost is the rumor about moving to the American League. My dad has been advocating this move for years -- he's a retired engineer and likes things to be well designed and balanced, so the lopsided leagues annoy him. But I'm one of those people who think that the Designated Hitter ruins the beauty of the game. Moving the Astros to the AL could be ammunition for moving me from mlb.tv to the Nationals Ballpark. I'm not kidding.

The other ominous thing is the possibility that some of my team favorites may be traded. Yes, I know that change is the nature of the game. Players come, players go. Players are stars, then they aren't. Players retire, players are traded. For a Fan in Exile, even more than a home town fan, continuity is important. When you only get to see the team at Spring Training, and maybe for a few games when they're playing an away game where you live now, you need some continuity of players to keep up your connection and loyalty. For years, Bagwell and Biggio were the poster boys for that continuity. (Literally -- I have a Bagwell/Biggio poster giveaway from 2004 in my office.) Then they retired. The pennant winning Astros players from 2005 started to disappear. Then fan faves Oswalt and Berkman were traded last year.

Now rumor has it that the management is looking to see what they can get for Hunter Pence. Underpants! He's the face of the team, the nice guy everyone loves! The only All Star on the team! Well, duh -- that's why he has value to the other teams who would presumably trade away their prospects to get his bat and his outfield assists to bolster their race to the pennant.

Who else may be on the trading block? Michael Bourn? Wandy?

Now if we could unload El Caballo, I wouldn't quibble.

Change is good. I keep reminding myself that. I keep telling myself that even the worst team in the Major Leagues won't lose all the rest of the games of the season. So I'll keep watching the games, hoping to catch a win once or twice a week. And I'll keep popping up on Twitter, hoping to catch some other Astros fans to commiserate with. But recently, it's mostly been the people who are paid to watch games and talk about the Astros.  If you're reading this, please post a reply. Being an Astros Fan in Exile has gotten to be a very lonely pasttime.

2011 GAMES 67-162: No Comment

I have gotten hopelessly behind in game write-ups for a good reason -- between work, life, and the Astros schedule, I haven't had much time for watching live games. With the Astros losing the vast majority of their games, there is really not much incentive to watch the games that I already know were losses after the fact. Some years, I've made a point of trying to watch at least part of each game, staying up late on Saturday nights to watch the Sabbath games I missed, checking out even the losses to find something to like. This season just isn't like that.

I listen to the broadcasters make excuses, how the team is trying hard, bad luck, if only... But the truth is, we're playing a really bad team, which does not appear to be particularly well managed. Having missed going to Spring Training this year, for the first time since 2004, I never developed the kind of connection to the players that you get from seeing the players in person. And being a fan in exile, I won't see the team play a season game until September, when they come to Washington. Two of the three games against the Nationals will be on the Sabbath - so at most I will get to see the Astros just once the whole season.

I don't really have a problem with cheering for the underdog -- that was most of my childhood growing up in Houston. But it is hard to keep up the connection without other fans to commiserate with -- at the ballgame or online through blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social media. Earlier this season, I used to find plenty of people to tweet with during the games, and we could keep each other company while watching the Astros lose. But recently, when I tweet "Hey #ASTROS FANS..." at the start of a game, no one tweets back. I don't think it's anything personal, of course; I just don't think that many of the other fans are bothering to tweet. Maybe they aren't even bothering to watch the games? Hard to tell.

Last night I turned on the computer after the Sabbath, just in time to watch the Astros lose. Today, I got home from work (proposal season doesn't stop for weekends) just in time to watch the bottom of the 9th, with the Astros down 14-10. With 10 runs scored today, there are probably some fun innings to watch, and maybe I'll do that when they post the game to the archive later this evening. On the other hand, with 14 runs allowed, that's some painfully stinky Astros pitching -- from Happless to Melanconly. Maybe it's a night for a glass of wine and Angry Birds instead.

For the record, I am officially giving up my game write-ups for the year. I'll post to the blog when there's something interesting to comment on (like changes of management or swapping out the entire roster and bringing up the whole Oklahoma City team). I'll keep checking for other fans to tweet with during games -- I'm AstrosFanInXile, in case you're not following me yet. Tweet back! It gets lonely out here in exile.

Meanwhile, I'm going to keep considering whether I should just TRY to cheer for the Nats next year. There's something to be said for actually getting to see your team play now and then!