Astros update

Ok, since not much else is going on right now, I felt like this would be a great opportunity to talk about the Astros as we near the end of the first quarter of the season. As it stands today, the Astros currently have a 13-24 record fresh off being swept by the Giants (A team who had just come off a large losing streak of its own). Sadly, many, if not all, of the predictions I made at the beginning of the season have come true.

The Astros currently hold the 2nd worst record in baseball, trailing the historically miserable Baltimore Orioles by only 1 game. The team batting average is hovering around .230. The usual offensive power of Berkman and Lee is nowhere to be found as both of them are hitting near .200. Kaz Matsui, one of the worst signings of the organization in the past 2 decades, is struggling to keep his batting average above .100. The offense simply isn’t here this year. And this isn’t like years past where the offense was bad. The ‘stros are literally losing games 2-1 and 1-0.

And that brings up the sole prediction I made this year that turned out to be wrong. The pitching has been nothing short of phenomenal. Roy Oswalt has an ERA of 2.62 and a 2-5 record to show for it. It has got to be demoralizing as a pitching knowing that if you give up 2 runs there is a really good chance of you losing the game. Knowing that you have to be nothing short of perfect every single time you trot out there cannot be healthy for your state of mind. And it isn’t just Oswalt, Myers and Wandy are also having good, solid outings with little to show in the win column for their efforts.

Sadly, I believe this kind of performance is necessary for management to wake up and make some hard decisions. As much as I hate to say it, we need to start looking into gutting the team. And I mean REALLY gutting. Oswalt said he would be willing to relinquish his no trade clause in exchange for going to a contender, and I cant really blame him. Berkman too says he would be willing to part ways with the club if it meant going with a team that looks like it is headed in the right direction. Along with Lee and Matsui, those 4 guys comprise the majority of the Astros budget.

I would really like to see the Astros building a team around the young talent on the club. I think they need to lock up Pence and Bourn long term now while they are still young. After that, they need to get back to the way they build the World Series team, by getting young talent from the draft and farm clubs. They need to stop signing overpaid, overweight (cheap shot), old players that are past their prime. Sadly, we gave up so much of our farm clubs to acquire big name hot shots like Carlos Beltran back in 2004. Since then they have just been going through the motions it seems, trying to buy championships instead of developing them.

Watching the team score 0-2 runs a game is getting old fast. I’ve been noticing fewer and fewer people at the home games. I can only hope that the team doesn’t descend into darkness for the next 16 years like the Pirates who haven’t had a winning season in nearly 20 years. Hopefully this “rebuilding year” will actually be a year with rebuilding. I’m not holding my breath…