The Co-Ards have had trouble with pitching all year. From the extraordinary, untimely death of Darryl Kile to run of the mill injuries to Woody Williams and all points in between. So what do they go and do? Trade away two pitchers, that’s what they do. Whaaaaa?

OK. So Rolen is an upgrade over Polanco at 3B. His defense is special, and it does the Co-Ards the huge favour of keeping Pujols off the hot corner. Of course, this puts AlbErt into LF where he’s rapidly garnering a reputation every bit as good as Dimitry Young. ESPN says that this is a good thing because Pujols hits better when he plays LF. Huh?

With the stick, Rolen has better plate discipline and more pop than Placido. But then Polanco hit #2 most of the time, so they’re not really comparable in the line up. I await with baited breath what arrangement Co Russa will make out of this. What I do know is, Rolen will have to generate a shit load of runs. Read the rest of this entry »

So. Drayton’s losing money and is threatening to sell the club if there’s a strike. Well he better get his e-bay posting ready, because here it comes folks.

Did anyone hear Richard Justice on 610AM today (7/17)? Apparently, the owners vs. players meetings have been so bad that at one point a players’ rep. (not Fehr) and an owner (Angelos I think he said) got into it pretty hard and started f-bombing each other. The players’ rep. stormed out of the room and had to be calmed down.

The owners say that they’ve put a comprehensive offer to the players, but have heard nothing. The players’ reps say that they’ve made concessions to the owners, but aren’t getting any feedback. The players are making Selig the issue; the owners are making steroids the issue. Bud wants to tour the locker rooms because he doesn’t trust Fehr’s boys to be disseminating the correct information (no one has yet suggested that he wants to tour because he misses getting to see the players naked).

It’s Armageddon time, people. Grab yer ankles and kiss MLB goodbye. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.

The favorite sport of many who call themselves fans of the Houston Astros does not appear to be baseball.  Their favorite sport seems to be “Jimy-bashing,” and it looks like a very easy game to master.  To be an accomplished practitioner, one has to take note of decisions or moves Jimy Williams makes during games, keep absolutely silent if the decisions work and, in the most strident tones possible, rail at or ridicule the ones that do not work.  There is no way the Jimy-basher can be wrong because he or she only points out decisions that have not turned out well for the Astros.  The refrain is if Jimy had only … everything would have been different and better.  Jimy-bashers have raised second-guessing to an art form and are infallible.  To confirm this, just ask them.  Jimy Williams gets bashed in Texas and other Astros environs, but second-guessing a baseball manager or coach is part of our national fabric. Read the rest of this entry »

By Scott
Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com on July 11, 2002.

So I don’t write much around here, but I figured in the wake of the recent turmoil and our decision to hang ‘em up after 6 years, I should probably chime in to 1) remind everyone that I exist and 2) just talk a bit about what the experience of running this site with Kev has meant to me. If you’re not interested in the nuts and bolts of the site or my personal ramblings, you can check out now and save yourself some time. But I figure there’s been a lot worse crap written on this site, and if that can fly as content, well then I think y’all can tolerate me for a spell. Read the rest of this entry »

Third place, 6.5 games out, 41-45 wouldn’t have sounded too promising leaving spring training. Given where the Astros looked to be heading a couple of weeks ago, though, it’s a fairly decent accomplishment. Since dropping three of four to the Brewers and two of three to the Mariners in mid-June, the Astros have run off 10 wins in 13 games, moving to within four games of .500. That’s progress considering that the Astros finished the Seattle series 10 games below even.

Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note - This article originally appeared on AstrosConnection.com.
 

It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it.
It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel…

Queasy. Even though I’ve known this announcement was coming for a couple of weeks, seeing it glowing ominously on my CRT this morning, it still feels like a sharp shot to the gut, and makes it all too real.

So whether this site exists until the end of the week or the end of the season, to steal from the “Naked Gun”, I feel like I’ve swallowed a gallon of Clorox…I’m cleaned out but I’m all hollow inside. The truth is, I feel like I’m writing a eulogy for a dear friend. Read the rest of this entry »