Congratulations are in store for the Houston Astros who, this weekend, got their first three-game sweep of the season by beating up the moribund San Diego Padres. Of course, the Astros didn’t have to face Padres ace Jake Peavy in this series, and they struggled in all three games.
But despite a season-best record of 14-17, things aren’t all fine and dandy with the Astros. After being bumped from third to fifth in the batting order before Friday’s game, slumping slugger Lance Berkman suddenly developed a wrist injury which caused him to miss all three games of the San Diego series. And off-season free agent acquisition Russ Ortiz wasn’t exactly pleased with management when he was bumped from the rotation and assigned to long-relief duties.
Closer Jose Valverde is probably out until mid-June, which leaves the
closing duties to LaTroy Hawkins, who has failed as a closer for just
about every team he’s pitched for. Doug Brocail is out until July. Roy
Oswalt is pitching with a bone bruise — though he managed to hang on
for the victory yesterday despite the bullpen doing everything possible
to let the Padres get back into the game. And Oswalt, the team’s
supposed ace, just got his first victory of the season yesterday.
Kaz
Matsui is still a bust at second base. Pudge Rodriguez is finally
beginning to hit a little, but his numbers are still hanging around in
Brad Ausmus territory. With the exception of Wandy Rodriguez (of all
people), the starting rotation generally has trouble making it through
the fifth inning. The bullpen is disappointing, but that’s probably
something that comes from overuse.
And for even further proof of the team’s suckitude, how about the fact they just re-signed Jason Smith four days after designating him for assignment to Round Rock. After
Smith passed through waivers, he refused to report to Round
Rock and became a free agent. But with Berkman and his mysterious wrist
injury, the Astros were short a bench player, and lacking any worthy
minor leaguers, the team went and re-signed Smith despite the mediocre
31-year-old batting a healthy .000.
Hell, even Jose de Jesus Ortiz has given up on the Astros. When he gives up on the Astros, then you know the team
is bad. And to show how things have reversed, it’s now Brian McTaggart
who’s writing the heartfelt and sappy blog posts about how lucky the city is to be associated with various people — in
this case, Lance Berkman (of course, it’s possible that this blog post
is the result of McTaggart being exhausted because, with the Chron‘s
house-cleaning back in March, the poor guy’s having to fly all over the
country and cover every team in the city of Houston). Not that that
forgives the fact that Berkman, who’s out with this sudden wrist
injury, is batting just .184 with a meager .325 on-base percentage and
16 RBI.
But despite all of that, I’ve got to confess that I
wouldn’t be surprised to see the Astros return to Houston with at least
a break-even record. That’s because they get to play three games with
the Colorado Rockies who are making the Padres look like a good team,
then get to follow that with three games in Chicago against a Cubs team
that is suddenly beset with injuries.
This article appears in May 7-13, 2009.
