Astros Play Badly, Pitch Badly And Lose Series To The Mets' Bench Players

There is this fantasy that baseball fans cling to, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts because humbleness beats greatness ("Bad News Bears" and all kabillion of the remakes of this theme using other teams, other sports, etc). Yes, lightning strikes happen, teams get hot and go on a run (us in 04, Rox in 07) but teams with better players and adept managers win more than teams with mediocre players and lousy managers. I think that this obsession with fantasy is why so many people hate (mostly) guys with spreadsheets, who try to examine the FACTS without prejudice. I also think it is why we hear stuff (and nonsense) about "The Golden Age Of Baseball" which supposedly occurred back in the 50s. Here's what I see - there were 8 teams/league and in the AL, the Yankees won the pennant every single year from 1947 to 1964 except for 54 (Indians) and 59 (White Sox); in the NL, over those same years, the Giants/Dodgers won 12 of the pennants - you see a few outliers such as the Phils in 1950 and the Pirates in 1960 and the Reds in 61, but HOW is it "Golden" to have the best teams constantly in NY? Unless, of course, you happen to live there? If, by the way, you look at the top 10 position players and the top 10 pitchers from those years, you will find that almost all of them came from NY teams. It's just imagination - Golden, my left - um, ear??? Or the insistance that baseball players didn't care about the money (which is why Drysdale and Koufax held out in 64) or that they were "humble." There must be around a zillion columns today written by paid baseball columnists proclaiming that Rickey Is FINALLY "Humble." HUMBLE??? Do those writers, who spit on us umble bloggers, because unlike them, we don't have that all important degree in journalism, even bother to look up the meaning of words? Here, according to dictionary.com, is the meaning of "humble" - not proud or arrogant; modest; have a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience; low in rank, importance, status, quiality... What top notch athlete is "humble?" No professional athlete would graduate from Little League if he was, in fact, "humble." How many of those self same guys in the HOF pimped themselves to reporters, insisting they were great (say, Jim Ed Rice, Ryan Sandberg, Goose Gossage.) But it is just a fantasy on the part of fans and reporters. I get so tired of all the Back In The Good Old Days how Things Were The Way They Were Supposed To Be. There never was any such time. And the fact is that no matter when the time is, you gotta take the good with the bad, as my Mama always says. And sorry, I'm not going to join in the silly fantasy that Back Then, all the baseball players had no ego, thought only of The Team and The Game, had no interest in money, committed no sins, never would EVAH have tried something like (shudder) steroids to make themselves better, or play better and just felt lucky that they were able to effortlessly lucky to continue to play their little boy's game when they were adults and were all surprised and dumbfounded and grateful to have a museum bestow an unwarranted "honor" upon them, much as some long ago king would have walked up to some nameless, hardworking penniless peasant and made him a lord. And so what does all of this have to do with the modern day reality of the Houston Astros Baseball Club? Namely this: fact is that in spite of luck etc, the Astros are simply not good enough to win the pennant, barring fortunate circimstances such as season ending injuries to most of the other teams' good players, and even that won't be enough, seeing as how we have a catcher who calls for fastballs to be thrown to one of the worst regular position players in baseball who bout every fan knows can NOT hit any other sort of pitch, seeing as how we have some of the worst baserunners in the NL (just watch the replay of Pence getting CS in the first) and seeing as how we just lost 2 games to a team which has one good pitcher and one good regular position player. Am I just being negative again, after watching the putrid pitching of Hampton, Moehler and Ortiz? Well, let's put it THIS way - who out there actually thinks that this team can win the pennant, beating Philly/Atlanta/Dodgers/Rox with Roy, Wandy and pray for 3 days of some reason that games can't be played? Hampton, Ortiz and Moehler are the 2009 version of Pete Munro, and we all know how well THAT worked out. This team isn't hitting for spit with runners on, this team hits into WAYYYY too many DPs and runs into WAYYYYY too many outs on the basepaths (we are the second worst in baserunning in the NL, next to the Nats.) Also, you'll notice that unlike the Cards and some AL teams, we have NO good young virtually ML-ready players or prospects (besides Jason Castro The Untouchable One) to trade for someone GOOD (translation - expensive) such as Halliday or Cliff Lee or a Holliday-like hitter. Yes we DO have Bud Norris and Yorman Bazardo at AAA, and yes they are the top 2 pitchers in the PCL, but we have a manager who hates young players and doesn't exactly put them in a position to succeed, to put it mildly. We have no good hitters who could replace Jason Worthless Michaels and The Gritmeister - that is, if Fast Eddie/Cooper even wanted to replace them, which they don't seem to want to. sigh And we're off to Wrigley, where the Cubs have been on a hot streak lately. Tonight, it's Wandy vs Zambrano. Wandy hasn't had a good time at Wrigley, let's put it that way - he's started 5 games over 24 IP and has a 8.25 ERA there and yes, I know all about his inability to pitch away in 06 and 07. THis year, he beat the Cubs (at home) giving up 5 hits and 1 solo homer for 1 ER/7 IP. Last year, he pitched 1 game at Wrigley, and it was UGLY, gave up 6 ER/5 IP. In 07, he had one horrific game - 7 ER/3.1 IP and one excellent game, 0 ER/6 IP. DLee and Riot have hit him well and hit him hard, so he best pitch carefully to them. We know only too well that Zambrano usually pitches well against us - he has a lifetime 2.86 ERA over 180.2 IP, and he's also pitching well at home this year - 3.86 ERA over 51.1 IP. And I don't mind missing Lance Berkman at Wrigley, because for some reason, he doesn't hit worth a darn there - he says he doesn't se the ball well there, for some reason, and he doesn't: .231/.360/.409/.761 over 247 PA, his worst BA/OPS by 80 points over any other stadium in which he has had at least 80 AB. Yes, this has indeed been a gloom & doom entry. Anyone out there to cheer me up, show how I'm wrong?