AstrosFanInExile

2005 SEASON

Home Stretch Musings...

SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2005 - Six Weeks Left

Into the Home Stretch…

So here’s what I think, with just 6 weeks left of this season: It’s been great. The Astros have been down and up and down again, and they’ll be up again too, I have no doubt. I’ve never spent so much of my life focusing on baseball, and I don’t know if I’ll do it again to this extent in future years. But coming into this season, I believed – against all odds and baseball pundits – that this would be the year that the Astros would go to the World Series. No special insight or intuition involved, just a feeling that if they are going to do it while Biggio and Bagwell are still the heart of the team, it needed to be this year. That’s why I went to Spring Training, and why I decided to watch and write about every game of the season. For no good reason at all, I believed this would be the year, and I thought I’d be the witness for it.

I had no idea that Bagwell would miss most of the season, and I thought that it might be Biggio’s last year. Wrong on both counts: Biggio’s having a good season, and I’d be amazed if they don’t re-sign him for next year; he’ll probably want to go for his 3000th hit. Bagwell’s iffy; he might be back at bat before the end of the season, or he might be back next year – or not. But I don’t want to think that I’ll never see him crouching at the plate again.

It turns out that I am a very poor oracle. Reviewing the second-half predictions that I wrote right after the All Star break, I recognize that my prophesies are little more than enthusiastic wishful thinking, mostly best-case scenarios. If they came to pass, I could whip them out and shout “I told you so” to all the naysayers who were ready to throw in the towel back in April and May. The only prediction that I had dead right, so far, was that the Astros would go into a slump in August: “The Astros will have one bad spell –10 or 12 days – in August. Other than that, they will be a kick-ass team in the second half.” The first part has come to pass on this homestand (or maybe it has been the whole month?); the “kick-ass” part is still to come. I’ll have to come back on October 2, after the last regular-season game, to go through my mid-season predictions and evaluate them. It may turn out that I’ve got a few right after all.

So what are my predictions now, or my wishful thinking, if that’s a more accurate description? I still think that the Astros will make the playoffs. With 6 weeks to go, a lot can happen, but they are within a game of the NL Wild Card lead. Every NL East team is positioned to make a run for the playoffs, and the Cubs and the Brewers probably still maintain fantasies too. But there’s no reason to give up hope that the Astros will win the spot.

However, I have given up my wild-and-crazy fantasy that the Astros would overtake the Cards for the NL Central division lead; I should have given up on that bit of magical thinking when St. Louis swept the series after the All Star break. At this point, I generally only give a passing glance at the Cardinals scores, when they aren’t playing Houston. Yeah, yeah, the Cards win again, so what… I am more interested in how Chris Carpenter does, as I see him as the impediment to one of the Astros winning the Cy Young. But there’s no time left to challenge St. Louis; that’s probably been true since May.

September Sights: The Batting

I do believe my own prediction that the Astros’ dry spell in August is temporary, and that they will kick ass through the end of the season. They are losing painful, close games now, the same way they lost at the beginning of the season – with poor showings at the plate. Berkman’s been cold all month, and Ensberg’s got a nice little slump going. Without these two power hitters doing their thing, the Astros would be in trouble.

But players are streaky and so are teams. There’s no reason, barring injury, for players like Berkman and Ensberg to continue to slump at the plate. Good batters go hot and cold and then hot again, and I’d expect to see the Astros’ good batters to get hot in September. I’m expecting to see some wild and crazy blowout games in the next few weeks, with lots of home runs from Berkman and Ensberg. And I’m hoping to see, as Richard Justice suggests, Jason Lane in an every-day role, becoming the power hitter that he has the potential to become. And Biggio’s more than due for a few more long balls…

Power hitting and lots of home runs would be a big help, but so would lots of singles in a row, aggressive running, and clutch hitting. Garner has already shown that running is part of the new Astros game, with speedy young guys like Taveras. I won’t be surprised if this year’s September call-up includes another Taveras-like player, to use as a pinch runner in late innings.

September Sights: The PItching

I think that I’ll see some amazing feats at the plate from the Astros’ rotation, and continued dependable relief pitching. I always expect great stuff from Clemens, Oswalt, and Pettitte. A big-bang finale could put two of them in contention for the Cy Young. Wandy and Zeke have been the kind of pitchers one would expect – very promising rookies with moments of brilliance and lots of control issues. Hopefully, Backe will come back from his injury soon, and resure his spot in the rotation before the season ends. I’d expect that he’d have some rough edges, but would make some real contributions to the team success too.

The relief pitching has been better than I ever expected. Lidge is so masterful that when he’s not perfect, it’s shocking and disappointing, but I expected that. But Wheeler has really developed into a tough reliever, and Qualls has improved a lot from the beginning of the season. Springer’s looking good too. Even Gallo, who I have historically bad-mouthed (sorry!), has turned himself into something that resembles a lefty specialist.

Why I Love the Astros

I know in my head, if not my heart, that the Astros might not make the playoffs. They might continue to slump for the rest of the season. They might lose a lot of close games. They might make me groan, but they won’t make me boo them. I never boo my own team.

It’s not because they never lose. It’s because I never think that they are losers. In the end, a good baseball team is one that wins games, I know that. But, in the end, a baseball team with good guys is one that wins hearts too, and that’s why I love the Astros.

In today’s Washington Post, the Nats’ manager Frank Robinson is quoted regarding his frustration with his team, talking about how he’s yelled at them, and how he thinks that the players might need to beat up on each other to whip up some winning energy. I’m trying to imagine the Astros’ players beating up on each other -- without success. Maybe when the reporters aren’t around, they are a bunch of mean-spirited ugly guys. But that’s not the way that they seem. They seem like a bunch of nice, hard-working guys who take their own contribution to heart, and who beat up on themselves when they don’t perform.

Take Ensberg and Berkman’s comments on yesterday’s loss:

Ensberg (on his first-inning fielding error): "The blame for this game should be 100 percent on me. When I rushed that ground ball trying to get the guy at home and we end up losing by one, that's the game right there."

Berkman (who’s batting .220 during this dismal homestand): "You can't put it all on one person or one thing, but I feel if I would have swung the bat better this homestand, we would have won a few more games. I feel like I'm in a pivotal spot in the offense, and I am expected to produce and expect myself to come through."

The Rocket has been burned time and time again by lack of support from the Astros’ lineup. He’s not known for a career of being a really nice guy, but he’s bent over backwards not to play blame games this year. It’s pretty obvious that with his low ERA, he’d have 20 wins easily this year, but for lack of run support. He’d be pretty much a shoe-in for the Cy Young. Maybe he goes home and bitches about it. Maybe he grumbles to his friends. Maybe he curses them when he mutters to himself. I haven’t seen him say it in print though. Instead, he’s quoted saying that these things happen in a career, it’s happened to him before, and will happen again. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t.

It’s a reflection of a team that has a reputation for being solid sports citizens. I don’t know how many times I’ve read comments that Jeff Bagwell is the finest human being, the utmost professional in the game. If Richard Justice had his way, Bagwell would be a backup player for God. I’ve seen lots of self-deprecatory comments from Bagwell, but I’ve never heard him trash his teammates. Same with Biggio.

I love the way the relief pitchers talk about being a team, one for all, all for one. Maybe in secret they are as cranky and jealous of each other as Jim Bouton in Ball Four. But I’d like to think that they’re as close as the sportswriters report.

So, okay, if Robinson thinks that it will help the Nats to pick on each other, that’s fine for them. But not for my team.

The other thing I love about the Astros is the constancy of the team: It’s a team that, for the most part, has stayed with its players a long time. The 15-year-long Bagwell-Biggio partnership is probably the most emblematic aspect of the team identity: Two guys who have played well, side by side, on the same team for their whole careers. Berkman, down with his knee injury last fall, was signed to a long-term contract; the Astros clearly want him to be part of the next generation of career Astros. I love knowing that next spring I’m likely to see the killer Bs again.

I also love the kids on the team this year. Willie T has been as good as anyone could have hoped, and better than anyone could have really expected. He’s a real contender for Rookie of the Year, and he’s set new team records for infield hits and bunt singles. Lane’s finally starting to show his stuff, and is going to be great in the future. Burke’s not a great hitter yet, but he looks like one at the plate. When I think of the Astros without Bagwell and Biggio, in the years ahead after they retire, it’s with a lot of sadness. But I know that I’m going to be (almost!) as attached to the next generation of Astros players.

Back in July, after the All Star break, I was watching daily to see if the Astros would manage to make a trade for another hot bat, just one more good hitter who could help them get to the playoffs. Then, as July 31 was approaching, I started to realize that a trade goes both ways, that to get another bat they’d need to lose some players from the team or prospects from their farm teams. And I started to wonder: Who would I want to lose? And I couldn’t think of anyone who’d be worthwhile for the other team to trade for, who I wouldn’t be sad to see go.

Being a really loyal fan of an out-of-town team takes some energy. People think you’re kind of nutty. I know lots of people who don’t live in New York, who are Yankees bigots. Personally I can’t see the attachment to such a snotty team, but they enjoy that kind of unreasoning loyalty. That’s what I feel for the Astros – but of course, my attachment is much more reasonable and certainly better deserved.

Bottom Line

In truth, I don’t know if the Astros will win the Wild Card, or if they’ll get far in the playoffs, should they make it that far. The good news is that they wouldn’t have to play the Cards in the first round. I have no real reason to think that the Astros can make it to the World Series this year. But there wasn’t any good reason to think that last year either, and they got really, really close. So it doesn’t hurt to just irrationally maintain my wishful thinking and believe…

And, of course, there’s always next year, with Biggio signed again, and Bagwell back, and the rookies settling in…

I can’t wait until Spring Training.