I was at the Nebulas over the weekend in downtown Austin surrounded by a pleothera of Astros fans who were pretty annoyed at the team. We got to .500 and were riding some momentum and then we faltered against a team that we could have swept.
We won a good game Friday night, but Saturday we had a costly error by one of our big-time players and Sunday, we just couldn’t get anything going.
It was a disappointing weekend, but I wasn’t all that surprised. Unless the offense gets consistent, we are going to be on this rollercoaster all year stringing together a few wins and then running out of gas only to bounce back in a week. I knew it was going to be a long year, but it is frustrating when it could be an easy year to make the playoffs in a division that is winable.
And it doesn’t get any easier tonight as we face Danny Haren and the Diamondbacks, a team that many people are picking to go to the World Series. Arizona has some great talent on their team that is younger and faster than most of the Astros.
How do we win tonight? The way we should win every game: 7 quality innings from the starter, 2 quality innings from the bullpen, a full game of no error baseball from every player on the team and good batting from Berkman, Lee, Pence and Tejada as well as Bourn and Matsui getting on base and playing some small ball.
It’s not some weird formula that I concocted out of a cauldron. It’s a tried-and-true formula that is evidenced by good baseball teams. St. Louis had it over the weekend and Arizona is going to have it. The Astros need to step up to the plate and show us what they are made of before I can feel more confident about them.
Until then, it looks like Astroworld is going to be back and opening early this year.
