Okay, so this isn’t exactly a newsflash, but seriously… how can we go to San Francisco and not only score zero runs in two days, but give up 22 runs?  22?  ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?

This is unacceptable.  I know it was Tim Lincecum and some unknown named Sadowski (who actually pitched better than Lincecum), but this is still unacceptable.  It’s unacceptable for the best team in baseball and the worst team in baseball.  It’s unacceptable in the College World Series down to Middle School teams.  In fact, it’s only acceptable in t-ball.

I am tired of watching the Astros get a little bit of mojo going only to completely flake out against a team that they should be able to beat.  Yes, the Giants are decent this year, but they aren’t 22-runs decent.

Remind me again why we aren’t going after Pedro Martinez?  Surely he would be a good #5 pitcher in the rotation.  Wouldn’t he?

And we can’t blame Cooper or Dewey Robinson.  Paulino and Ortiz were awful.  Just awful.  And now poor Roy Oswalt has to go up against Randy Johnson today to try to recover some of the Astros’ respect before they head back home.  Johnson is having a good season and he is a future Hall of Famer.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Houston pulled an Ike and got shutout again.

Okay, venting over.

All-Star News

The Astros never get named to the All-Star team.  Part of a problem of living somewhere other than the northeast, Chicago or California.  So with as bad as they have been this year, you would expect only a token player to be placed on the team.  I assumed that token player would be Miguel Tejada and I was right, but there was a surprise second player named: Hunter Pence.

Hunter is having a good season and he deserves to be on an All-Star; I am just surprised that the powers that be figured that out.

Doubly surprised that the second player wasn’t Wandy Rodriguez.  He hasn’t been as good as he was at the start of the season, but his stats are still pretty good.  Point of fact, Wandy is 7-6 with a 3.21 ERA.  Ted Lilly, who was named to the team, is 7-6 with a 3.35 ERA.  Mind you, Lilly was the only Cub to make the team, so I guess you can’t really compare the two.

That’s another surprise. How did 2 Astros make the team and only 1 Cub?  Don’t the Cubs have some kind of rule with Bud Selig that they get to have at least 2 players on the team?

There are a lot of head scratches this year, but in a good way.  It actually looks like the coaches were trying to pick the best players rather than making the northeast happy.

Who knows?  If they got rid of the “every team has a player” rule, then Wandy could have very well been included in the roster.  It’s going to be a really interesting game, that’s for sure.

A friend of mine (writer and editor Rick Klaw) sent me a website recently that had some really good stuff, so I wanted to forward the address to you.

Joel Reuter of the BleacherReport.com did an article titled “The 10 Best Pitching Seasons in Houston Astros Franchise History” and it should be required viewing for any die-hard Astros fan.  Here is the list…

1. Mike Scott, 1986
2. Randy Johnson, 1998
3. J.R. Richard, 1979
4. Mike Hampton, 1999
5. Nolan Ryan, 1981
6. Roger Clemens, 2004
7. Roy Oswalt, 2004
8. Darryl Kile, 1997
9. Joe Niekro, 1979
10. Larry Dierker, 1969

To see the stats and Joel’s comments on each season, read the article “The 10 Best Pitching Seasons in Houston Astros Franchise History” in full.  It’s quick, but great reading.