Holy shit holy shit holy shit

First, I'm glad Ike will miss us and go towards South Texas. Corpus Christi's a beautiful town (and it gave us Whataburger!), but it can take a hit from a hurricane better than New Orleans. Godspeed, little buddies.

Second, holy shit the Astros are only 4 games back of Milwaukee. So, in the grand scheme of things, we "only" need to win 5 games more than the Brewers over the next 16. It's possible. After last night, BP posted new ELO odds on the NL Wild Card. ELO gives weight to recent performance, so teams on a hot streak have better odds than those on a losing streak. Our Wild Card odds are at 8.9%. That's still really low, but it's manageable. Milwaukee is down to 51%. It's entirely possible that Milwaukee will blow this thing. St. Louis has won its last 3 games, but its WC odds are slightly worse than ours.

Philly is the problem in all of this. With a 15% chance of grabbing the WC right now, they have the best chance of the non-Brewer teams. But they're scuffling hard right now.

I've said it elsewhere, and I'll say it here. This is luck. This is a hot streak coming right at the end and there not being time for the universe to even out. In 2004 and 2005, the Astros made fantastic runs because their luck finally evened out - their teams finally performed as they should have.

2004 wasn't "magical." Think about who was on that team: Clemens, Bagwell, Biggio, Oswalt, Beltran, Berkman, and Kent. That's four certain hall-of-famers right there (well, maybe not Clemens, but he should be) and three awesome players of our era (Puma, Wizard, and Jackal).

2005 was more "magical." Offense sucked that year, but Pettitte got healthy and delivered for the team. Pitching got us where it did.

But now, the team is made up of a few stars (Berkman, Oswalt, Lee), one washed-up has-been (Tejada), and the cobbled-together cast-offs from other, better teams. That's pretty cool.

I'll say this: Randy Wolf has panned out much better than I thought. Ed Wade was right about the guy. He's not as good as he once was, but he's still a fine pitcher. He did well last night, even when he had some control issues in the first inning and the ump squeezed him the whole game.

And Wade's tinkering with the bullpen has paid off, too. Valverde is awesome. Geary, Wesley, and Sampson are awesome. Byrdak is serviceable, as is Brokail. Nieve and (surprisingly) Arias look good. Most surprising, however, is LaTroy Hawkins.

Hawkins' best days are behind him. Hell, they were behind him pretty quickly into his career. But he's always been a solid reliever (just don't let him close). Honestly, his sudden ejection from New York was pretty weird. The Yankees need pitching more than anyone in the AL East (except the O's, but they don't count cuz they suck). Why jettison a guy who has done well? He's not the guy he was in 2002, but he can still keep the ball in the yard. And that's what's really important, particularly in late-inning situations.

So, Ed Wade has done well with the pitching staff. The Villareal and Chacon debacles aside, the pitching staff is better today than it was last year. And it's pitching that has gotten the Astros to this point. Maybe they'll be able to close out the season with some self-respect, but they might just be able to end the season in October.