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Dickie J's blog is always a good source of bullshit. From today's entry:

GM Ed Wade blew up the roster last winter, and in the end, gave us an interesting season.

What? Ed wade didn't "[blow] up the roster." He sold off some bench players, back-of-the-bullpen pitchers, go-nowhere AAA "prospects," and one of the best relievers in the game for an all-star shortstop (who tanked the season). Methinks that Dickie's definition of "blow up" is suspect.

Let's read on:

They ranked in the top five in OPS in just two positions--first baseman and left field. They were in the top five in OBP in the same two positions. They were near the bottom of the NL in production in center field, third base and catcher.

Wade's first difficult question will concern Ty Wigginton and Michael Bourn.

Bourn I can understand - he's been absolutely awful this year and will probably lose his roster spot to Bogusevic sometime next season. But Wiggy's been nails all season long. Even before he had that ridiculous August, the guy was 3rd in OBP on the team.

Here's why we've gotten so little production from 3rd - Coop doesn't play Wiggy every day. He's played the last month in left, and even before then, Coop felt compelled to give Blum or Loretta playing time at third. Wigginton is not why the Astros had poor production at the left corner. He's why it's not completely dreadful.

Here's the thing: Wiggy has only had 419 PA's this year. That's the lowest he has had since he was called up in 2002. The guy is good. He can play. Just put him in, dammit!

Not a good weekend...

...for either my home town or my adopted city. First, Houston is hit with a true monster of a storm. Then, its baseball team puts up 18 innings of 1-hit ball. A good portion of its multi-million dollar football stadium's roof is torn asunder, meaning that the Texans will face an even more brutal schedule. Much of Houston is without power.

The Saints lost (don't really care, but Reggie Bush put up a 2.8 yds/carry game, which is always hi-fucking-larious). The Green Wave got its second "almost-but-not-quite" upset of the season.

The lone good point: Matt Forte put up 4.0 yds/carry with the Bears on Sunday. Awesome. One of my friends has him on his fantasy team, so good for him. As he pointed out, Forte has all the markers of a great running back. He's got great speed. He's physically powerful. He's got good vision and intelligence. And he can catch, to boot. The only reason he was a surprise in the 2nd round of the draft was because he came from Tulane and not LSU, USC, Texas, OSU etc.

On the bright side for me: we got almost 100 people to sign up for the debate society. If even a third of that shows up, we're doing good. It looks like we're going to have a great year.

I'd like to talk a little more about Coop.

As I posted over at the Crawfish Boxes, Coop has really improved over the last year. He's no longer doing the "small-ball" shit that was helping to lose games in April. He still doesn't just sit back and wait for our hitters to score, and I think he still orders stupid shit like the hit-and-run play WAY too often, but he's managed well.

More importantly, he's kept the bullpen in good shape. He's been handed a pretty good bullpen, and he usually distributes the work fairly evenly. He gets Wesley experience and puts the ball in the hands of Sampson, Hawkins or Brocail if we're in a jam. He keeps the pitchers well rested. That's great.

And he sticks up for his charges. He knows when the Astros are getting fucked. There's nothing wrong if a manager gets thrown out of the game, and he's willing to go to line for his guys (hell, he chewed out the commissioner!).

That's all you need from a manager. You don't need (or really want) guys like LaRussa or Torre. You just want a guy who can manage the bullpen, keep everyone in line, and who will argue the bad calls so his players don't have to.

Astros winning, bunch of other crap I'm thinking about

It's now the middle of the 6th inning, and the Astros are up by 5. Good jobs, dudes.

The biggest single "play" so far was a blown call by 1b ump Winters. Shumaker came in to field a short Q fly ball, dove, and couldn't make it. The call wasn't even close. The ball bounced up into Schumaker's glove. However, Mike Winters is a little bitch, and he wouldn't even get the other umps together to check the call, and then he throws Coop out. Winters has a rep as a dick, too. At least Coop was following one of Earl Weaver's rules of management.

One of the highlights was Schumaker going up onto Tal's Hill to field a Puma FB, tripping, and Berkman getting a triple. I was reading one of the Cardinals blogs/forums to see reactions to the bullshit call (at least they knew it was crap), and saw this posted in response:

I've seen it before, and I still think it's fuckin hilarious.

I love Tal's hill. I love the Crawford boxes. I hope they dig a fucking trench between the infield and the outfield, so that infielders can't field popups. That'd be fucking great. It's great hearing opposing fans bitch about the hill and the boxes and the flagpole.

I don't like a lot of things about MMPUS, but I'm rather fond of the stupid quirks. Boston and Chicago have theirs, why can't we have some? We spent thirty-five years in a giant concrete bubble. This is another extreme.

Let's see...

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I saw the ECU-Virginia Tech game this afternoon. That was pretty epic, with a returned blocked PAT by VT, and a final blocked punt by ECU returned for a TD. ECU won, and that was pretty cool. Their probably going to win C-USA this year. It's always cool to see a smaller conference win against a larger one, even if it is the ACC.

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Q is so awesome as a defensive catcher. If the guy could hit a lick, we'd be in business. He doesn't even have to get up to throw out most base-runners. Cool. Very powerful throw. Wish I had his arm.

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I hate Houston fans' obsession with the wave. Goddamn it's stupid.

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That blown Winters call really underscores the instant-replay thing. What would be so wrong with replaying calls like that? The heart of the "games take too long" problem is the offensive explosion. Games didn't take as long in the 70s and 80s because hitters weren't as good. Fewer hits meant fewer pitches, which meant less time. An extra two minutes a game (maybe), wouldn't mean too much.

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I see our bench coach subscribes to Coop and Garner's philosophy of trigger-happy bullpen management. No reason to pull Byrdak out of the 8th inning.

And of course, Pujols hits a FP homer. Fuck. Now it's 8-5 Astros. Looks like Papa Grande is coming in, after all.

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I like our choice of Deep in the Heart of Texas as a stretch song better than that "God Bless America" crap. I hate that fucking song.

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Hey! Miggy hit into a DP! According to JD, Ausmus holds the NL season record for GIDP (30 in 2002). God, I love this shitty team.