The Bvich Report

It is 12:43 in the morning on Wednesday August 16. (By the way, happy birthday Paul.) Any Astros fans who also happen to be creatures of the night have just suffered through a disappointing five and a half hour marathon.

For a second it felt like the best win of the year for the Astros. Although Roger Clemens was not up to form and the Astros fell behind early 5-2, Houston had managed to claw its way back with a four run rally in the sixth inning to carry a 6-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth.

I should have figured that nothing good could come out of Aggie night at Minute Maid Park. Sure enough, the Astros started to play like the Aggies would against Baylor.

Actually, they started playing like the 2006 Houston Astros.

Brad Lidge came on to hold the one run lead in the ninth. He responded by going ahead on the Chicago Cubs' Matt Murton 0-2, then giving up a solo home run to left field, good for his fifth blown save of the season, not making it out of the ninth inning and padding his already massive 5.70 ERA going into Tuesday's matchup.

What ensued was not only what we have been seeing all year in the Bayou City, but also what will make me regret wanting to grab a few beers at the B.U.S. before Wednesday's 1:05 PM start.

The Astros offense started squandering opportunities. Bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the tenth. Runners on first and second with no outs in the bottom of the twelfth. In the nine extra innings of baseball played, the leadoff man reached base in five of those innings. However, the Astros managed to do a great job of stranding every single one of those runners on base.

Despite a heroic relief pitching performance by Dave Borkowski, he would pitch the last six innings of the ballgame, he would get tagged with the loss by giving up two runs in the top of the 18th. With one out and runners on the corners, Phil Garner pulls the infield in. My baseball instincts would tell me that if a double play can get me out of the inning unscathed, then my infield should be sitting in double play depth. Sure enough, Chicago infielder Ronny Cedeno hit a perfect double play ball to Morgan Ensberg at third base. With nobody to cover second, the only play was at first base for the second out. After an intentional walk to Michael Barrett, Murton delivered again with a two run single that put the Cubs up for good.

That was not Garner's first managerial mistake of the night. The first one came around the top of the ninth inning, when Lidge entered the game in a save situation.

I know this may not sound like it has that much of a point, as I am mostly ranting at 1:10 in the morning. But I actually do have a point.

This game should solidify the fact that the Astros just do not have it this year. Teams with it do not lose two series to the Chicago Cubs in two weeks in August. Teams with it do not blow a lead in the top of the ninth that they had to work so hard to reclaim.

The Astros had actually looked like a good ballclub for the past couple of weeks, actually winning 8 of 10 and getting within 1.5 games of Cincinnatti's wild card lead. However, just as I was sipping the Astros' Kool Aid again, they kept me up with indegestion until 12:40 in the morning when I unfortunately vomited that Kool Aid back up.

We are through Houston. The Astros have no closer, an offense that can not even hit a sacrifice fly and a manager that does not make the logical decisions.

It is doubtful that the Astros can turn it around, but in order to, there is no doubt that Dan Wheeler needs to be the go to guy in the ninth inning. With that change, that gives the Astros only a slim chance to make the playoffs for the third year in a row. Even if that happens, however, Texans probably will have to start thinking about football season a little earlier than they are used to.