I have no idea if Porter is a decent tactical manager or not, he just has nothing to work with. Give him some talent and we'll see. His guys have played hard, and it would be easy for an epically historically terrible team to start sniping and b****ing and pissing and moaning in the press and whatnot, but there's been a minimal amount of that (Lucas). That, the clubhouse, has to count for something, because character does matter and anyone who was a fan of the Stros from ~93-05 knows this. "Losing is a disease...as contagious as bubonic plague, attacking one but infecting all."
I'm a little unsure as to why Porter kept Lo in after he had walked the bases loaded and walked in the tying run today.
To me on a rebuilding team like ours, my only fear of a manager is that he let some young phenom pitcher throw until his arm falls off. Everything to me is basically unimportant. I mean, AL managers are generally the least important managerial position of all sports. As long as locker room chemistry is fine, that's all I need to believe the manager is doing a good job.