How un-excited are you about the Astros this season??

Stros are going to suck

 

I'm pumped. Hope springs eternal. Play ball!

had a dream i went to wrigley last night for an astros/cubs matchup and was talking trash to cubs' fans. of course, cubs fans would have to care first to make that dream count.

 

Amen!

I'm pumped about seeing what guys like Lane and Burke can do with many more ABs. I'm excited about watching Backe's progress. It'll be fun to see if Pettitte rebound, last the entire season, and see what kind of impact he can make on our starting rotation. I'm geeked about watching one of the best, if not the best young arm in MLB in Roy Oswalt. I'm gonna cherish watching one of the greatest pitchers ever defend his Cy Young Award while wearing an Astros uniform.

I cannot wait for tomorrow afternoon!! I'm gonna be out on my deck, doing some work in the sunshine while listening to the first spring training game of the year. I may even have an early afternoon beer or three.

 

I'm excited to see how good Lane and Burke et al can be.....but I'm miserable about the fact that it will take a minor miracle or major trade to make the playoffs

 

I forgot about that. I'm also excited to see if he can stay competitive for a couple of months so we can be in the position to make the big trade to help our team.

 

I'm pumped about the 'Stros, but I always am at this time of year. I'm "supposedly" going to the March 8th game against my hometown Clevesuck Indians ... but time will tell. I'm going to see at least one, hopefully more.

Moved here in August, but I kinda miss Ohio ... somehow.

If all goes well, I'll be outta here by the time the weekly hurricanes come blowing in again this August.

GO ASTROS!

 

Well, my friend and I bought that "Its on Sunday" ticket deal. We are going to 14 games this year (1 spring training and 13 regular season) for $210 each. We'll sit in the section above the bullpen boxes (253, row 6). Hopefully we can catch some HR balls. Also included was a free tickets to the Memorial day game in the view deck . This is my first time to purchase these kind of tickets, so, hopefully I get to see Roger pitch and we get some stuff done this year.

 

a sub .500 team that has trouble scoring with a bad bull-pen that will blow leads

they did nothing to address these problems during the offseason

 

I'm pumped. I'm excited. It's BASEBALL, for heaven's sake! I love the Astros, I love spring, I love baseball. It is ALL good.

I'm not depressed, as even if my Astros go 72-90 this year that doesn't bear on my disposition. I hope they make the playoffs, but other Central Division teams have a better shot.

PLAY BALL!!! I can't wait to sit in my truck and listen to the game tomorrow!

 

I'm more excited for this season than I was in 2001, 2002, and 2003 combined.

None of those teams had anywhere close the starting pitching... and the offense won't be as dire as everybody here is making it out to be.

I'll say it again... the BEST offensive team the Astros have ever had was in 2000... and they were 72-90.

 

Even though I don't think the Stros are going to be as bad as many are saying, no matter how bad the Stros are, there is nothing that can get me down at the beginning of baseball season.

 

I'm really excited about this season. Can't wait to see how the new guys perform.

 

that's an excellent point.

 

Only the eternal optimist can be excited about this season. Too many "If's" on this team to get excited especially in the batting order. Middle relief still a gaping hole. And we can afford zero injuries to our starting rotation to even have a shot which is going to require some luck given the word on Pettite, Clemens' age, and Oswalt's groin. I mean unless Burke and Lane become 80 to 100 RBI guys where are the runs going to come from other than Berkman who has his own questionmarks? Mike Lamb? Morgan Ensberg? the declining Biggio and Bagwell? Did Everett do some roids I didn't hear about this offseason?

 

when you're putting clemens and oswalt down as question marks, you lose a bit of credibility. how long have we been hearing about clemens' age catching up with him? how many times did we hear last offseason that if we were expecting a bunch of out clemens we'd be disappointed? the guy was the freaking Cy Young winner. and Roy was a 20 game winner.

granted..we've lost run production. no argument there. the question is how much? and do the replacements make up for it runs taken away or runs scored? if so, how much do they make up?

we have a very good starting rotation...and arguably the best closer in the game. that's a damn good start. not a whole lot of teams out there thrilled with their middle relief prospects.

 

They'll be fine. I'm not expecting them to be in the post-season chase, but a Clemens-Oswalt-Pettite trio isn't going to be a part of a last place finish.

Evan

 

I don't buy that middle releif is a serious weakness... I'd much rather have Qualls and Wheeler take care of business than what a lot of other teams have got.

 

Look at Clemens' 2003 season with the Yankees and you may start to understand why I think age can be a factor, especially when you consider that he did not have any significant injuries last year and put a whole season of wear and tear on his body. Then there's his self-expressed concerns over not being able to take Vioxx any more. As for Oswalt, I think his groin has proven to be a recurring problem that can flare up at any time. So I don't see why you question my credibility because whether you want to consider these points or not, they are reasonable questions.

Last season should have been plenty to show you how important middle relief is to this team as it basically was the team's only weak spot and cost them a trip to the World Series. You don't necessarily need Octavio Dotel or KRod in the 7th and 8th innings, but you need someone you can rely on and I think the 10+ ERA of the middle relief squad last season speaks for itself. Unless the starting 5 can consistently give the team 7 innings, we're going to be counting on the likes of the same middle relief as last season to bridge the gap during the 6th, 7th, and 8th innings and I bit my fingernails down to the bone watching Garner turn the game over to this middle relief every game last season and for good reason.

 

i'm not seriously questioning your credibility. but every team in the league would be screwed if their two top starters went down with injury. you can't play the "sky is falling" game like that.

as for middle relief...i hear ya. but i still come back to my same point: how many teams are fired up about their middle relief coming into this season? middle relievers are rarely consistent from year to year. you could be worried about middle relief virtually every year. and with all our worrying about middle relief last year, they still finished only one game short of the World Series.