If Adam Everett is at shortstop, the Astros probably don't lose that game. Worth pointing out. By the way, where's the outrage at Qualls over that home run? From previous discussions, some of you made it seem like relievers should have a 0.00 ERA and that mistakes don't happen.
Not sure if that's sarcastic or not, but if Albert Pujols hitting a home run off you makes you a "headcase," then there are a whole lot of headcases in this league. In case you hadn't noticed, Pujols is a pretty good player. Anyway, I don't want to turn this into what last weekend's thread turned into, so I'll exit on that.
Surprisingly, I'm not that mad at Qualls for giving up the bomb. I'm more mad at our entire bullpen for choking with a 5-1 lead. Qualls had a damn good era and still does, mistakes happen. Unfortunately for the Astros, WAY too many of those mistakes have happened in the past few months.
That game was painful especially having to watch it at Wrigley.. It also didn't help that Bidge went 0 for 3 and was pulled and I was there specifically to catch the Biggio farewell tour. I had to practice aggressive humility leaving the stadium and at the Wrigleyville bars to put up with all of the crap from the Cubs fans. That seemed to work though and most of them ended up being fairly friendly after some initial ribbing. I did get some crap though from the Cubbies about how we couldn't shut up the Southies by getting swept two years ago. Even though the game sucked it was still an interesting experience catching a game at Wrigley and I'm on my way to Milwaukee to catch the game today.
Coop shouldn't have even brought in Borkowski and Miller...you know what those two guys bring...and hopefully they won't be here next year...give the younger guys a chance to become stalwarts in the pen...throw Albers out there...hell see what Wandy can do in relief...give Backe some work...but why go to the same tired arms?
If it's not the starting pitching, it's the offense. If it's not the offense, it's the defense or the relief pitching. If Berkman is hitting, Lee isn't. *sigh*