You're really, really wrong, unless Oswalt has truly fallen off a Woody Williams-esque cliff. Even so, I have a ridiculously hard time seeing how this team regressed by 11 or more games from a season ago.
Dude, do you know how bad you have to be to lose 100 games? You can't just be bad. You have to be excruciatingly, horribly bad. Like absolute worst team in the MLB bad, and even then it's not a certainty. You're basically saying that you think the Astros are the absolute, without a doubt, worst team in baseball and that's just freakin' stupid. Even if they're bad, they're not THAT bad.
Same with Mike Lamb. He might be struggling now, but when he had a chance to play a few games with us, he always ripped the ball. I never understood why they were always in the doghouse.
Ugh. How terrible. We pick up also-ran Chacon. He pitches 8 almost perfect innings. We hand it over to our fireballing closer with a three run lead. Choke. Heck, should have just left Chacon in to get the complete game. He probably wouldn't have let 4 runs cross in the ninth even if he was running out of gas.
You never answered my question when you wrote that the Astros were on pace to lose 100 games. Here is another chance for you. So, do you think Oswalt will lose 33 games? After all, he is on pace to go 0-33.
No, he will not lose 33. But.............don't be surprised if he struggles to get a .500 record and is trade bait down at the trade deadline when it is obvious how bad we really are. My question in response to your question is DO YOU THINK OSWALT WILL GET TO 14 WINS THIS SEASON? I think there's a good chance he can't even get that. Oswalt is a good pitcher, one of the top 10, maybe top 5 pitchers in baseball. But to compete in today's game, you've got to have 3-4 quality starters at the top, plus a good middle man and a decent closer. We ain't got anything outside of Oswalt and if Valverde continues to blow up, we're gonna lose more than our fair share of the few games that we actually get a solid 6 innings from one of our starters. You gotta be able to see how bad our starters and bully are. Valverde has to get it together or we've got to get our bullpen sorted out somehow to have a chance to AVOID 100 losses. Forget about playoff contention. We ain't even going there without 3 quality starters. Oh, and don't be surprised if Oswalt goes down with injury. He's been relatively injury free. But he's entering the stage of his career where all of a sudden things start happening. And you have to remember, these guys are just human beings. We get down in the standings by 12-15 games and players start to realize we have NOCHANCE, a lot of them will go into tank mode. It's just human nature. Carlos will put on 20 lbs, Berkman will screw up his ankle rounding third like his wheels are falling off, trying to beat the throw to the plate, etc. and the momentum just goes down. THIS TEAM IS ON THE VERGE OF A TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE SEASON. They are dangerously close to falling off the edge into the abyss of a 100 game losing season. I'm calling the long side of it. Best case scenario I can see is if everything bounces right, everybody stays healthy, and Backe, Wandy, Sampson outperform........we could finish .500.
If Oswalt makes his customary 33-35 starts the Astros will win at least 20 of those games. Since you seem to be so confident that the Astros will lose 100+ games, are you willing to make a tipjar bet? If the Astros lose 100+ games I will donate $50 to the tipjar. If the Astros lose less than 100 games, you will donate $50 to the tipjar - agreed?
Seriously? I wish there was someone like you in Vegas, cause I'd put down a ton of money on Oswalt reaching at least 14 wins! A ton.
bobrek has a better idea. So yeah, do you (jopatmc) want to make a tipjar bet on Oswalt reaching 14 wins also? $50 from you to the jar if he wins 14 or more, $50 from me if he wins 13 or less. (You can choose his bet only if you want...it was his idea after all.)
In his hay day he could hump it up there at 96-97mph, and even occasionally hitting 98.... Now he is around 91-93....big difference. DD
I thought he took speed off with a purpose...i.e. he wants to go deeper in games instead of throwing more pitches and striking out a ton of guys (as of a couple of years ago, that is)
