Friday, September 4, 2009 proved to be a night of reminders. Reminders of how much we all appeciate having three Astros reach the 300-career home run mark in the same season. Reminders of what it’s like to get timely team hitting and longball power working together for the sake of victory in the same game. Reminders of how much easier it is to win baseball games when your starting pitcher can throw 110 pitches over seven full innings against the defending World Champions while giving up no runs. Reminders that beyond-decent relief results over two innings of goose-egg work by two different pitchers in the same game is something we needed to have a lot more often in 2009. Reminders of decent, if not exceptional, defensive play in the field. Reminders of how much smarter the manager looks whwen everything comes together for a 7-0 victory to start off the long Labor Day Weekend!
Who could ask for anything more? Well, we, the fans, could. We could ask for more of what it takes to get the kind of results we saw last night at Minute Maid Park. We’re just not going to see it often enough over the balance of this year to do the team any good in the current pennant race. For one thing, Wandy Rodriguez or Roy Oswalt can’t pitch every game from here on out. For another, it’s way too late, except for the statistical posssibility that still flaps out there on the line like a tattered rag of hope in the breeze of temporal despair. With 28 games left to play, the Astros are in 4th place in the National League Central and a full 15 games behind the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals. For yet another thing here, the Astros aren’t looking at a one off-season fix that is going to dig them out of the doldrums they’ve found as an older, probably overpaid legion of malaise-prone underachievers who give lip service only to all the right things people say about “team” as they take care of their own separate and individual businesses and generally take baseball coaching or advice from no one.
Maybe they do listen to Manager Cecil Cooper and his staff. How should I really know? I’m not there in the clubhouse with them. My thought are simply conjectural.
All I really know is that we need more than two reliable starting pitchers – and that we don’t need any more end-of-the-line “Johnny Paychecks” whose best years are either behind them or now all gone. Those guys are good at selling general managers on hope from the past. i.e., “If I can recover from this injury, if I can be 80% of the pitcher I used to be, just look at the bargain you will be getting for the price I’m asking.”
Yeah. Right. And I’ve got some beachfront property on Bolivar that I want to sell you too. (Well, at least, it was on Bolivar. Most of it’s now located in Chambers County, but it offers a great view from Galveston Bay’s eastern shore.)
The second thing we don’t need are additional long term contracts for position players. These guys are another potential group of “Johnny Paycheck” performers. That’s about all I know on that one too. Again, what do I possibly know? Maybe guys with long-term money just get better with age.
I do think that the new attention-to-youth direction taken by Drayton McLane, Tal Smith, and Ed Wade toward rebuilding the farm system is the way to go. If we just develop a wide and deeply talented minor league personnel pipeline, the club will survive the loss of those few who eventually choose to go elsewhere and, if we can keep that system up and growing, the Houston Astros should remain consistently close to winning every season.
As for how we get this done, that has to be up to the people who know the baseball business from the inside out that Drayton McLane has hired to get the job done. Period.
Sidebar: Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, and Ivan Rodriguez were all honored prior to Friday night’s game for having each hit their 300th career home runs during the 2009 season. Berkman;s totals, of course, have all been achived as an Astro; the totals for Lee and Rodriquez were attained with several teams; and Rodriquez is now departed from Houston and back with his original club, the Texas Rangers.
The beautiful artwork see below is the work of the magnificent sports artist, Opie Otterstad. Large framed copies were presented to bo both Berkman and Lee by Astros Baseball President Tal Smith and Astros General Manager Ed Wade prior to the game. What follows here are the front and back of an 8×10 copy handed out to fans at the gate.
The achievement by the three Astros was a first. It is now the only instance in major league baseball history in which three players from the same club each it their 300th career home run for te same club during the same season. Ivan “Pudge” Rodriquez did it first, hitting his 300th off RHP of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on SUnday, May 17, 2009. Next came Lance Berkman, who parked his Number 300 homer off RHP Jon Garland of the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field in Phoenix on Saturday, June 13, 2009. Finally came Carlos Lee, who blasted Homer # 300 of his career off RHP Claudio Vargas of the Milwaukee Brewers at Minute Mark on August 8, 2009. Congratulations to The Three Amigos for their monumental record accomplishment!
Have a nice and safe Labor Day Weekend, everybody!
Tags: Baseball, Houston Astros
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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