The Crawfish Boxes

Please do.

I could go on for days…

Evan Hochschild - September 21, 2008 reply

If...

1) JR Towles hadn’t been given so long of a rope
2) the Astros didnt have to give Hernandez and Cassel as many starts as they did
3) if Pence had figured his swing out in July instead of late August

If only...

…we’d never traded away Joe Morgan. What the hell were we thinking?

…Hunsicker picked up Jeff Kent’s option after 2004.

…Purpura had pulled the trigger on the 2005 Dunn trade.

…Pettitte had never gotten injured in ’04.

…The Killer B’s didn’t suddenly quit hitting in ’98 playoffs.

Oh, you mean this season! Not simply a chronicle of the organizational failures of the Astros and the poor luck that have condemned Houstonians to decades of misery. Because if you want that list, I’ve got it in my head, and it gets longer every year. I can even give you the football and Rockets lists, if you like.

In that case:

1) JR Towles had remembered how to hit.
2) Chacon had turned out to be any good, and if there had been any other good options for Wade to sign.
3) Bourn could get on base. Or, alternatively, if Coop and the other coaches hadn’t instructed him to swing away instead of drawing the walk. Or if they had just moved him down in the order and put Wiggy in the leadoff slot (even before he went on his tear, Wigginton was the #3 OBP Astro).
4) Kazuo Matsui could stay healthy / eat less fiber / take some stool softener.
5) Bogusevic had spent the last several years as a hitting prospect.
6) Brocail hadn’t been ridden like a Thai prostitute before the ASB. He just went dead in June and July.

In response to HLP’s point about Towles being allowed to stick around so long:

I don’t know if we can really blame the Astros for leaving him up there for that long. Ausmus’ bat wasn’t that much better, nor is Q’s. The fact is that the Astros just don’t have a decent hitting catcher in the system.

Evan Hochschild - September 21, 2008 reply

i realized

after i wrote that, brad wouldnt have been better. quintero wasnt anything decent, and was hurt this year too, i believe. he was just so bad. he wouldnt even make contact in a lot of ABs. im just glad he hit in AAA. i was scared his confidence wouldve been destroyed

I love the chronological history of failures

Add to that not resigning Pettitte in ’07 which actually spills over into this year. Also, holding out for Roger to come back in 2007, which hog tied us throughout that offseason.

OK, I got some laughs out of your post....

particularly the one about Brocail.

Of course we could drive ourselves crazy thinking about how things might have been different in the past. But I’ll add a few for the hell of it.

What if the Astros had signed Kyle Lohse in the off-season?

What if Valverde hadn’t been nursing an injury in spring training which put a glitch in his mechanics and made him look like the season’s worst bust for almost a month? (If that’s changed, we probably add 4 – 5 wins.)

What if the Astros hadn’t finished dead last in walks on offense?

What if Cooper hadn’t taken so long to realize that his “run at all costs” philosophy was running the team out of games?

clack - September 21, 2008 reply

Especially the last point

Jesus Christ that was frustrating to watch.

Just thinking about Wiggy trying to steal with 2 outs against the Yankees gets my blood a-boilin'.

Me too

Also has to be explicated, though you hinted at it

Not allowing a 40+ guy who has a history of heart problems to lead the league in appearances for a large part of the season. That gets rid of a few blown saves right there.

I have to add to my list

Not forcing Roy Oswalt to take a start or two off in May or June to allow him to get 100% healthy and return to dominance. That’s easily three or four wins right there.

Also

Not professing my man crush for Lance Berkman, thus inspiring ’Stros Bros to create my profile image, which I think directly correlates (assume any correlation is also causal) with the Astros late season surge.

Why couldn’t I have come out of the closet about that sooner?!?! Sorry guys.

if only we hadn’t forced Hunsicker out
Brad Lidge would have been the Brad Lidge he is this year, the past 2 or 3 years
I would have put 1000 dollars on the Rays to make the playoffs—- Oops, not Astros related, sorry

Side note

HLP and I actually thought about doing that after they traded for Garza. We both purchased Rays hats in an effort to get on their fan wagon before we were band wagoners.

That would be such stupid money now…if only I had more balls…and money.

On a positive note

If our good friends, the Chicago Cubs, win their next seven games (4 against the Mets and 3 against the Brewers) AND the Astros win all (or maybe even 6) of their remaining home games (Reds and Braves and Cubs), the Astros sneak into the playoffs.

Note Mets finish against the Cubs and the Marlins – two teams capable of sweeping the Mets.

So the Astros screw up bad, but the playoffs fall into our laps

At this point in my life as an Astros fan, I figure that the universe owes us that much. After what happened with the 2006 Cardinals, we deserve a free playoff appearance, at least.

The universe does owe us that much.

littlevisigoth - September 22, 2008 reply

I think it was on the radio this morning

somebody was talking about the Cubs not having any motivation coming down the stretch. i wonder if they’ll take their standing and give some off-days to some of their stars or otherwise not put their best team on the field. i certainly would hope that’s the case if we have to play them next Monday, but with 7 games left and the need to stay sharp for the playoffs, I wonder how much that will affect these two series.

Can we mention

if Astros had not traded Luke Scott

Add to that

“if Tejada had turned out to be anything but a disappointment.” Christ, the man’s on pace to break the NL GIDP record, he’s walked less than ever before in his career, and he turned out to be several years older than we all thought. Damn.

Now, with Luke Scott, you get into issues about where he would play. But you figure that he could have been put in right and Hunter could have shifted back to center.

Actually, an Astros club that never made the Lidge trade would look pretty good. And if Luke Scott were replaced with one of the players we sent to Arizona to get Valverde, we could have Tejada AND Scott. So, when Lee went down, we could just put Reggie in center, move Pence to right, and play Scott in left. That’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ve got now.

But, to be fair, we all assumed that Tejada wouldn’t suck. And even Bill James predicted much better things from Bourn.

If - oh only If --

I had not left work four or five times when the Astros were winning only to find them behind on their way to losing a game by the time I got home (and I’m not even going to mention that I was on vacation the week the Astros hosted the Yankees) . I apologize to one and all.

I'll forgive you

But next season you have to stay at the office…no matter what. I stripped naked in a room full of guys for the NLDS in ’05…so another few nights at the office…actually the office is worse. No one blames you for that.

If only

Angel Hernandez never umpired an Astros game.

NO SHIT!!!

I haven’t said it in a while… so here goes..

I hate Angel Hernandez.

Angel Hernandez

Suck my octagon (think Anchorman).

I couldn't get through Anchorman

I lasted about 15 minutes and turned it off… lasted about the same for his recent basketball movie as well(can’t remember the name, too lazy to look it up).

"Semi-Pro"

I believe. It was probably his most historically accurate work, about the end of the ABA. I get the impression that’s what some of those teams may have been like. Don’t care for them casting the Spurs as the bad guys though (although it wasn’t too bad).

Xan - September 21, 2008 reply

I haven't seen it

But the Spurs are the bad guys…always. Actually either them or the Utah Jazz…or the Rockets’ incompetence.

We don't lose to the Jazz out of incompetency. We lose because it's tradition!

freakin Utah.