The Crawfish Boxes

Drayton McLane has addressed the Roy Oswalt comments. I can almost feel everyone's brows furrowing after reading that article. Speaking in generalities and puffery, McLane bemoaned both injuries:

Let's see what the real potential of this team is. We had much greater expectations, so you have to adjust. Part of it you have to look at it. You ever see a team that had as many injuries to key players?

...and managed to sneak in a "champion" reference:

Roy had great frustration, and that's part of a champion. He wants to win as much as anybody else. These are problems you need to solve internally rather than through the media.

At this point, Astros fans cannot be happy. If you're not beyond upset, you're not paying attention. Drayton's continual talking up of this team is beyond ridiculous. Denying that there are serious problems with this team should anger fans further, but a proud man like McLane has trouble admitting when he has failed. When he speaks of a lack of leadership he's absolutely right- it's just that when he points his finger, he is better off looking at those three fingers pointing back a him.

A reader of Baseball America cries out  for some credit to go Koby Clemens' way:

Scott (Houston): Why no love for Koby Clemens? Kids hitting .400 in his last 10 games with 8 xbh and 10 rbi's... any chance he could possibly still be a viable catching option for the Astros?

Conor Glassey: He was discussed and is having a good season. But scouts and Jason Castro agree that he's not their catcher of the future.

He's multi-positional eligible, so let's see if he can make it at another position...and Scott, if you can read this, we are more than willing to show some Koby love around here.

What's that? There's another one of Scott's Astros questions was selected to be a part of the BA mailbag? Awesome:

Scott (Houston): Will the Astros have more than just Jason Castro and Jordan Lyles in the next Top100?

Conor Glassey: I saw Jio Mier play last night and he looked really impressive. He had a great body and his defense lived up to the glowing scouting reports I heard about all spring. He looked to have a very good approach at the plate with a quick, line-drive swing, good pitch recognition and plate discipline especially for a high-school hitter and above-average speed.

So, cheer up Astros fans. The silver lining to this dark cloud is coming along nicely. Patience. If you scroll down the mailbag at bit further, a reader asks who is the better prospect, Casey Kelly (a Red Sox pitcher) or Jordan Lyles. They go with Kelly over Lyles, but their stats are very similar. I suppose his better walk rate is where his main advantage lays, because Lyles is by far the better strikeout man. Then again, these scouts look beyond the numbers and try to project how each player will do in future levels and whether or not his makeup/pitches will be good enough to get batters out in AA and beyond.