SB Nation Houston: All Posts by David Coleman

MLB Scores: Astros 6, Royals 5

2013-05-21T03:17:00Z

The Kansas City Royals were the current incarnation of the Houston Astros in the 2000's. That makes this week's series in Houston much more of a grudge match than it should be, but it also may showcase two somewhat evenly matched teams.

At the very least, Houston showed its propensity for playing one-run games has not ended, though the luck turned a bit on Monday. Thanks to a pair of home runs by Jason Castro and Matt Dominguez, the Astros slid past the Ryolas for a 6-5 victory to open the three-game set at Minute Maid Park.

Castro's blast gave Houston an early 3-1 lead and came on the heels of Jose Altuve's sacrifice fly that broke the 1-1 tie. Dominguez, on the other hand, had a huge three-run home run that erased the Royals own 4-3 lead from the half-inning before.

KC jumped out to the lead thanks to a familiar Astros face. Miguel Tejada drove a Dallas Keuchel pitch over the fence for his own three-run home run in the top of the fourth. Keuchel settled in after that, though, holding the Royals down for another 2 2/3 innings.

On the night, Keuchel threw 6 2/3 innings, picking up his first victory of the season. The lefty struck out six and walked four while giving up nine hits and four earned runs.

The Royals kept making it interesting, though, as they scored another run in the top of the eighth that was charged to Wesley Wright but belonged to Hector Ambriz.

Jose Veras was able to slam the door shut in the ninth, striking out both Lorenzo Cain and Alcides Escobar on 3-2 counts before getting a groundout to first from Alex Gordon to end the game. It was Veras' seventh save of the season.

Oh yeah, and Reid Ryan was pretty excited, as the Astros got a home win on his first day as the new team president.

GIF of the Night

New Astros team president Reid Ryan isn't afraid of foul balls.

Monday's Three Astros Things

2013-05-20T18:34:09Z

Some things to talk about while one of my favorite non-Astros prospects may be ready for a big league call...

1) Buying the Hooks

Lots of stuff to talk about that's only tangentially related to baseball from the past weekend, but I wanted to focus on just one thing. That's the impending purchase of the Corpus Christi Hooks by the Houston Astros. Coupled with Reese Ryan taking over the Round Rock Express, it frees up Reid Ryan from any conflicts of interest in running the Astros business side.

What it doesn't do is leave open the possibility that Houston will someday move the Hooks to The Woodlands. Yes, it's technically possible, but there are a number of reasons blocking it. First off, the Astros want that team to be a Triple-A affiliate. They could move the Hooks, but the team would still be in the Double-A Texas League. Houston needs a franchise from a Triple-A league to move to The Woodlands for this to work.

Secondly, there's absolutely no reason for them to move from Corpus. It's a great city. The team has a beautiful ballpark. More importantly, though, it's strategically placed to bring the Astros to a wide swath of South Texas. That's an important market for the team. If Houston were to leave Corpus, you can guarantee that the Rangers would try to move an affiliate there very quickly.

For all those reasons, it doesn't make a ton of sense for Houston to move the franchise. This is about controlling costs and building up assets. It's a good move and I imagine the precursor to the Astros eventually owning their own Triple-A franchise.

2) Singleton returning

This weekend, we also learned from multiple sources (including Astros Pro Scouting Coordinator Kevin Goldstein, who joined us on Sunday night's podcast) that first baseman Jonathan Singleton will be ending his suspension soon.

Singleton will be going to Quad Cities first to work on his timing before moving up the ladder from there. It's assumed that means he'll go to Oklahoma City first, but the Astros left open the possibility that he goes to Corpus next, if he's not quite ready for prime time.

Start the speculation on what that means for Singleton possibly reaching the majors this year. I'm still of the mind that he'll be brought up as soon as he shakes the rust off and shows he can hit in Triple-A. So, sometime after the All-Star break, we might see the talented first baseman in Houston.

I'm also wondering how many of you still hold a grudge against Singleton for getting suspended in the first place. Are you looking forward to his return? Has he done enough to show you he's repentant for his actions? Does he need to be repentant?

3) Jonah Keri on Astros positives

Once again, a national writer drops in to talk about the Astros. I'm going to write about this phenomenon more on Wednesday, but for now, let's check in on Jonah Keri, who discussed the Astros briefly in his "The 30" column for Grantland, where he ranks every team in the league each week.

Here's a snippet of what he had to say about the Astros:

But there really isn't much here, not now anyway. If you're an Astros fan, you root for the tiniest victories in the present, knowing any bigger wins could be years away. You trust the process, and painful though they may be, you try not to sweat the results.

Okay, so I cheated. You'll have to read the whole column to see what he views as positive. It isn't much, really. But that's the point. This year isn't about the major league team, though it'd be nice if that team was a bit more watchable.

Another question for the group: what do you see as the positives about this team through a quarter of the season? Do you agree with Keri's positives? Would you add anything to the list?

What If: Could Jose Altuve have won a Rookie of the Year award?

2013-05-20T13:00:12Z

Don't ask me why, but Saturday night, I started poking around statistical sites instead of, you know, doing what normal people might do on a Saturday night. What is that anyways? Go to discotheques?

At any rate, my curiosity was drawn to the best hitter in Houston's lineup these days, Jose Altuve. After browsing through his hitting stats so far to see if he's made any progress or breakthroughs (short answer: not really, except for his outstanding line drive rate).

In the course of that meander, I checked out Altuve's five best Similarity Score players courtesy of Baseball Reference through their Age 22 seasons. If you're not familiar, Similarity Score takes a look at a player's career to that point and tries to assign a value to how similar they are. I believe 1,000 is perfect and it goes down from there.

Altuve's top comp right now is Hall of Famer Rod Carew. Some of the others in his top 5 are Steve Sax and Pete Rose, along with a couple players from the turn of the century, deadball era.

It's the Sax and Carew comps that got me thinking about a fascinating What If. Sax, Rose and Carew are all notable because they won Rookie of the Year awards. Altuve did not.

This fascinates me.

Because he got called up in the middle of the 2011 season, Altuve didn't play enough or do well enough to garner votes for his true rookie season. By 2012, when he broke out and earned his first All-Star appearance, Altuve wasn't a rookie any longer and thus, was ineligible.

What if he had played more? What if he hadn't debuted until 2012? Was there any way that Altuve could have won Rookie of the Year himself, just like his Similarity brethren?

To answer this, I first looked at Altuve's line itself. His batting line in his rookie season was unimpressive at .276/.297/.357 with two home runs and seven steals. That's not winning many awards, is it?

However, in 2012, Altuve broke out big-time, hitting over .300 for much of the season before tailing off at the end. What if he had played more than 57 games in 2011? Would his line have been good enough to make an impression?

So, using FanGraphs' Game Logs, I took the first 147 games of his career, covering 625 plate appearances and stitched them together. That assumes Altuve had come up at a reasonable time in his rookie season of 2011 and played like a starter. How would he have done?

More impressive than in his initial stint. Altuve's batting line moves up to .283/.318/.389 with a weighted On-Base Average of .311 and a weighted Runs Created+ of 100. That means Altuve, according to wRC+, was pretty much league average through is first 147 games. Not bad for a 20-21-year old.

In the counting stats, Altuve would have finished with 33 doubles, 167 hits, five triples, seven homers, 78 runs scored, 39 RBIs and 23 steals.

Now that we have Altuve's base line for this fictional "rookie season," how does he compare to his National League compatriots? Could he have won the award with that line?

Let's focus on just the hitters, because it's easy to compare them to Altuve in a more objective way (though awards voting is typically much more subjective). We're going to look at thiree stats: wOBA, wRC+ and plate appearances. The four hitters garnering votes in 2011 for the National League were Freddie Freeman, Wilson Ramos, Danny Espinosa and Darwin Barney. Here's their numbers:

	wOBA	wRC+	PA
Freeman	0.348	119	635
Ramos	0.335	111	435
Espinosa	0.324	103	658
Barney	0.294	80	571

No luck there. Altuve had better numbers than Barney, so he might have at least gotten votes. His numbers were also on bar with Espinosa and both played up the middle. However, it seems unlikely that Altuve could have beaten out either Ramos or Freeman for votes.

Okay, so how about if he had been in the American League that year? Well, here's what the 2011 ballot looked like for hitters: Eric Hosmer, Mark Trumbo, Dustin Ackley and Desmond Jennings.

	wOBA	wRC+	PA
Hosmer	0.343	114	563
Trumbo	0.328	108	573
Ackley	0.337	117	376
Jennings	0.355	127	287

No luck there, either. Altuve would have been better than Jennings and Ackley just in playing time, but not in effectiveness. Trumbo's numbers here are just a smidge better than Altuves, but he also had the home runs to carry the day. Nope, it looks like Altuve would have been just the third-best hitter on this ballot, too.

The picture gets even murkier when you switch to 2012. No way Altuve beats out Bryce Harper in the NL or Mike Trout in the AL. He probably doesn't even beat out Yoenis Cespedes, Yu Darvish or Jarrod Parker in the AL.

He might have had a shot to finish second behind Harper in the NL, given that the second and third finishers were Wade Miley and Todd Frazier.

No matter how we slice it, it doesn't look like Altuve would have had much of a chance to win either league in either year. I guess he'll have to settle for having a career like Sax, Carew and Rose.

That is, if DDJ doesn't supplant him first...

MLB Scores: Astros 4, Pirates 2

2013-05-19T03:19:58Z

Jason Castro almost won the game for Houston outright.

Instead, he had to wait a few more at-bats before scoring the winning run on Saturday as the Astros rallied past the Pirates for a 4-2 victory at PNC Park.

Houston tie the score at 2-2 in the top of the eighth on Chris Carter's line-drive single that scored Trevor Crowe. It took until the 11th, though, for Castro and Co. to come through in the clutch.

Castro led off the top of the 11th with a double that banged off the center field wall, just missing leaving the park. After Pittsburgh intentionally walked Carlos Pena (who's got a .417 on-base percentage in his last seven games), a wild pitch moved both runners up a base.

That set up Matt Dominguez to hit a fielder's choice to a drawn in Pirates infield. Second baseman Neil Walker got to the ball quickly and fired home, but Castro was able to slide past and score a run, making it 3-2 Houston. The play was close and you can see it here.

Pirates manager Clint Hurdle was incensed. Fired up, even. For his respectful disagreement with the umpire, he was given the heave-ho from the game. On the first pitch after Hurdle was tossed, Astros manager Bo Porter attempted the suicide squeeze to bring home another run, but couldn't pull it off. Pena was called out at the plate, but both Dominguez and Marwin Gonzalez moved up a base.

That set up pinch-hitter J.D. Martinez, who laced a single to center, scoring Matt Dominguez and making it 4-2 Astros. Game Breaker was thrown out at third by the Pirates to end the inning, but the damage was already done.

Jose Veras came in, struck out Brandon Inge and got two quick outs for his sixth save.

Jose Altuve was excellent as always, showing no signs of rust from his time off due to Captain Collision/bereavement leave. The Astros second baseman was 3 for 5 with an RBI. Jason Castro and Chris Carter also had two hits in the game, while Castros had Houston's only extra-base hit.

Oh, and did I mention Erik Bedard, who quietly spun another great start? Bedard only threw 91 pitches, but made i through six innings, allowing two runs on seven hits while walking none and striking out three. That dropped Bedard's ERA down to 6.00, which is nearly respectable. Well, it's in the neighborhood of respectable. In the same county, at the very least.

Thursday's Three Astros Things

2013-05-16T19:24:36Z

It's been a crazy week. Sorry if you've been having intermittent trouble accessing the site the past two days. Our tech team is working on it round the clock to make sure you're reading experience is as smooth as possible. Meanwhile, here are some things to talk about while the Astros get two different national articles written about them this week...

1) Reid Ryan to be named president

A day before it should be officially announced by the team and three days after former president and CEO George Postolos resigned, the Astros are set to make Reid Ryan their next team president. Ryan, as you might know, is the son of Hall of Famer and former Astros Nolan Ryan.

Reid Ryan pitched in college as well as in the minor leagues and has been part of the ownership group that has run both the Corpus Christi Hooks and the Round Rock Express. He's familiar with baseball from the field and the front office and seems a good choice to succeed Postolos.

But, I'm not going to bore you with just my reaction. Here's a sampling of the reaction on Twitter:

Updated: #Houston #Astros expected to name Reid Ryan as president #MLB #Rangers blog.chron.com/ultimateastros…
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronAstros) May 16, 2013

Reid Ryan to become President of Astros!!!We are totally going to get @rrexpress back!!!!! #PassTheHat supported my family!!! Thx RR.
— Morgan Ensberg (@MorganEnsberg) May 16, 2013

"He’s just a bright guy that has it all together," Houston businessman Don Sanders said on Reid Ryan. "He'll do it right."
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) May 16, 2013

Reid Ryan has the name but he's much more than Nolan's son in his professional life. Smart. Personable. The perfect hire IMO. Huge.
— Alyson Footer (@alysonfooter) May 16, 2013

The Astros image has taken a hit lately but you have to give Jim Crane credit for moving quickly to fix what's broken. Baseball people...
— Alyson Footer (@alysonfooter) May 16, 2013

...are needed on both sides - business and baseball. This hire is a huge first step. Now get Dierker back in fold...
— Alyson Footer (@alysonfooter) May 16, 2013

Several years ago someone told me that Reid Ryan worked 4 him as young adult. He said he thought then, Reid could be Gov. of TX someday.
— Brett Dolan (@Brettdolan24) May 16, 2013

Reid Ryan represents a clean slate for the Astros business operations. whattheheckbobby.blogspot.com/2013/05/reid-r…
— Jayne (@whattheheck57) May 16, 2013

Congrats to Reid Ryan!!! I have come very close with the Ryan family over the years. Family is what is its all about. They Ryan's are family
— Bud Norris (@BudNorris20) May 16, 2013

Congratulations to @robertreidryan -- new President of the Houston #Astros. Best thing to happen to the franchise in years!
— Dave Raymond (@daveraymond4) May 16, 2013

My 2 cents: I've know Reid Ryan for quite a while & all the good things you hear are true. Very smart, personable. Good public face for team
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) May 16, 2013

As terrible as the week started out for the Astros, this seems like a great move
— Astros County (@AstrosCounty) May 16, 2013

Phil Garner on Reid Ryan: "He was a pretty good athlete. Reid has always had a pretty good knack for business.He’s a good people person."
— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) May 16, 2013

So, @keithlaw on Reid Ryan going to Houston:"If he was Reid Jones you wouldn't see all this media support for his hire."
— Adam J. Morris (@lonestarball) May 16, 2013

2) John Sickels' second mock draft

Over at Minor League Ball, John Sickels posted his second mock draft of the season. No surprises here, as he went with what we've been hearing pretty much since last year. Houston takes:

1) Houston Astros: Mark Appel, RHP, Stanford University: Just about everyone believes that the first two picks in the draft will be college pitchers Mark Appel and Jonathan Gray. Gray seems to have little more momentum at this point, but I'll buck consensus slightly and slot Appel here on the theory that he makes a late charge and/or Gray slumps just a hair.

I'm still not sold this is what Houston will do, but as Sickels says, it's pretty much industry consensus that Houston will take one of the top two college pitchers. For what that's worth.

3) CSN Houston up for awards

Hey, let's talk about something positive with Houston's erstwhile regional sports network. Though many of you don't have the channel, from what I've heard, the quality will be worth it once carriage deals are worked out for everyone.

Case in point: CSN Houston was nominated for three awards at the annual PromaxBDA Promotion, Marketing and Design Awards. Here's a note from the release on what CSN Houston was nominated for:

The network's "Know More" TV spots, featuring Astros second baseman Jose Altuve and Rockets point guard Jeremy Lin, were used to help launch the network in October, 2012. The spots, nominated in the "Art Direction and Design: Sports Program Special Events Spot" category, drive home CSN's commitment to providing viewers with the most in-depth coverage of their teams, thereby allowing them to "know more about each player." CSN was also nominated in the "Promotional/Premium Items" category for the "Peacock T-Shirt" that was distributed at the network's launch party and at various games and events throughout the fall.

"As a nascent network, being recognized by our peers for our creative work is an honor," CSN Vice President of Marketing Helen Wilson said. "This recognition is an excellent example of the talent and hard work of our marketing and creative teams and the quality of the content on our network."

The other area where CSN Houston has been doing well lately is web traffic. The CSN Houston web site has been growing each month and its traffic is up nearly 40 percent in the first quarter of 2013 in page views, unique visitors and visits. That includes over 80,000 page views lasts month for the I Want CSN Houston page.

What does all that mean?

People still want to see their teams on TV and the network most of us are locked out of is producing good content. I should be worth the wait.

MLB Scores: Astros 7, Tigers 5

2013-05-15T21:13:10Z

Brandon Barnes is good at baseball.

He may not have been the biggest reason Houston beat the Tigers 7-5 on Wednesday, avoiding another three-game sweep and snapping a six-game losing streak.

He just made the biggest play.

Barnes' leaping catch of a Miguel Cabrera fly ball at the wall in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the bases loaded ended a game in the most Astro-way possible. By the skin of their teeth.

Just a few inches further and the ball is a home run. If Barnes is a few inches off on his leap, two runs score as the ball glances off the wall. Bo Porter agrees.

#Astros' Porter on Cabrera's near-grand slam caught by Barnes at wall: "They say baseball is a game of inches." #MLB #Tigers
— Brian T. Smith (@ChronAstros) May 15, 2013

Oh, did I mention it was Barnes' birthday on Wednesday?

He wasn't the biggest hero in this game, though. Those honors go to many.

First up is starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel. After giving up four runs in the bottom of the second, Keuchel struck out three and walked two in 5 2/3 innings of work. After that disastrous second inning, he gave up just one unearned run to keep the Astros close.

That led to the second-biggest hero: J.D. Martinez. The hot-hitting outfielder smashed a three-run home run in the fourth inning to give Houston a 5-4 lead over the Tigers. Martinez was 1 for 3 on the day with a walk and three RBIs. He has gone 5 for 10 in three games in Detroit with three doubles, a home run and four RBIs. These three games raised his batting average from .203 up to .246.

Barnes pinch-ran for Martinez in the ninth, scoring a run before moving into center field for that critical play in the bottom of the inning.

He scored the run thanks to a third hero: Carlos Corporan. Houston's hot-hitting catcher blasted a home run in the top of the second to give Houston a lead and then came up big in the ninth. With no outs in the top of the ninth and the score tied at 5-5, Corporan hit a line drive double to left field that allowed Barnes to score from first.

Trevor Crowe came in to pinch run for Corporan, who ended his day 2 for 3 with two RBIs, a walk and a run scored. He also picked off Detroit's Omar Infante at first.

Crowe scored the game's final run after a pair of sacrifices. Jimmy Paredes was called out on a sacrifice bunt to third, letting Crowe advance from second. Then, Matt Dominguez hit a sacrifice fly to right field as Crowe raced home ahead of Torii Hunter's throw.

That made the events of the ninth inning even more interesting, as de facto Astros closer Jose Veras came into the game and sandwiched a Brayan Pena walk around two quick outs. Unfortunately, control issues plagued Veras, as he walked Omar Infante and then hit Hunter with a pitch to load the bases for Cabrera.

Barnes' catch gave Veras his fifth save of the season in his first save opportunity since May 8 against the Angels.

On the Astros: How has #BoBall worked so far?

2013-05-15T14:23:54Z

This feature has become sort of a test for many of the concepts that cropped up in spring training. We've already looked at how the power addition has gone and how the team has executed in one-run games.

Now, we'll turn our eye to another one of Bo Porter's emphasis points this spring: aggressive baserunning. Remember when there was talk about how Houston had painted the inside of the bases and was working to make sure all the players knew how to hit each one every time? How they'd be running more, pushing teams more and hoping to force them into errors?

After one spring game, Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow gave us a hashtag for the style: #BoBall.

First up, we have to decide what #BoBall is. It's not just running more, right? It wasn't that stolen bases were through the roof in the spring, it was that Porter was trying to make more aggressive use of his players in stretching doubles into triples, going first to third on balls or stretching the defense.

Houston is right about the break-even point for stolen bases this season at 72 percent efficiency. The Astros are also stealing bases at a clip of about one per game, which is slightly higher than last season, but not much. The Astros have been more successful than in 2012, yes, but they're a sight worse than they were as far back as 2011.

As much as some of you dislike advanced metrics, there is actually one which does this for us. Over at FanGraphs, there is a stat they track called Ultimate Base Running.

The concept is also simple. It's the reverse of the outfield arm component of Ultimate Zone Rating, a defensive metric that's measured by how many runs an outfielder prevents. If, say, Robbie Grossman fields a ball and keeps the runner from going first to third on the play, he's awarded credit in this category.

But, if said runner does get to third, said runner gets the credit that would have gone to the outfielder. The credit, incidentally, is in the form of runs. How many runs has Houston gained through positive base running this season through UBR?

Well, they're 23rd in the majors at -1.4 UBR so far this season. That means Houston's baserunning has actually cost them about a run and a half. Not very good, Bo.

Still, Houston has improved in this area. The Astros ranked 28th in the majors in this area last season with -8.5. In 2011, that UBR number was -4, so it's moving in the right direction.

The best Houston baserunners in UBR have been Jose Altuve, Carlos Pena, Robbie Grossman and Trevor Crowe. The worst have been Matt Dominguez, Carlos Corporan, Jason Castro and Justin Maxwell. Let's assume that JMaxx's number was a statistical anomaly, since he posted a positive number there last season, and those seven are sort of promising.

Altuve, Pena and Grossman all play regularly, so they should continue to run well. Add in a recent addition like Crowe and the baserunning off the bench should still be solid.

Luckily, we also have a visual way of seeing this, so it's not just the boring numbers we're seeing. Tim was good enough to make a gif of a play from this weekend. On Saturday, in the ninth inning of an eventual Rangers loss, Trevor Crowe stole second on a wild pitch by Joe Nathan. When the pitch got away from the Texas catcher, Crowe continued on to take third without slowing down or missing a beat.

It was a nifty piece of baserunning and highlights the kind of aggressive approach Porter may be trying to get.

What is #BoBall? It's plays like Crowe made in that game last Saturday.

It's also working.

Being an Astros fan: You have the power to make a difference

2013-05-14T18:00:07Z

What power does one person have?

I ask this because of the situation swirling around the Astros since last night, when the team decided to cancel a long-held charitable function benefiting a great cause. Tim wrote about his feelings on the issue this morning, talking about how the Astros' loss of integrity made him question why he does what he does on this site.

He also mentioned why he's a fan of the Astros in the first place.

But, what are the Astros? Are they an abstract concept? Are they a business? Are they a collection of men who wear the same laundry?

Most times, they're an amalgamation of all three. The Astros Tim cares about are more than just a business, they're a concept of a team he came to respect. They're leadership and integrity and all sorts of human emotions that we project onto an organization.

They're also a team of men, bound by nothing more than the shirts on their backs that look the same. There may be friendships in the clubhouse, but they're all paid to play for this team, not because they live here, not because they chose to go to school here, but because they were given a job here.

That's because the Astros are ultimately a business. Fans root for a corporation every bit as interested in making a profit as Proctor & Gamble or Microsoft.

And yet, we connect with the people running the baseball side, because at heart, every one of you readers is a baseball fan first. You like watching the game. You like reading about it and talking about it. The players may change, but how much you enjoy the game does not.

But, I get back to my first question: how much power do you have as a fan?

I think about this because of the events of the past 24 hours. The Astros seemingly have canceled one charitable event to focus on another. Whether they did it last month or in January matters, but only slightly. They could have made this decision better and more timely, to give the charity in question time to deal with the budgetary shifts.

We can be upset by this as fans, but what can we do?

Here at TCB and on other Astros sites around the web, we chose to go dark for the day.

Does that really impact the team? Does it hurt their business?

Probably not.

We did manage to stir up conversation on Twitter and other places. I heard that some of the sports talk radio stations in Houston also picked up on the story. It also appears that our publicity may have driven a story about it this morning by the local newspaper.

All that is great, but will it change anything?

That's what we should be aiming for. We shouldn't be just angry about a bad decision by a business. We should strive to be agents of change, especially when it's for a good cause.

If you're upset about the Astros and how they've run their business, act on it.

The next time you plan on going to Minute Maid Park, stay home instead. Donate that money to the HAWC or to any charity of your choice. Take that time and volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or a literacy group or the food bank of Houston.

You won't be making a difference with the decisions of the Astros' business, but you can make a difference in your community.

Fans have been trying to change a team's mind for years. They've staged walkouts of baseball games, they've protested teams. But, all they do is garner publicity.

We do not want that to be the only outcome of today's blackout.

We want to make a difference. You can help with that. We'll be back tomorrow with all the Astros content you've come to expect at TCB. Some of our writers may not be back right away, if at all. Some of you fans and readers may not be back because of this team/business/laundry and what they've done. Until we come back, feel free to use the FanPosts to talk about the team. If you want to start a minor league thread there, we'll promote it to the front page so you can talk about the team's future.

Don't let the team's business side define you, though. You're a fan of baseball, after all. A children's game. A great game. If we don't take that anger, that indignity of today and turn it into something useful, then we've accomplished nothing today.

I think we can accomplish much, much more.