Well, that was simple. I didn't realize the only reason the Astros were losing was they hadn't met to go over their objectives. That meeting must've cleared up a lot. I've been to a lot of meetings in my life and all of them have been pretty productive*
*This is what sarcasm sounds like. Not for my current job, of course. Those meetings are always insightful.
The master of Astros Twitterers, Astros County, beat me to the punch a little bit on this, creating a hashtag for #AstrosTeamMeeting with some pretty hilarious results. Of course, I saw it after I wrote all the fun below, so expect mine to be a much poorer imitation.
Follow me after the jump, where we'll look at a transcript of what the meeting sounded like...
HUNTER PENCE: I hereby call this meeting to order, you guys. Come on, knock it off, Carlos. I could be playing Call of Duty right now, but we really need to go over some things I think we. I sco've been missing the past month or so.
BRETT WALLACE: Everyone, shut up! Hunter's talking...
PENCE: Okay, Brett, settle down. No one likes a suck-up.
JEFF KEPPINGER: Can we move this along? I need to talk to...someone else...who's not a rival GM trying to trade for me.
PENCE: Easy, Jeff, we'll try to make this quick. I really just wanted to go over everyone what we're trying to do every night. See, the thing we want to do is actually win games.
THE REST OF THE TEAM: OOOOOOOOooooooohhhhh....
PENCE: Yeah, I thought that might help clear things up.
EL BUFALO: But, how do we do that?
PENCE: Well, we need to start by scoring runs.
MICHAEL BOURN: I already do that. Did you know I score runs just walking to the plate? Yeah, I'm that fast.
PENCE: (Sigh) Mike, how does that help? You know Carlos has a complex.
EL BUFALO: Hey, was that a cut at me? I think that was a cut. I don't care for that.
PENCE: OKAY. Back to the topic at hand. We need to score runs. To do that, we need to get "hits."
JASON MICHAELS: What's that?
MARK THE SHARK: It's what you used to get five years ago.
WILTON LOPEZ: HEY-Oh...
PENCE: Hey, bullpen guys, who asked you? Have you ever gotten a hit in your lives?
J.A. HAPP: I do.
J-MIKE: Shut up, shut up, shut up!
PENCE: Back to the topic at hand, people! So, the goal should be to "win" games by scoring "runs" through getting "hits." Everyone clear on that? Let's move onto one more thing. We also need to "catch the ball."
EL BUFALO: Every one?
PENCE: Yeah, Carlos, every one.
EL BUFALO: What if we can't get to it?
PENCE: Well, no one can get to every ball. Just try your hardest and don't fall down.
EL BUFALO: What if we do fall down?
PENCE: Then don't hurt yourself. It's not that hard...Carlos, why are you taking notes?
EL BUFALO: I didn't know about the falling down thing.
PENCE: So, I think that covers things with the hitters. You pitchers are a different story.
BRETT MYERS: Why?
PENCE: You have to do the opposite.
BUD NORRIS: Can I just throw the ball really fast? Would that work?
PENCE: Well, yeah, as long as you don't give up "hits" or "runs."
WANDY RODRIGUEZ: What if you can't throw hard?
PENCE: Whatever Wandy, you've got like two more weeks with this team. Just go lie down in the corner and take a nap. Everyone else, let's summarize what we should be doing. Hitters, you need to get "hits" and "runs" while the pitchers will try not to give up the same things. If we do that, we should get those "wins" the Rangers and Red Soxwere talking about last weekend.
THE REST OF THE TEAM: OOOOOOOOooooooohhhhh....
PENCE: Okay, guys, good meeting. Let's go out and play our best...well, we can at least try our best.
FIN