Things could be worse

I said before the Astros series started that it was going to be an important series, simply to find out how we would play against a good team playing for it's life down the stretch. We only won one game, but we seriously put up a hell of a good fight. Let's look at some numbers.

17 IP, 27 H, 9 ER, 4.76 ERA, 1.88 WHIP

Those are the numbers three of the top six pitchers in the major leagues this year put up against us in consecutive games. We only won one of those games, partly because of Tom Gorzelanny's major league debut, party because of Rick White, and mostly because Kip Wells is an enormous joke. But that's not the point, the point is that in games started by Clemens, Pettite, and Oswalt (in that order) we scored 7, 4, and 8 runs. Over the three games Freddy Sanchez had 8 hits in 15 at bats, continuing his "Please don't waste money on Bill Mueller in the offseason, please!" campaign and Jack Wilson had went 6-for-14 to continue his "I can hit, I really can, I swear" campaign.

These are all games the Astros really needed to win. Garner brought Lidge out in a 4 run game on Tuesday, then he brought him out with down down in the 8th yesterday. This isn't the Reds playing out the string like we are or the already clinched Cardinals who could care less about us now that Lloyd's gone. This was the Astros, a team that entered this series with a 1.5 game lead in the wild card race gunning at us with the best top three in the NL (yes, even better than Duke/Maholm/Snell, at least for now). And we hit. Including the above guys, Craig Wilson went 5-for-12 in the series with a homer, Brad Eldred hit 2 massive bombs, Jason Bay clicked along like his usual self, and Doumit had a big game against Pettite.

I know it's a small sample size, but end of the year stats aren't exactly perfect either (Tike Redman in 2003 anybody?). My point is only that against Clemens, Oswalt, and Pettite we really brought some lumber at a time when they were gunning at us with their best stuff (with the possible exception of the grieving Clemens), which is more encouraging to see than racking up a bunch of runs against the Reds. The Astros noticed too, as evidenced by our almost comeback on Wednesday.

"These guys are unbelievable. They fight you right down to the end," said Berkman, who had five RBI, including his 20th homer. "They've played us real tough this year. Every time we come in here I say, 'How in the world are these guys in last place?"

and

"They're not playing for anything, but they still give 100 percent," Oswalt said. "They battled. These guys just play one at-bat at a time. I think they're going to have a good team in the coming years."

Like I said the other day, no one opens the season hoping to play spoiler in September, but some times things like this are the only things worth looking forward too at the end of a season like this one.