As Spring training draws closer, I can start to feel those baseball juices flowing inside me again (even though those dormant basketball ones have only just resurfaced after a 7 year hiatus), and I started really thinking about the Astros chances. Which brings me to this question... when was the last time a team with truly great starting pitching (more than just 1 good starter) actually went out there and was bad? A lot of people look at us as a team with no offense, and even though I think that's a little extreme, for the sake of the argument lets assume that the offense will be awful. But still, the question holds... when was the last time a team with great pitching (and a horrible offense) was actually bad? The closest team I remember that actually comes close to fitting this profile (all pitching, no hitting) was the dodgers from 2 years ago, and they still finished in 2nd place. (and a lot of their offensive woes were due to the giant ballpark they play most their games in... not a similiar problem here). Anyways... those are just my thoughts... mainly inspired by pre-season publications looking at nothing but offense to rank where they think teams will end up (honestly, people are jumping on the Reds for the WC bandwagon... and Eric Milton or Paul freaking Wilson is their "ace"... what a joke).
Our pitching staff was better at the start of last season (Miller was more proven than Backe), and we still stunk before we made the Beltran trade. Yeah, we lost Pettite and Miller for most of the season, but that was a better staff at the start of the season than this one. I actually have hope this team. I think thast Burke and Lane are going to have solid years.
The only thing that helps is the rest of the division got weaker except the Reds, but they are just noise makers until Jun.
Fwiw... the team was pretty good with their pitching "intact" last year at the start of the season. They started going downhill when Pettite was inconsistent with his starts (and eventually went out for good), Miller started having all sorts of problems, and Dotel was too inconsistent as a closer as well... it wasn't just the offense.
I'd be more 'confident' if Clemens was 32 and Pettitt was healthy and Roy O wasn 't a groin waiting to happen.
They just lost Larkin (retired). I think the Astros will be fine if the bullpen can hold itself together.
Yeah, maybe I'm being too negative, but that trio + one Lance Berkman definitely have some questionmarks health/age-wise. Not sure if you can count on having all of them healthy for all or even half of the season and if Houston is going to contend for the playoffs they will be needing ALL of them healthy and in top form. That is unless Lane steps up big time along with a Burke, Ensberg, or Lamb. Jeff Bagwell looks like the Astros' best hitter entering opening day..........that's just scary.
