I was happy to win today, but going 6-7 in a 13 game home stand when you are leading the MLB in home winning percentage is not right. Pick em' up Astros! Time to make another push.
You're totally right. If we don't end up making the playoffs (especially if its only by 1-2 games), this home-stand has to be looked at as the "turning point" for that. That being said, they were on a truly ridiculous pace for their home record... it had to even out at some point (although I'd rather have it even out in September when they were already 6-7 games ahead). Also, another semi-optimistic way of looking at it is that this team HAS to play better on the road regardless (which they have, since their awful start). Just winning mostly all their home games and doing avg. to below avg. on the road would have been enough to run away with this wild card, but it really isn't the mark of a good team, and it wouldn't have given me much confidence for this bunch goin into the playoffs (considering that all their series will be start out on the road). If they can use this sub-par home-stand as a motivational tool to start hitting well on the road, it could serve them better in the long term. I'm looking forward to this next series with the Padres... a lot of good pitching matchups: Woody Williams vs. Roy Oswalt Jake Peavy vs. Roger Clemens Chan Ho Park vs. Zeke Astacio - the last one looks horrible on paper, but Park has been lights out against the Astros this year and Astacio can actually afford to leave the ball up a little bit at Petco because there are no HR's hit in that ballpark no matter who is pitching.
Rocketman, guess you were closer in your prediction, but either way, like said , I dont care how we win.