FanPost

So what's it going to take?

These last two weeks could not have gone much worse for the floundering 'Stros.  They managed a losing home stand against the two most beatable AL teams on their schedule (btw, they haven't had a winning home stand since that two game quickie sweep of the Cards in the first week of May).  They ran the gauntlett of CHI/DET and only barely scraped one blown save extra innings win in six games.  

I think fan morale (based on my own feelings, observation of friends, and listening to local sports talk radio) is at a season low.  It's not out of the question that they could go 7-3 heading into the all-star break and find themselves above .500.  The three teams they're playing aren't exactly playing great baseball either.  I'm not sure how many people truly believe that's a probably outcome, though.

Listening to Charlie Palillo's show last night, there was a lot of clamoring for call-ups and trades.  Lots of finger-pointing.  Lamb, Berkman, and Burke are the only offensive players that seem to be showing any consistency, but even THEY have gotten cases of the chokes with RISP lately.  Roy's been slightly less Roy-like than we're used, but still good, and Roger's thrown two games that with even just a little run support would have earned him wins, but not a single other pitcher on our roster has been anything resembling solid lately.  Up and down the roster there is an aweful lot of inconsistent performances.  We don't need great everywhere.  Decent everywhere, with flashes of great, would be just fine.

So is there anything to look forward to?  Is there any indication that we'll ratchet down the suckitude in the near future?  Rag on Purpura all you want, but is there really anything he can do right now?  There's no way he can attempt to improve this team with a trade that won't require another big addition to the payroll.  He can't make a call-up without essentially cutting loose a major league player.  As dissappointing as many of their position players have been, I can't think of any that wouldn't be claimed off waivers, and unless I'm mistaken, nobody has options left.  Would Luke Scott, or popular names thrown around on talk radio shows like Pence or Zobrist (neither seem like logical call-ups all the way from AA, although why neither are playing in Round Rock may be a good platform for argument) really help this team?

So what can we fans do but throw our hands up?  Just hope and pray that so many of these guys that have now garnered a reputation for wildly inconsistent play finally somehow come together and magically be all good at the same time for the next three months (and hopefully four).  Not sure there's anything else we CAN do.

Thoughts?