In some of the posts over the last few days, we have wondered if Cecil Cooper's style is wearing on the Astros' players in a negative way. Cooper's "tough talk" to the media about his team has struck me as potentially counter-productive.  Oswalt's public comments about the reserve-filled team which started Sunday was an indicator that things might not be going well between the manager and his players.

Now, Jose Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle says that the Astros' clubhouse has become "toxic."  http://blogs.chron.com/baseballblog/archives/2008/06/toxic_time_for.html

This anonymous quote doesn't sound good:

"It's real bad in here," a player told me as soon as I got into the clubhouse Tuesday to try to get an unbiased opinion to the comments I read in the paper Monday from Roy Oswalt and Cecil Cooper. "It's not going to get better."

According to Ortiz, the players openly second guess Cooper and Robinson on their in game decisions.