Current Series
3 game series vs Cubs @ Wrigley Field
| Mon 09/01 | WP: Roy Oswalt (13 - 9) SV: Jose Valverde LP: Jason Marquis (9 - 8) | 3 - 0 win |
| Tue 09/02 | WP: Wesley Wright (4 - 3) SV: Jose Valverde LP: Kerry Wood (4 - 3) | 9 - 7 win |
Wednesday, Sep 3, 2008, 7:05 PM CDT Randy Wolf vs Ryan Dempster Cloudy. Winds blowing in from left field at 10-15 m.p.h. Game Time temperature: Around 65.
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With their seven game win streak giving Houston fans something to smile about, the bitter reality is that they've only managed to up their play-offs odds by fractions of a percent during that time. Our elimination number sits at 17, which means we need a Milwaukee collapse, and virtual perfection from here on out to make the play-offs -- I just won't be holding my breath for that to happen.
The man taking the mound tonight is one such reason. Randy Wolf, the apple of Ed Wade's eye apparently, who's numbers are actually slightly better than they should be. By my calculations (put as little or as much faith into them as you want) Randy Wolf is sporting a 4.86 DIPS ERA, which is just slightly off his full season ERA of 4.73. It's just hard to have faith the Astros can hover around the edges of perfection, when once every five days, someone who you expect to give up 3 runs in five innings is going to take the mound. Especially when theirs a possibility he faces off against one of the best pitcher's in the NL this year.
Randy's not suffering from a ton of luck related issues (although he did pitch in the best pitcher's park in the game and in front of one of the best defense after the trade), what he is suffering from, or his BB and HBP's -- best stated as "Lack of Control." No need to fear Astros fans, we could potentially end up locking up two never-was type guys for a few million dollars to fill out the back of our rotation/bull pen next year...hooray. I truly hope this doesn't happen, but my short term goals are this: Randy Wolf doesn't walk a ton of people today and as a result, we stay in this ball game until we can get to the Cubs very fatigued bull pen.
My bold prediction of the game will be this:
If the Astros win tonights game, then the baseball gods are truly favoring them and if the baseball gods are truly favoring the Astros, the Astros will make the playoffs.
Bonus points for those of you can point out the missing assumption in this bit of logic.
Oh, and here's your starting line-up: