Yep, that's 100 baseballs: One for everyone Astros loss so far this season.

100 Losses.

I’m not even sure what to say. In what had to be the most boring baseball game in the history of the sport, the Houston Astros lost their 100th game of the season to the Chicago Cubs. That’s all I’ve got.

Oh, wait, that’s not true. We have a winner in the “Guess the Date” contest for 100 Losses! Andrew guessed it would be today. His comment back on August 2nd was -

It is going to be on September 17th, against those !@*&# Cubs. Soriano will hit a home run.

Well, Soriano didn’t hit a homer, but LaHair did. Even with that, you got the date right. Congratulations, Andrew! Email me at agirlinthesouth (at) gmail (dot) com to claim your prize.

Meanwhile, I’ll be over here wondering how much better it will be in 2012. I’m not hopeful for much, but it sure would be nice to at least win 60 games. And I wasn’t kidding about the tshirts – #Astros2013 – I’ll keep you posted about how to order yours!

I guess we can talk about this game a little. Henry Sosa was on the mound for Houston and once the first inning was behind him and he settled down, he actually pitched pretty well. In 6 innings he allowed 4 hits and 2 earned runs, walking 5 (4 in that 1st inning), and striking out 5. Unfortunately those 2 runs would be all the Cubs needed to win it 2-1.

The Astros biggest problem? Leaving runners on bags. With runners in scoring position they were 0-13. This has been a problem all season long. The Astros can’t figure out how to get productive hits when it really counts. It’s incredibly frustrating as a fan. When the bases get loaded or there are runners on the corners and only 1 or even no outs, but then nothing comes of it, it’s the biggest let down there is. So the fact that in the top of the ninth with bases loaded and 1 out, Altuve and Quintero couldn’t get it done pretty much sums up the season in clutch hitting.

This is something that, no matter who plays on the Astros team next season, Brad Mills has got to get a handle on. If there’s no clutch hitting, there’s also no winning. Regardless of whether your roster is all veterans or all rookies or something somewhere in the middle, if you can’t knock guys in, your season will be long and painful. Sound familiar? Yep.

And with that…have a great Saturday. I’m going to go watch some NCAA football now and try to cheer up!

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the Senior Houston Astros Writer for Aerys Sports. You can read her Astros blog at www.talesfromthejuicebox.com, email her at agirlinthesouth@gmail.com, or follow her on twitter @agirlinthesouth.