I begged for the bleeding to stop the other day and with a win against the Brewers last night, the Astros have ended their 9 game losing streak. But will the winning thing stick? I don’t think it’s likely for a lot of reasons.

In my house we’ve been joking that the Astros losing streak was because the weeone was at camp, but truth be told, I think the win yesterday had less to do with my daughter’s return and more to do with the insanity of the first inning and the ejection of Zack Greinke. I’m sure you’ve heard the tale or seen the footage by now, but when Greinke and Jose Altuve raced to first, and Altuve was called safe, Greinke spiked the ball in the dirt and was ejected.

I am certain that ejection was responsible for breaking the Astros losing streak.

Now, I’ll give credit where credit is due – the Astros offense was better yesterday than it’s been in a while. They put up 13 hits and attacked the bases full on, giving themselves every possible opportunity to get across home plate  and we hadn’t seen that in a while. Jordan Schafer was 2-4, Altuve 3-4, JD Martinez 3-4, Jed Lowrie 2-4 and Scott Moore hit his 3rd homer in 8 games. The bats were definitely alive. Add to that the 2 stolen bases – one each from Schafer and Altuve and the 2 sac flies from Jason Castro, and you’ve got an offense. Wandy Rodriguez put up another solid starting performance, allowing only 2 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks while striking out 5 in the 5.1 innings he spent on the bump.

But can the bandaid hold? With today’s series finale against the Brewers being the last game before the break for the All-Star Game, I’ve got to wonder if the turn in the tide yesterday was enough momentum to carry over to a second game? Add to that concern the fact that the Brewers will send Zack Greinke back to the mound today since he only threw 4 pitches yesterday. They’re trying to showcase him before the trade deadline and there was a decent crowd of scouts at Minute Maid Park yesterday who saw much less Greinke than they expected.

I applaud the Astros for taking advantage of yesterday’s events and riding the momentum they were handed in the first inning, but good baseball teams create their own momentum and that’s something this young club hasn’t figured out quite yet. So how long will the bandaid hold? Hopefully at least another game.

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the tortured Senior Houston Astros Writer for Aerys Sports. You can email her at agirlinthesouth@gmail.com, or follow her ridiculous ramblings on sports, vodka and the weeone on twitter @agirlinthesouth.

The other Aerys Sports MLB writers and I decided to share the “3 things” we thought fans within the division should know /care about / consider regarding opposing team. I gave them my thoughts on the Astros and below you’ll find what they think you should keep your eye on in the rest of the NL Central.

Cherish it, this is the last time we look at these teams at the start of season while the Astros are with them in the National League.

St. Louis Cardinals, Christine Coleman – Aaron Miles Fastball
1: It seems trite already since the question’s been asked so many times, but it really is No. 1: how will the World Champions fare without Albert Pujols, Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan?
2: How will Mike Matheny handle his first-ever managing job?
3: With Chris Carpenter, Allen Craig and Skip Schumaker starting the season on the DL and with several players with long injury histories, how will health affect the 2012 Cardinals?

Chicago Cubs, Julie DiCaro – A League of Her Own
1. Will this team lose 100 games?
2. Will Brett Jackson and Anthony Rizzo be left to rot in the minors all season? Or will they be called up ro the big club sooner rather than later?
3. How long will Matt Garza and Geo Soto be on this team? Are they part of the rebuilding process? Or merely chips to be traded to bring in more prospects?

Cincinnati Reds, Tara Franey – C-ing Red
1: “The Win Sometime ” approach. This offseason, GM Walt Jocketty made a lot of proactive, arguably aggressive moves, aimed at making real improvements. While the Madson injury and extensions for Joey Votto and Sean Marshall temper the previous “win now” message of this club, it seems clear that Jocketty’s not keen on waiting around when problems present themselves. This could lead to a quick trigger on personnel issues this summer, but the long term Votto deal probably means no fire sale even if the team struggles in the first half.
2. “Pitching wins championships”. The addition of Mat Latos was costly, but adding a number two starter without a 10 million dollar salary is always good, and for this team, it’s essential. The Reds scored plenty of runs last season, and gave up a bunch, too. Maybe we need better luck, or more clutch-hitting, but we’re going to answer a lot of our prayers simply by improving the pitching. A little regression to the mean by Bronson Arroyo, a tiny amount of improvement by 26 year old Homer Bailey, and adding Mat Latos could totally change the look of this rotation. Remember, with guys like Votto and Bruce in the lineup, we don’t the creme de la creme of rotations, but we do have to be at least mediocre.
 3. “Revolving Chapmania”. A few years ago, we signed Aroldis Chapman as a flame-throwing lefty starter, which we held to for about three months, before deciding we’d like him in our bullpen. This spring, Chapman was given a chance to start, and was pretty good at it, but was still placed in the bullpen to fill in some injury gaps, but it’s still not clear whether this is a short-term or a mid-term stint. If Bill Bray (left handed reliever) returns to form, will Chapman return to the rotation? Will he go to AAA to get stretched out again? If he starts this season at the MLB level, it’ll be something to watch.

Milwaukee Brewers-
1.  How will the recent steroid “scandal” effect Ryan Braun’s performance and will it have any impact on the team as a whole?
2.  With the loss of Prince Fielder, will the team be able to compete for the division again?
3.  With this being Zack Greinke’s contract year, will he be the pitcher he was from 2009 or will he continue to struggle and will he sign an extension with the Brewers or hit free agency?

Pittsburgh Pirates
1) Pitching: The Pirates’ rotation excelled in the first half of 2011, and cratered in the second half. Will they even out this year? Can AJ Burnett lend a helping hand, once he recovers from breaking his face?
2) Andrew McCutchen: The center fielder finally got a well-deserved All-Star nod last season, and became the eighth Pirate to join the 20-20 club. There’s no reason to believe McCutchen, only 25, can’t repeat his elite performance.
3) The record: Pittsburgh has had 19 straight under-.500 seasons. Last year, they led the division as late as 100 games in before slipping to fourth place. A shiny new starting roster with free agent additions like Clint Barmes and Erik Bedard could finally push them into the black.

Want to know what I said about the Astros?

#1 – The Breakout Star(s): General Manager, Jeff Luhnow, has said it and I will too: with a team comprised of so many young and sophomore/rookie players, someone is going to have a breakout year and it’s going to be oh-so-fun to watch. I’d go so far as to say 2 players will. My money? Brian Bogusevic and JD Martinez.
#2 – Bud Norris: Once the youngun’ in the rotation, Studly Cuddly Budly is now one of the veterans on the mound for the Astros. He had a strong Spring start and has set the goal of going at least 200 innings this season. He’s in excellent shape and could become the Astros next Ace.
#3 – The Rising Phoenix: There’s no doubt that the Astros finished last season in the ashes, but with new ownership, a new team President/CEO, a new General Manager, and a crop of players begging for the chance to prove their ability, this team will begin its rise from the ashes this year. It won’t always be pretty and there will still be plenty of losses, but the difference between 2011 and 2012 is palpable, off the field…and on.

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the tortured Senior Houston Astros Writer for Aerys Sports. You can email her at agirlinthesouth@gmail.com, or follow her ridiculous ramblings on sports, vodka and the weeone on twitter @agirlinthesouth.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve given you 5 previous favorite moments of the Astros 2011 season. I’m not really sure how many there will be. I’m trying to just go with the flow (which is hard for this slight control freak). Perhaps we’ll get to a nice even 10? Or maybe 11 since it’s the end of 2011? Oh, who knows. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

To continue the celebration of the efforts of the Js…you know, all those rookies who got called up whose names all started with J…I thought I’d pull up a video of JD Martinez’s 3 run homer that I remember fondly, but I got two for the price of one!

This first 3 run homer was against the Brewers on 8/6 in the bottom of the third and pulled Houston to within one run. Unfortunately the lead would never be Houston’s that day, but JD Martinez managed his 8th RBI in just 7 major league games with this one. I’m looking forward to seeing if his hitting holds up in Spring Training. He’s one of my favorite hitters to watch.

Click the photo to see the video.

JD’s second 3 run blast would happen just a few nights later on 8/8 in the first inning while visiting Arizona. He nailed it to left to give himself his 3rd home run of his at-this-point very short major league career. The Astros would go on that Monday evening to beat the Diamondbacks with a whopping 9-1 final score.

A good friend of mine was at this game surrounded by shocked and then upset Arizona fans as she cheered wildly for the “New Astros.”

Click the photo below to watch the video.

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the tortured Senior Houston Astros Writer for Aerys Sports. You can email her at agirlinthesouth@gmail.com, or follow her ridiculous ramblings on sports, vodka and the weeone on twitter @agirlinthesouth.

These 2 teams have been rivals since the inception of the NL Central in 1994.

The NL Central has been in existence for seventeen years. And in all of those years it’s been dominated by two teams: The St.Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros. The Cards have won 8/17 Division Championships and they’ve been the Wild Card twice and the Astros have won the Division Championship four times and been the WC twice.

If you’re new as an Astros fan (and frankly, if you’ve recently come on board I’d have to question your sanity or your ability to think rationally), you probably don’t understand the deep-seated need for an Astros fan to see the Cardinals lose. But there it is. So it is physically impossible to for me to cheer for the Cardinals. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

As the NLCS begins today I’m stuck as a fan without team, in a way. I want to cheer in this postseason race. I want to have someone that I’m invested in. But you see how it can’t be the Cardinals. There’s just no way I can do that and still call myself an Astros fan.

So what’s a girl to do?

The obvious answer would be to cheer for the Brewers, since they’re the “non-Cardinals” of this series. And in truth, up until recently, I had nothing against the Brewers. I’m actually a fan of Prince Fielder, I mean, how can you not like that guy?

But I don’t think I’m going to be able to cheer for the Brewers either. You see, this season when the Astros were having the worst season in the history of the franchise, the Brewers fans were so impressed at their team’s ability to beat the very worst team in baseball, that they yelled in the faces of Astros fans, screaming and carrying on as if they had just won the World Series. It was a poor display of fandom. I lost all respect.

I don’t think I can cheer for a team like that. I really dislike the Cardinals, but their fans have always been reasonable and respectful, at least.

Now I have a decision to make. Who will I cheer for? Or will I just ignore this half of the playoffs as if it doesn’t exist?

I need to have someone to cheer for and I figure at this point it’s either the Beer Guys or the Umpires, but it’s definitely not the Cards or the Brewers.

Terri Schlather (AGirlintheSouth) is the tortured 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 ridiculous ramblings on sports, vodka and the weeone on twitter @agirlinthesouth.

Having player hit the cycle during a game is really fun to watch, especially if you are at the game. The only downside? When it’s a player on the visiting team! Catcher George Kotteras of the Milwaukee Brewers did it last night for the first time in his career, the first time this season in the Majors and only the seventh time in Brewers’ franchise history.

The Brew Crew have a reputation for being better at home than on the road, but perhaps Kotteras was ready to change that. While the team took down Houston quite handily 8-2, Kotteras hit a homer in the fourth, tripled in the sixth and singled in the seventh. With his team clearly running away with game he got what he needed to complete the cycle as he hit a line drive to center that popped over the fence for a ground-rule double. The Cycle was complete.

Meanwhile, the rest of this game was less than exciting. It was slow and it felt long. I’d decided to buy a ticket midday and take my dad to the game. We sat just behind homeplate to get a different perspective and decided we prefer life upstairs. I didn’t miss the waiters and only slightly missed the padded and larger seats, but the crowds on the main concourse were not my cup of tea.

Oh yea, baseball. There weren’t really standout moments. Bud Norris was obviously a bit off as the Brewer managed to crank his pitch count up early and he wasn’t getting the strikeouts he normally would. There were defensive bobbles and dropped balls. There wasn’t anything horrible the Astros did to contribute to the Brewers win, they were just simply outplayed.

One of the highlights last night was Carlos Lee. Continuing the tradition of players hitting home runs on the night their bobblehead is given away, Lee knocked one hard into the Crawford Boxes in the bottom of the fifth to cut the Brewers lead in half as well as extend Lee’s season-high hitting streak to 14 games.

Today the Astros will face the Brewers for the final time this season. It will give the ‘Stros the chance to keep the Brewers home v. road record off-kilter. Wandy Rodriguez will be taking the mound for Houston, facing Shaun Marcum. We’ll see if Wandy can help shut these guys down for a change this season.

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.

In a year where we’re used to losing streaks, Astros fans are getting a taste of how the other half cheer. For the second night in a row, the Astros found a way to take down the NL Central leading St. Louis Cardinals, splitting the four game series. I’m as shocked as you are.

With the trade deadline looming and rumors of trade talks for Hunter Pence sending fans into a nervous frenzy, the boys from Houston still found a way to pull it out. Twice.

Wandy Rodriguez had a strong start on the mound allowing only 5 hits and 3 runs while striking out 6 batters in his 7 innings pitched. The bullpen was in good shape last night as well as Sergio Escalona held the Cardinals to no hits or runs in the 8th and Mark Melancon did they same in the 9th getting the save.

Carlos Lee found that elevation he’s been missing again with a single homerun in the 6th while Bourn, Pence and Bourgeois all doubled. The hit parade was out in force with 9 hits that they were able to turn into 5 runs – enough to take the Cards 5-3. And with Michael Bourn and Jason Bourgeois both adding to their stolen base count, the offense was as solid as we’ve seen it this season. Will it carryover into Milwaukee? That remains to be seen, but a litte success can go a long way to instilling confidence.

Brad Mills opted to sit Brett Wallace again last night, making many question what the heck he’s doing. When the club acquired Wallace last season as their everyday first baseman, we all thought he’d play everyday. Um, apparently not. HoustonCounterplot has a great take on Brett Wallace’s Day Off, so take a minute to read his thoughts. I agree with him 110%.

Meanwhile, the trade rumors abound. Each time there’s a slight new piece of information or anyone thinks there might be some movement my twitter feed explodes. The latest rumors? The Astros are still shopping Brett Myers, Wandy Rodriguez and Michael Bourn. The one everyone wonders about – Hunter Pence is being pursued hard by the Phillies and the Braves. Astros GM Ed Wade has a history of sending Houston talent to Philadelphia, so the scuttle tends to lean that way, but nothing’s final until there’s a deal, so hold tight Astros fans…the next 72 hours might be bumpy!

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.

So, another series, another chance to finally win one, another time coming up short. It’s not that the Astros are botching entire games, they aren’t, but at some point in most games, the wheels just completely fall off.

Prime example? Last night’s sixth inning. Yep, that inning that lasted about 3 days? That one where the Cards scored 9 runs…it was painful. Up until that point, and really the whole game, the Astros had been hitting pretty well, even Lee managed a double last night. Wallace was on fire as he has been of late. But the pitching? The pitching just downright stunk.

It’s not a secret that I’m not a fan of Figueroa as a starter, but he actually managed to give up only 2 walks and no hits or runs through 3 with some help from the defense. But in the 6th, he just imploded allowing 3 straight hits and 2 runs. Mills tosses Abad into the game whose first batter, Berkman, hits a 3 run homer. It just went downhill from there. Fulchino then replaced Abad allowing 4 hits and 4 runs before Del Rosario came in to replace him. Finally a third out put everyone out of their misery.

Now, the bullpen hasn’t had a night like this yet, really. Overall they’ve been pretty dependable, but with the starters not lasting, the team’s been relying on the bullpen a little too heavily. The wear and tear of that strategy showed itself loud and clear last night. This team, even without power hitters doing much can get guys on base. They’re even moving around the bases fairly well, but what they need desperately is better pitching. If I could, I’d shout it from the rooftops.

Was there a bright spot? Absolutely. In fact there were a couple. First, hitting. The Astros aren’t hitting a lot of long balls, but the whole lineup, with only a couple of exceptions, is hitting pretty consistently. And Brett Wallace…oh BDub….he’s on quite a streak. He’s now hitting .373 and although they’re not flying out of the park, he is producing his fair shar of doubles (9 to date).

Defensively, the team fought hard. In game 2 of this series they managed to turn an amazing five, yes 5, double plays. No one can accuse them of rolling over and giving up. Speaking of not giving up, I think they’re starting to gain some confidence, even with the losses. They’re learning that they have the ability to battle back and they’re doing it…just not quite soon enough to win many games.

So, they’ll welcome the Brewers to town tonight for 3 games and we’ll get a chance to see the first 3 starting pitchers take the mound. Hopefully, they can take the lessons learned over the past week and put them to good use.

Finally, Clint Barmes is coming back to Htown, while we wave goodbye to Joe Inglett who we’ll have to wait and see if after he clears waivers will end up at AAA OKC or be released or traded.

I’ll be cheering on the boys from section 208 tonight and Sunday as will the weeone- and she seems to bit a bit of a good luck charm for the Astros, so let’s hope that holds!

We’ve all had a night we wish we could forget. Last night was one of those nights for the Houston Astros. No matter how hard they fought to get themselves back into the game (and fight, they did) nothing was good enough to get anything going leaving them at the end of 8 1/2 innings with a 7-13 record. Tonight, they hit Miller Park again in the hopes of turning things around in this series. This particular ballpark has been trouble for the Astros for sometime. Today, word has it that the weather has improved and the roof will be open for gametime at 6:10pm CDT.

On the mound for the Astros, Brett Myers (1-0, 2.39 ERA). It’s worth mentioning that the Astros are 2-2 in games where Myers was the starter but both of the losses should have been wins – the bullpen let him down. The Brewers will send out right handed pitcher Shaun Marcum (2-1, 1.90 ERA). This should be a great duel of pitching and I don’t expect we’ll see the innumberable hits and runs that came out of last night’s game.

Here’s the rest of the Astros Lineup for tonight:

CF Michael Bourn

SS Angel Sanchez

RF Hunter Pence

LF Carlos Lee

1B Brett Wallace

2B Bill Hall

3B Chris Johnson

C Humberto Quintero

RHP Brett Myers

To have any hope of survival tonight, the Astros will have to play infinitely better than they did last night. They need to be firing on all cylinders.

1- Brett Myers will need to pitch the way we have consistently seem him since he came to the Astros and the bullpen has got to settle down. Last night the bullpen allowed 11 hits, and 8 runs, 7 earned runs. That’s just not good enough to win ballgames. The good news is that with Brett starting, odds are he’ll go well into 6 innings and we’ll see less of the bullpen.

2- The lineup is going to need to be more productive at moving runners around the bases. The 14 hits they acheived last night would have been a lot more impressive if they hadn’t only gotten 7 runs out of those hits. Marcum’s a tough pitcher to come up against and so far this year, batters are hitting only .209 against him. With only a handful of left handed batters in the Astros lineup (Bourn, Wallace, Inglett) right handed pitchers usually have the upperhand.

3- The middle of the lineup – Lee, Wallace, Hall – need to hit with power tonight. The fact that the Astros have fewer home runs (9) than anyone else in the MLB is the direct result of the power hitters not performing to date this year. Playing small ball has gotten them nowhere. It’s time for the bats to come alive!

4- Fielding has to be perfect. Error-Fest 2011 needs to come to an end. The Astros have had 21 errors so far while opponents have only had 10. Making bad plays and bad decisions results in bad endings.

Can they fix those four things tonight? Yes. Will they? That remains to be seen, but I sure as heck hope so!

The game’s not even over as I write this. The Astros are down 14-6 in the top of the 8th and you may say I’m a naysayer for deciding this game is over, but I like to live in the real world. The Astros don’t recover in 2 innings from an eight run deficit. Not this year’s Astros, that’s for sure. *** And sure enough, no recovery happened as the ‘stros lose it 14-7.

This game has not just been painful, it’s been long. Nothing like a horrible game that will not end, but I suppose if you’re a Brewer fan it’s a great game that keeps on giving. The list of things that went wrong tonight for Houston is long, too long. I’m not even sure where to begin. The pitching was bad. The hitting was bad. The defense was bad. There were times when I wondered if I had accidentally changed the channel and was watching a little league team. Oh, and “the Brads”, Arnsberg and Mills, were both ejected in the 2nd inning when Arnie made comments about the homeplate ump’s calls and Mills trotted out to defend Arnie. I had hoped that Mills’ absence would be as helpful as it was when he served his 1 game suspension and the Astros won, but alas that would not be the case.

Remember when I said that Angel Sanchez should stay around a while? I stand corrected. The way he’s been missing double plays and having his own little “Error-Fest 2011″ (he’s managed 5 already this year), coupled with the fact that his hitting is declining as the season progresses (.274) makes me long for Clint Barmes’ return. Fortunately, Barmes is going to start rehabing in the minors on Monday, so we won’t have to wait long to hopefully see some better defense played at the middle infield. Although Sanchez didn’t have an error tonight, both Bill Hall and Carlos Lee did. There were missed opportunities everywhere.

Shall we talk about the pitching? I know I keep railing on Figueroa, but tonight’s 6 earned runs (2HRs) in 4 innings along with 5 walks just proves my point. Mr. Mills, how long will you let this continue? The bullpen wasn’t any better allowing an astounding 11 hits and 8  runs. It was just ugly all around. The Brewers were hitting hard and consistently, scoring in 6 of 8 innings they took the plate.

Michael Bourn hit well tonight, going 3-5 with 1 Run and 1 RBI. He’s now at .319 on the season. Bourn also added a stolen base to take his season total to 9. Brett Wallace (.313) is finding his groove going 3-5 with 1 Run and 1 RBI. Bill Hall almost got a homer when he hit one that barely missed clearing the wall, allowing him a triple. We also saw Carlos Lee manage a double. But regardless of that hit, Lee’s still only hitting .225. I cannot for the life of me figure out why he’s still hitting clean up with a batting average like that. I’d really like to see Mills move Wallace into that fourth batting position to see if he can help more than Lee has. I know Wallace’s RBI count isn’t outstanding (7) but when you look at the on base percentages of the batters ahead of him, is it surprising? I think if he’s put in a position where he can actually be productive, he will be. Anyone who’s watched his progress since he was brought up last season would agree that he just keeps improving and is showing more and more confidence at the plate. I think he’s earned a shot at a better batting position.

The problems with this team seem to be compounding as we move along in the season. Tomorrow’s continuation of this series will see Brett Myers starting for the Astros. If there’s a chance for Houston to take a game during their stay in Milwaukee, Saturday will be their best shot.