It’s bad when all you can say about your team is that they playing to stay out of last place. And they needed a seven game losing streak by the Pirates just to lose that distinction. The Astros are also playing to avoid 90 losses, which they can do if they go 6-3 in their final nine games. That doesn’t look like it’s going to happen but you never know.
I applaud Craig Biggio for calling it quits. He’s definitely a Hall of Famer, but at this point he’s kind of reached the end of the road. A .657 OPS, even for a second baseman, isn’t going to cut it and his .279 OBP is almost 100 points below his career mark.
Hunter Pence was of course the big surprise. He was contending for the batting title when he went down and while he hasn’t been as good since the injury, he hasn’t been horrible so hopefully this will give Pence a springboard to a solid sophomore campaign.
Lance Berkman also had an off year so you hope he’ll bounce back in 2008. His OPS is 90 points below his career mark and he’s probably going to set a career mark for strikeouts in a season.
Roy Oswalt was Roy Oswalt. Still the ace, he led the team in just about everything and while his win total was down a notch, it wasn’t because he wasn’t throwing well. Wandy Rodriguez was good but not great but after that, things got pretty spotty. Probably the most encouraging thing was Brad Lidge’s second half. His homerun rate was up a notch, but 40 strikeouts in 29 innings is damn good and you hope he’ll be an effective closer next year.
So the Astros have some parts, they just need some more parts to compete in 2008. It’ll be an interesting offseason and we’ll see how things go with the new GM.
