Astros win! Astros win! Astros win! (and NLCS discussion)

Cafe Society
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Game 5 of the Atlanta/Houston NLDS came to an end tonight as the 43 year playoff series win streak came to an end as my beloved (most of the time anyway) Astros crushed the Braves 12-3. I have been a life long fan of the Astros, with the exception of the year after the strike. In 1986, I was a ten year old boy listening as the Mets beat the 'Stros in 16 innings to take the Pennant. I cried my eyes out that day, broken hearted. As an adult I read The Bad Guys Won! A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo-chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform–and Maybe the Best by Jeff Pearlman, and found out just what a bunch of losers and boozers were on that team. It makes me even sadder as an adult because of that.

The various 90’s era Astro teams that won the Central Division title would completely choke against everyone they met, including Atlanta three times (San Diego was the other, which included the late Ken Caminiti in his MVP year). Bagwell and Biggio were always terrible, and the pitching staff would crumble. Each year I would pin my hopes, and each year I would be disappointed. That all changed tonight…

The past is the past now, as we step into the NLCS with a series against the best offense in the Majors. The St. Louis Cardinals are super strong, and have pretty much owned the Astros the last few years, but the last regular season meeting ended up with the Cards 0-3. The really big problem with the Astros is the bullpen. The only thing holding together these guys is a prayer and some duct tape. The Rocket and Roy Oswalt with pitch games 3 & 4, but that isn’t an auto win by any means, although Oswalt looked VERY good tonight in his five innings.

I am a fan, but I am going to take Astros in six. If they can win one of the first two games, and get to the meat of the pitching staff, I think they can pull it off. The home games for us will be rabid, and if the bats swing like they did in game 1 & 5 of the NLDS the crowds will be frothing at the mouth.

Good luck St. Louis. I think your going to need it.

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Cool. The Yankees need a new team to beat for the Series. :wink:

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Two comments:

Go Astros! As a Royals fan, I’m rooting for you because I’d love to see Carlos Beltran get a ring.

Their win has guaranteed us that we will, for the first time since the split of each league into three divisions, see an NL Central team in the World Series.

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This should revive the “we should get rid of Bobby Cox” talk in Atlanta.

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I’m rooting for the Astros to win the pennant and then lose in 6 to the Red Sox in the Series.

And then, for the OP’s sake, for someone to write a tell-all book about the moral degeneracy of the Red Sox. :stuck_out_tongue:

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GO ASTROS!!!

I think it would be totally cool if the Astros played the Sox in the World Series. (Not likely, perhaps, but totally cool.)

It was a shame about Caminiti, though. He was playing for the Astros back when I was attending their games.

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Big congrats - as someone who has never been a fan of the Tomahawk Chop, I am all in favor of the Astros advancing.

Feels like they might be running into a buzzshaw in terms of the Cardinals.

Whoever wins the NL, they should be well set up for the Fall Classic - Yankees/Red Sox series have a funny knack of draining the life out of the winner. It certainly happened that way for the Yanks last year. If the Sawx win, maybe they will be extra pumped to go after the World Series, but I am inclined to think the NL team will win…

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Unfortunately, you’re probably right.

As a Braves fan who has now been at Turner Field to watch somebody else celebrate an NLDS victory in our house three years in a row, I’m disappointed, but I can’t say I’m really surprised. Objectively, I thought the Braves were the third best team in the NL playoffs – and my top two are in the NLCS. As a Cardinal fan until I moved to Atlanta, I gotta pull for the Redbirds, but I think Houston’s got a decent shot at knocking them off.

I’m hoping for a 1967 rematch myself, but I’d be OK with Astros-Red Sox; a 1964 rematch would be my second choice. An Astros-Yankees series would make it tough for me to root for either side.

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Bandwagon-jumping carpetbagger here (well, at least I cheered the 'Stros all season long).

Astros starting pitching will tell the tale, IMO. Both Clemens and Oswalt were clearly gassed after four innings on short rest. Looks like the Astros will open the series with Backe and Munro at St. Louis; neither is a sure thing in away games. Yes, the 'Stros took beat the Cards handily late in the season, but that was a team that was cruising to a sure playoff spot and with a couple of key position players out due to injuries. The Cards, when playing at full strength have equally big bats and are better on defence. This series will be much tougher.

In the 'Stros favor, they’ve got half their lineup hitting around .400 in the postseason; Beltran’s a man possessed, I love the way Berkman seems to always run the count to 3-2, then get a hit anyway, and Biggio and Bagwell seem to have finally figured out how to hit in the postseason. Despite some questionable moves during the series with Atlanta, I also think the bullpen is better than it’s given credit for. Should be a great series, and I will predict on no authority whatever that it will go the distance, with penty of souvenir home-run balls for the fans. Astros in seven.

With that said, I find a Cards/Bosox matchup perfectly acceptable as well. Anything but the frickin’ Yankees.

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As a St. Louisan I must point out that the Cardinals had already locked down the Central Division championship and were playing out the string. The Cardinals enter the NLCS having beaten the Dodgers into submission in Game 4 and with their pitching staff rested and set.

Of course, we can all agree that whoever wins, a Cardinals-Astros NLCS is better than one featuring the Cubs vs. anybody.

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LET’S GO CARDS!!!

The only thing that worries me is Rolen - he needs to get untracked. With all cylinders firing, we look pretty damn good, I must say.

Oh, and to every baseball pundit - and I mean EVERY one - who picked the Cards 3rd in the Central, you can all kiss Fredbird’s ass.

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The Braves always make me think of my grandfather when they make the playoffs. He’d wind up cursing them every year when they lost in the playoffs. And they’ve done that for as long as I can remember. Make the playoffs every year, then lose.

He also hated Deion Sanders. So thanks to Deion Sanders for coming back so I can think of grandpa every time I watch a Ravens game.

I’m seeing Cardinals vs. Red Sox in the series.

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That would be a NO! :smiley:

But the NLCS should be a barn-burner. At last, two Championship series with some meat to them…where I care about at least one of the teams involved in each. St. Louis mangled my Dodgers, so GO ASTROS!

Needless to say…GO SOX!

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I have nothing but respect for Bobby Cox and the Braves. Yes, they’ve lost the NLDS three years in a row.

Here are some teams that haven’t even BEEN to a divisional series in the last three years: Toronto Blue Jays, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, New York Mets, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians (I think), Cincinnati Reds, Texas Rangers, Washington Assholes or whatever they’re called now, Philadelphia Phillies, and maybe some others I’ve forgotten. Who would YOU rather be?

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[QUOTE=robgruverI have been a life long fan of the Astros, with the exception of the year after the strike. In 1986, I was a ten year old boy listening as the Mets beat the 'Stros in 16 innings to take the Pennant.[/QUOTE]

Congrats to the Astros! When I heard that they had won, I was taken back to my own boy(ish) days in Philadelphia. Now bear with me, because the Astros come out losers in this particular story, but I am still happy they’re in the hunt.

  1. This is the days before 3 divisions, wild cards, etc. Phillies and Astros are in the NL playoffs for the pennant. Well, the Phillies had been doing well that year, but I was in grad school and too busy to keep much track of them. Besides, they’d been so bad for so long…

I was managing to avoid studying for my Integral Algebra course, by watching the Phillies-Astros game on an old BW TV I’d picked up out of the trash. This is about 9 at night. Fifth game, winner take all. I figure the Phillies are gonna lose. Extra innings. Suddenly, the announcer says “The Phillies have won the game.” Wow, I think, that’s cool.

Wait. They won the game. My G-d, the Phillies are in the World Series. It suddenly becomes important for me to get Series tickets. The announcer is telling me that they’re going on sale immediately down at the Vet. I’m in West Philadelphia, miles from the Vet, too poor to even own a car…

My friend George and I spend down there in his 1975 Buick boatmobile. We were joined by oh, roughly half the population of Philadelphia
:eek:. happy, very drunk, and squooshed into an area the size of a basketball court. The apocryphal Black Hole of Calcutta was paradise in comparison.

Nonetheless, by 5 AM I was the proud owner of three sets of tickets: 2 for game one, two for game two, and two for game six. My then-girlfriend and I went to all the games, and as you know, the Phillies won in 6. I will never forget it. My girlfriend was extremely happy after every game ('nuff said):D. After the Phillies won the series, the city partied the entire night. I got home the next day about 1 PM. :stuck_out_tongue:

In my long time here on Earth, I have suffered through many baseball disappointments, including the Red Sox, the winning habits of the #@%! Yankees, last year’s Giants, this year’s Giants, and yes, probably next year’s Giants as well. Still, I can only hope that the Astros are on a role and can easily beat the Cardinals (if the Dodgers win, I’m moving to Canada). Then, well…

Do I root for the Red Sox or Astros?

Hey, on the other hand, DC has again (for the moment) a baseball team. I vote to name them the Setwigers. :smiley:

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Yeay, 'Stros!

'Bout time. I’m still upset about 1986.
;j

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Not after last night’s ALCS, you’re not. With Schilling hobbled, it seems very unlikely he could start another game, or, if he does, last more than a few innings. True, the Sawx came back and made it a game, but all of a sudden, it doesn’t look as good as it did for them…

I don’t have a horse in the NL race - Giants fan here - but it still seems like the Redbirds are going to have their way with the Astros, simply due to the 'stros pitching rotation being off and the Card’s bats…

This baseball sure is fun.

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633squadron: Thanks for telling your story. I don’t remember too much about that series (as I was five years old), but I do recall my dad being very angry. I also remember snippits of the games, but no real details.

A lot of people, myself included, have poo-pooed the Astros pitching staff. Last night the 'stros announced that Brandon Backe would start game 1 against the Card’s Woody Williams. I think this is the best move that manager Phil Garner could have made. Backe is young, and untested, but I think that this is his time to shine. The only real worry I have about tonight is the fact that he is pitching on three days rest. Garner said in an interview last night that it was Backe who came to him saying he was ready to pitch, and after the final game of the regular season against Colorado that clinched the Wild Card spot along with his strong start against the Braves I think he will do well.

So the real questions are thus:

  1. Will the Astros pitching choke?
  2. Will the Cards be able to hold off the Killer B’s?
  3. Will Opal start game 3?

The answer to the first question is up in the air, especially after the rough series with Atlanta. I would like to think the answer is no, but we should know tonight.

The second question is a bit easier to answer. The Astros offense has been on fire since August, and I don’t see that stopping now. With a team of veterans, backed up by young studs, the bats should not stop swinging. I think that the only way for the Cards to pull this series out, is to COMPLETLY shut down the Astros offense. With the likes of Bagwell, Kent, Beltran, Biggio, and Berkman swingnig the bats I don’t think that is likely.

If nothing else it will be exciting, and that is the point I think. Good baseball trumps all other sports… but that is another thread alltogether.

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Well, I think Backe is likely to pitch reasonably well; maybe not quite as well as against Atlanta last time out, but acceptably. Clemens goes in game two on three days’ rest, then a day off and Oswalt in game 3 on four days. So far, so good – your pitching should give you a chance in those three. If you stay with that schedule, Backe ends up being the guy who gets three starts in the series, and only Oswalt in Game 3 gets more than three days rest throughout the series. Or if you win two out of the first three, you might plug somebody else in on Sunday in Game 4, setting up Backe, Clemens, and Oswalt for Games 5, 6, and 7, on four days’ rest in each case. It could work, but it’s fragile – anybody gets hurt or is too worn to go effectively on three days rest, and it falls apart. And I don’t know if any three pitchers can shoulder that much of the load against a team like the Cardinals and then, if they win, be ready to do battle against either the Yankees or the Red Sox.

  1. I don’t think they’ll choke, but they might run out of gas.
  2. From what I saw in the Atlanta series, Beltran and Berkman are the keys. Not that Biggio, Bagwell, and to some degree Kent aren’t dangerous, but I think the Cards are strong enough to outscore the Astros if they can keep Beltran and Berkman from doing what they did against Atlanta.
  3. Hi!

In a seven-game series, my money’s still on the Cards, but it should be a good one. There’s no question that the Astros are about as hot as a team can be right now, but in this kind of a playoff they can’t afford for any of their pitching staff to have a bad night – and pitching four or five times in a row on short rest (including the NLDS) makes that tougher.

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Game 1 goes to the Cards. There were two main reason why this happened in my opinion.

  1. The link I posted in my previous post had a section dealing with Phil Garner’s over-managing. This happened again in this game. Backe should not have come out when he did, and this is the second time this post season that he has pulled a pitcher that shouldn’t have been pulled (the last was Clemens in game 4 of the NLDS). I don’t like to play armchair coach, but Backe did not look too bad in the fourth. Sure, he gave up a couple of runs, but he seemed to be pulling it together with two outs in the fourth.

  2. The Cards took advantage of Chad Qualls. This guy is a clown, who should not be given the ball. I have been unhappy with him since he first came up, and tonight he showed his posterier again.

Game two is tommorow, with Pete Munroe starting against Matt Morris. I also wanted to note that all seven of the Astros runs were off of homeruns. Interesting…