The Stros beat the Pirates last night while the Cardinals behind their ace Carpenter lost again to the Padres. The Stros’ (79-78) winning streak is now seven, the Cardinals’ (80-76) losing streak is seven, and the Stros have pulled to within 1.5 games of the NL Central lead with five games to go.
If the Stros win three of those five games (two more against the Pirates and three against the Braves), then the Cardinals can still pull it out by winning just 3 of their final six games (one more against the Pads, four against the Brewers, and a make-up game against the Giants, if necessary). So, the Stros are still a longshot to win the division (the Stros are out of the race for the NL Wildcard playoff spot). But it’s sure refreshing to watch the Cardinals sweating this one out. The ghost of the 1964 Phillies — who blew a 6.5 game lead for the National League title by losing 10 of their final 12 games — is looming large over the Redbirds right now.
If the Stros and Cards end up tied for the NL Central title, then there will be a one-game playoff at Minute Maid Park next Tuesday.

After I wrote off the Stros in my two previous periodic reviews of the club’s season (here and here), the hometown team is making things interesting.
First, the Stros swept the Cardinals in a four-game series over this past weekend (including three straight games in which they won in their last at bat). Then, last night, the club used 25 players — including a franchise record-tying nine pitchers and seven pinch hitters — to nip the Phillies 5-4 in Philadelphia and reach the .500 mark (78-78) for the first time since July 6. The Stros have now won six straight, the Cards have lost six straight and the Stros find themselves only 2.5 games behind the Cards in the National League Central with six games to play (three at Pittsburgh and three at Atlanta). The Cards have seven games remaining at home (two against the Padres, four against the Brewers and a makeup game against the Giants, if necessary). Even if the Stros go 4-2 over the final six games, the Cards only have to win three of their remaining games to win the title outright, so the Stros are still a longshot. However, it’s fun to watch the Cardinals gripping — that’s usually the position that the Stros are in.
By the way, Tory Gattis passes along this hilarious Onion article that places Roger Clemens’ seemingly endless string of final games in the perspective of many opposing baseball fans, particularly those in Boston who thought that Clemens’ last game was going to occur over a decade ago.
Meanwhile, my friend Jim Bob Baker, a University of Oklahoma diehard, passes along the following observation about the lingering effects on the OU fan base of the Oklahoma Sooners’ controversial loss last week at Oregon:

The only phrase that makes people in Oklahoma more nervous these days than “tornado warning” is when they hear “the play is under review . . .”

As I’ve noted before, it’s funny how our expectations for the Stros color the way in which we view the team at a particular stage of the season.
After essentially playing themselves out of the National League playoff race in the eighth 1/10th segment of the season, the Stros (71-74) have actually played quite well over their ninth segment of the season, going 10-6 and completing a segment with a winning record for just the third time this season. However, as the Stros enter their final 17 games of the season, the general consensus in the local media is that the Stros have not been playing well and certainly not as well as last season at this time when they were also contending for the NL wildcard playoff spot.
Indeed, taking a look at where the Stros stood last season at this time is instructive as to where the Stros find themselves this season. After 145 games last season, the Stros were 77-71, which means that the team had won only six more games than the current club at the same stage of the season. That 2005 team was plagued by the same chronic hitting woes that the current Stros team is experiencing — that club’s team runs created against average (“RCAA,” explained here) after 145 games was within a run or two of being the same as this season’s club (-38).
Meanwhile, the 2005 club’s pitching staff — led by the extraordinary starting trio of Clemens, Pettitte and Oswalt — had an outstanding 97 runs saved against average (“RSAA,” explained here) after 145 games. This year’s staff currently has a very respectable 54 RSAA (third in the NL), but that performance is only about half as good as last season’s pitching staff’s incredible performance after 145 games.
Thus, expectations aside, the reality is that this season’s club has not improved in hitting from last season’s club and thus, the roughly 43 fewer runs saved by the 2006 pitching staff in comparison to the 2005 staff is the difference between the 2005 club winning six more games than the 2006 club at the same stage of the season. That difference — as well as a couple of nagging injuries to Pettitte and Clemens down the stretch of this season — is more than enough to prevent this fragile Stros club from making the push necessary to contend seriously for a playoff spot.
Despite the disappointment of missing the playoffs after the past two magical seasons and flirting with a sub-.500 season for only the second time in the past 14 seasons, the Stros did have a couple of good things happen since the review of the club’s 8th segment of the season:

The Stros locked up Roy Oswalt (3.06 ERA/33 RSAA (tied for 4th in RSAA in Major League Baseball); and
Lance Berkman (57 RCAA (tied for 4th in Major League Baseball)/.414 OBA/.616 SLG/1.030 OPS) officially became the 2nd best hitter in Stros history and, with his tater in yesterday’s win against the Cardinals, became the first Major League Baseball switch-hitter since the late Mickey Mantle to hit 40 or more home runs in multiple seasons (Mantle’s stats for his 18-year career were 1099 RCAA/.421 OBA/.557 SLG/.977 OPS).

The club’s hitting and pitching statistics to date are set forth below, and pdf’s of the current hitting stats are here and the current pitching stats are here, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here:

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As the Stros play out the string of the 2006 season amidst the beginning of the football season, the Stros’ lone slugger — Lance Berkman — quietly reached another milestone in his quest to become the best hitter in Stros history.
Over the weekend against the Brewers, Berkman overtook future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio for second place in career runs scored against average (“RCAA”) among Stros players. As regular readers of this blog know, RCAA is a Lee Sinins-developed statistic that is among the best in reflecting the effectiveness of a hitter. The reason for this is that it focuses on the most important statistic in baseball for a hitter — creating runs. Whereas more commonly cited statistics such as batting average can be very misleading (for example, some local media commentators misconstrue Willy Taveras‘ .284 batting average as meaning that he is having a good hitting season), RCAA is particularly valuable in evaluating hitters because it focuses on the two most important things in winning baseball games — that is, creating runs and avoiding making outs.

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In my most recent periodic review of the Stros 2006 season, I observed that the personnel moves that Stros General Manager Tim Purpura made this past off-season do not inspire much confidence that he knows what to do in turning the Stros back into a legitimate playoff contender. However, it’s comforting to know that when it comes to the best pitcher in the history of the Stros franchise — Roy Oswalt — that Purpura and Stros owner Drayton McLane know exactly what to do.
In the richest contract ever given to a Stros pitcher, the Stros announced last night that they had signed Roy O to a five year extension worth $73 million, but which could be worth as much as $87 million should the club pick up a $16 million option for the 2012 season. Oswalt will be paid $13 million in 2007 and ’08, $14 million in ’09, $15 million in 2010 and $16 million in 2011. The club can either exercise a $2 million buyout after 2011 or pick up the $16 million club option for 2012. The contract will include a no-trade clause.
While the Stros normally do not do deals for over three years with pitchers because of the high injury risk, Roy O is a special case. Drafted by the Stros ten years ago and developed within the Stros’ heralded (at the time) minor league pitching program, Oswalt jumped from AA ball to the Stros in 2001 and quickly became one of the best pitchers in the National League. Remarkably durable throughout his career to date, Oswalt pitched the key win that vaulted the Stros into their first World Series last season and has developed into one of the best pitchers in MLB history at this stage of his career. Oswalt, who turned 29 yesterday, is tenth in the history of the National League in runs saved against average (“RSAA,” defined here) for pitchers through the age of 28:

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When we last checked in on the Stros at the 7/10’s pole, the club had shown signs that it was going to climb back into legitimate contender status in the National League playoff race. Unfortunately, those signs of a playoff run were as illusory as Brad Ausmus’ swing and the Stros promptly turned in a 6-10 record in their eighth 1/10th segment of the season. In so doing, the Stros (61-68) effectively took themselves out of the race for a playoff spot.
As regular readers of this blog recognize, it’s not surprising that this Stros club is continuing to struggle. It has been a mediocre club almost all season, reflected by the team’s record in each of its 1/10th segments of the season (previous 10% segment summaries are here):
1. 11-5
2. 8-8
3. 6-10
4. 7-9
5. 7-10 (halfway mark)
6. 7-9
7. 9-7
8. 6-10
As noted in the each of the pre-season reviews of the club over the past three seasons (here, here and here), the Stros’ overall hitting has been declining steadily for six straight seasons and that lack of punch has finally caught up with the club. Superior pitching and playoff appearances over the past two seasons tended to camouflage the club’s abysmal hitting, but merely better-than-National League-average pitching this season has exposed the Stros’ imbalance — it is now a club with better-than-average pitching, one legitimate slugger, a few average or slightly-above average hitters, and a troubling number of regular players who are among the worst hitters in the National League.
The Stros hitting woes continued in the most recent 1/10th segment of the season as the club’s aggregate runs scored against average (“RCAA,” explained here) declined to -42, which is 13th among the 16 National League teams. While the pitching staff’s overall improvement during the second half of the season increased the staff’s runs saved against average (“RSAA,” explained here) to 35 (4th in the NL) midway through this current segment, a couple of rocky starts by the back-end of the staff lowered the staff’s RSAA to 30, which is currently 5th among National League teams.

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As the Stros playoff hopes fade with each passing loss, the Chronicle’s Stros beat writer — Jose de Jesus Ortiz — continues to show that he does not truly understand baseball and, as a result, has become a conduit of Stros propaganda to the public.
Fresh off his woeful analysis of Preston Wilson, de Jesus Ortiz blows it again with this fawning column entitled Patience, coaching help turn Taveras around in which he contends that good coaching from the Stros coaching staff has helped Taveras generate his current 22-game hitting streak and make him a good player again. In so doing, de la Ortiz shows that — despite covering baseball on a daily basis — he is incapable of properly analyzing the subject that he covers. For example, de la Ortiz observes as follows:

“As a rookie in 2005, Taveras was the Astros’ most pleasant surprise while finishing second in the voting for National League Rookie of the Year honors. He steadily improved his defense and used his near world-class speed to leg out infield singles.
[Stros Manager] Phil Garner opted to sacrifice offense for defense at shortstop, but somehow Taveras’ solid offense wasn’t deemed strong enough to keep his strong defense on the field as Chris Burke got hot in late May.”

As noted last season here, Taveras had a below National League-average season in 2005 and had no business being considered for Rookie-of-the-Year honors. Although Taveras’ defense did improve over the course of last season, Taveras was one of the worst hitters among regular players in the National League last season. His slugging percentage (.341), on-base average (.325), extra-base hits (20 in 635 plate appearances), walks (25) and runs created against average (-13) were all far below an average National League hitter. Moreover, Taveras is even worse this year with a .329 slugging percentage, .324 on-base average and an RCAA of -17, meaning that Taveras has generated 17 fewer runs this season than an average National League hitter would have generated making the same number of outs that Taveras has made. Even Taveras stolen base rate (34 out of 45 or 75%) is not all that great considering his speed. In short, Taveras is not a good offensive player and, as noted in this earlier post, has absolutely no business batting lead-off in the relatively rare occasions that he should be playing.

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The Stros mercifully waived Preston Wilson over the weekend, who has been one of the worst-producing regularly-playing outfielders in the National League this season (Wilson’s .714 OPS was 79th in the National League among regular players). The news would not normally justify even a blog post, except for the fact that Wilson’s exit exposed the vacuous nature of the analysis that the Houston Chronicle serves its readers on almost a daily basis from two of its sportswriters, columnist Richard Justice and Stros beat writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz.
As regular readers of this blog know, I sized up the Stros decision to acquire Wilson accurately when the club picked him up as a free agent in January and questioned de Jesus Ortiz’s fawning praise of the acquisition at the time. Not that such a prediction was particularly difficult. If one took the time to analyze Wilson’s career statistics objectively, then it was easy to conclude that he wasn’t a very good player and was a longshot to help the Stros much. Neither de Jesus Ortiz nor Justice bothered to undertake such an analysis of Wilson.

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As the Stros pass the 7/10’s pole and turn on to the stretch run of the 2006 National League regular season (previous 10% segment summaries are here), there is good news and bad news.
First, the good news. For the first time since the first 10% segment of the season, the Stros actually finished their most recent 10% segment — their seventh of the season — with a winning record.
The bad news is that the Stros’ record for that seventh segment (9-7) is not indicative of the type of rally that the this year’s club needs to become a realistic contender for the National League wild-card playoff berth for the third season in a row.
Nevertheless, the Stros continue to muddle along on the fringes of the NL playoff race. Due to the fact that there are not any really good NL teams this season except for the Mets, the 55-58 Stros remain only 3.5 games behind the Reds in the NL wild-card playoff race and only six games behind the slumping Cardinals in the NL Central race (the 59-55 Reds have pulled to within 2.5 games of the 61-52 Cards in that race). So, the Stros are still within striking distance in the NL wild-card race and could even contend for the NL Central lead if the Cards and Reds both collapse down the stretch. But that latter scenario is highly unlikely and even getting to 85 wins on the season — which will probably be the minimum wins necessary to win the wild-card playoff berth — would require that the Stros go 29-19 over the remainder of the season. Given the Stros’ traditionally strong pitching, that type of finish is certainly not impossible, but there has been little indication during this season to date that this particular Stros club is going to be able to pull it together sufficiently to make that kind of run.
As predicted in the previous post in this series, the return of Clemens (2.32 ERA/14 RSAA) and Brandon Backe (3.69 ERA/3 RSAA) — as well as the banishment of Buchholz (5.96 ERA/ -16 RSAA) and Rodriguez (5.22 ERA/-7 RSAA) to AAA Round Rock — has improved the Stros pitching staff’s aggregate runs saved against average (“RSAA,” explained here) to 32, which has vaulted the Stros to 6th from 13th among the 16 NL pitching staffs.
Unfortunately, despite the explosion in last night’s game, the Stros’ chronic hitting woes are diluting the effect of the pitching staff’s improvement on the overall club’s performance. After idling around National League-avereage in runs created against average (“RCAA,” explained here) for most of the season, the Stros hitting overall declined dramatically over the past 16-game segment, falling to an aggregate RCAA of -33, the lowest of the season to date and 12th among the NL clubs.

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