The Brew Crew lit up the Rocket for five runs in 5 2/3 innings and a big Stros comeback was thwarted as the Brew Crew held on for a 7-6 win on Friday night at the Juice Box.
Clemens uncharacteristically gave up three gopher balls, including a killer 3 run shot by Ben Grieve that landed in the first row of the Crawford Boxes. The Stros battled back gamely after being down 5-0, but Lidge lived dangerously in two innings of work and the Brewers were eventually able to push a run on a sac fly across in the top of the ninth for the game winner.
Tim Redding gets a rare start in the Saturday night game, and Pete Munro has been announced as the Stros’ starter in the Sunday matinee game.

Carlos Beltran went nuclear on the DBacks and Roy O pitched seven solid innings as the Stros won over the DBacks for the second game in a row, 10-3. The loss gave the DBacks their second 11 game losing streak this season. Geez, and we thought the Stros were having a tough stretch.
Beltran drove in three runs with his two yaks and Adam Everett tied his career high with four RBI. Beltran now has 10 homers in 23 games with the Stros, and 25 overall. This game was his third multi-homer game of the season, and he now has 11 in his young career. Man, I wish there was some way that Drayton could figure out a way to keep him around past this season.
Everett had a two-run tater and a two-run single before getting spiked in the eighth inning, which required him to leave the game (the injury did not appear serious). Mike Lamb replaced Everett and promptly hammered a two run yak in the ninth. Must have been something in the air around shortstop today.
Incredibly, the DBacks are now winless since the All-Star break and have lost eight straight at home. They have now lost 16 of their last 18 games. The 2001 World Series Championship is a distant memory.
Roy O picked up his fifth win in his past seven starts with a five-hit, seven K, seven-inning effort. He was dusted up by only a two-run yak that he gave up to Shea Hillenbrand in the sixth.
Finally, in personnel news, the Stros picked up Darren Oliver today from the Marlins’ scrapheap to add another limp arm (at least he’s a lefty) to the bullpen. After 4.66 ERA/-2 RSAA and 5.04 ERA/-5 RSAA seasons (RSAA explained here), Oliver is off to a 6.44 ERA/-15 RSAA start in his first 18 games (8 starts). This essentially means that the Stros are adding a lefthanded Tim Redding or Brandon Duckworth to the pitching staff. Oliver is one of those guys who has made a career out of being a mediocre lefthander. Good work if you can get it, but not exactly the shot in the arm that this Stros club needs.
The Stros now return from their quick trip to the desert with a weekend series against the Brew Crew at the Juice Box. The pitching lineup is the Rocket, Tim Redding, and then probably Pete Munro.

Andy Pettitte pitched a season-high eight innings as the Stros extended the D-Backs losing streak to 10 in a 5-2 victory on Wednesday night at the BOB in Phoenix.
Pettitte (6-3), who was 1-2 in his previous six starts, pitched in Phoenix for the first time since losing Games 2 and 6 of the 2001 World Series for the New York Yankees. He took a five-hit shutout into the eighth in this game before allowing Scott Hairston‘s double and Steve Finley‘s tater, which pulled the D-Backs to 3-2. Brad Lidge made things interesting by walking two in the ninth, but finally secured the save.
Carlos Beltran and Craig Biggio each hit a solo yak for Stros, who had 10 hits, but continued their season long trend of leaving 14 runners on base.
Roy O goes for the Stros tonight as they attempt to put a winning streak together at the expense of the hapless D-Backs. The Stros return to the Juice Box for a weekend series with the Brew Crew after their quick trip to Phoenix.

The Stros might as well be in “Groundhog Day.” The story goes like this:
Stros take lead.
Stros blow lead.
Stros lose.
Munro pitched well and deserved to win. However, Weathers and Harville stunk in relief and gave up a 4-1 lead. Bags and Ensberg had solo yaks and a couple of hits each, but the rest of the Stros hitters beyond Berkman remain tepid. Even Beltran is being affected, as his OBP fell to a pathetic .318. Bad hitting is contagious.
Andy Pettitte opens the Diamondback series on Wednesday in Phoenix. At least the Stros will be playing someone their speed in the D-Backs (31-63). The Stros are now only a game out of last place in the NL Central.

Dan Miceli gave up the back-to-back homers in the eighth inning to allow the Dodgers to edge the Stros 7-6 in a wild game on Monday night at the Juice Box. The win was the Dodgers’ seventh straight win, 13th out of their last 14, and dropped new Stros manager Phil Garner‘s record to 1-3 since taking over from Jimy Williams during the All-Star break.
After the Stros took an early lead, the Dodgers scored four runs in the sixth inning, with three unearned because of two Stros errors, including another adventure in left field by Bidg, who is proving just how underrated Berkman was as a leftfielder. Ensberg cranked a dramatic three-run yak in the sixth to give Stros a 6-5 lead, leading to Miceli’s gopher balls in the eighth that put it away for the Dodgers.
Starter Brandon Duckworth had an amazing performance, somehow allowing only one run in 4 2/3rd’s while allowing six hits, one K, and four walks (hint: the Stros turned three DP’s behind him). After Duckworth’s latest tightrope performance, GM Gerry Hunsicker must have taken great pleasure in Carlos Hernandez‘s 7 inning, 10 K, no-hit performance on Wednesday night at AAA New Orleans.
Pete Munro takes the hill in game two of the Dodger series on Tuesday night at the Juice Box. Any bets on whether Hernandez takes the next non-Oswalt-Clemens-Pettitte start in the rotation?

The Rocket won his first game in three weeks and the Stros jacked three solo yaks in a 5-3 win over the Padres at the Juice Box on Sunday, stopping a four-game losing streak and giving Phil Garner his first win as the Stros’ skipper.
Clemens was his usual reliable self, retiring 16 consecutive batters starting with the final out of the first. The win was his 321st career victory, moving three behind Nolan Ryan and Don Sutton, who share 12th place on the all-time win list. Clemens allowed two runs and four hits in seven innings, striking out five and walking just one.
Beltran, JK and Bidg cranked the taters, and out machine junior Adam Everett came through with a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the seventh to seal the win.
Pete Munro and Brandon “Gopherball” Duckworth start the first two games of the upcoming Dodger series at the Juice Box, so a winning streak does not look promising. This Stros team simply does not hit well enough to get by with below average pitching, which is what the Stros will generally receive from Munro and Duckworth.

The Stros losing campaign continued Saturday afternoon as the Padres beat them at the Juice Box for the second game in a row, 7-4.
The Stros are now 44-46 and have dropped four straight and eight of 10, falling two games below .500 for the first time since they were 0-2 on April 6. They remained a season-high 12 games behind the NL Central-leading Cards.
The Pads blew open the game with a five-run fifth. After Craig Biggio had another adventure in left field misjudging Burroughs‘ drive, Loretta hit a two-run homer on the next pitch. Game, set, match.
Roy O, who beat the Pads on July 7 for the fourth straight time, gave up seven runs and eight hits in 4 2/3 innings. It was only the second time in his career that he’s allowed seven or more earned runs. Jason Lane hit an RBI grounder in the bottom of the fifth, Lance Berkman hit a two-run homer in the sixth and Jeff Bagwell homered in the eighth, his 12th of the season but first in 81 at-bats. Ouch.
The Rocket tries to pick up this moribund group of Stros in the Sunday matinee, as the Dodgers arrive on Monday for a three game set.

Baseball writer Peter Gammons passes along this tidbit on a recent radio interview for which John Kerry’s staff did not prepare him particularly well:

Thing called love
We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else’s medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.
The problem with that is just the simple fact that Eddie Yost never played for the Red Sox.

The Phil Garner era began as the Jimy Williams era ended as the Stros lost meekly to the Padres on Friday night at the Juice Box, 5-1.
Andy Pettitte gave up 4 runs on 7 hits in five innings, which is a death sentence for this punchless Stros team. The Stros had their usual six hits against five Padre pitchers, and only one of those was an extra base hit, a triple by Beltran. With the loss, the Stros fell below .500 at 44-45 and the GM’s office is fielding more trade proposals by the minute.
Roy O gives the Stros a decent chance in the Saturday night game amid rumors that management is dangling Beltran to the Dodgers for a bunch of prospects.

The worst kept secret in Houston this week was exposed today as the Stros fired Jimy Williams this afternoon, ending his 2 1/2 season stint with the club. The Stros named former Stro player and coach, Phil “Scrap Iron” Garner to replace Williams for the rest of this season.
Stros hitting coach Harry Spilman and pitching coach Burt Hooton were also fired and replaced by AAA hitting coach Gary Gaetti and Jim Hickey, respectively. Spilman was the club’s minor league field coordinator when he was named the Stros’ hitting coach in June 2000 after the club fired Tom McGraw. Hooton was the AA Round Rock pitching coach when he was named pitching coach during the middle of the 2000 season after Vern Ruhle was canned.
I always thought Williams was a rather odd choice as the manager for the Stros, and his record with the club justified my skepticism. Williams was 215-197 as the Stros manager. The 2002 club (84-78) was second in the NL Central, but finished 13 games behind the Cardinals and 11 games behind the Giants for the wild card playoff spot. The 2003 club (87-75) finished second by a game to the Cubs in the NL Central and four games behind the Marlins for the wild card spot. As we all know, this year’s club is 44-44 at the All-Star Break, 10.5 games behind the Cards in the NL Central and 4 games behind in the race for the wild card spot.
The Pythagorean winning percentage is an interesting statistic that estimates a team’s winning percentage given their runs scored and runs allowed. Developed by Bill James, it can tell you when teams were a bit lucky or unlucky, but it can also let you know whether a team managed by a particular manager consistently overachieves or underachieves.
Jimy Williams-managed teams have consistently underachieved. Williams has a career Pythagorean Differential of -24 (i.e., his teams have lost 24 more games than the statistics suggest they should have), with just one season in which his team exceeded expectations. Consequently, Williams just may prove Branch Rickey’s adage: “Sometimes luck is the residue of design.”
Although he appears to be a good coach of baseball skills, Williams just seems to make enough boneheaded managerial moves to make sure that his teams underachieve. Here are but a few examples:

His batting Berkman in the fifth and sixth hole for much of this season while he has been one of the best hitters in baseball;
His insistence on batting one of the worst hitters in baseball — Adam Everett — in the two hole and have him waste outs by laying down sacrifice bunts at every opportunity;
His decision to platoon poor hitting Geoff Blum with the hot-hitting Ensberg for much of the 2003 season, which may have in itself been enough to cost the Stros the game that they finished behind the Cubs in the NL Central; and
His strained relationship with Hidalgo, which may have ultimately cost the Stros a productive slugger over the next several seasons.

So, I cannot say that I am sorry to see Williams go. My sense is that he is overmatched as a big league manager.
On the other hand, although hiring Garner is a “feel good” P.R. move, it’s a dubious one from the standpoint of managerial competence. Although he managed teams for eleven seasons with generally bad players at both Milwaukee and Detroit, Garner only produced a won-loss record three times that was better than those clubs’ Pythagorean winning percentage. Moreover, Garner was a marginal hitter as a player, who rarely walked and thus, did not have as high an on-base percentage as he should have to compensate for his mediocre power. So, if Garner favors players like himself, we should expect a steady dose of Viz and Everett, which will only excerbate the Stros’ run scoring deficiencies.
The bottom line: It was time for Williams to go, but it’s not at all clear that Garner is an improvement other than he gets along with the media better than the irascible Williams. It’s becoming clearer by the day that the Stros’ plan of making a playoff run this season has failed, and that it’s time to clean house and begin bringing in younger players to surround Berkman and Oswalt.