Well, last night they made it official.  After stringing me along all season, staying just close enough to make me believe that they still had a chance at this thing, they loose their fourth straight game to fall 6 games out ot the division and 5 games out of the Wild Card.  They finish this homestand, which started so promising (4-0), 4-4 not counting today's game as the Cubs go for the sweep... that's right, THE CUBS... the team w/ one legitimate pitcher!

Prior to this piss pour stretch of baseball, the Astros had gotten to w/in 1 1/2 games of the Wild Card, and 3 !/2 games of the division, winning 8 of their last 10.  Things were looking up.  The Cards were in a tail spin and the Reds were still playing consistant ball, but the Astros have the best rotation in the NL, and the best bullpen since the all-star break, which made you feel that now that the offense was healthy and scoring runs (going from ranked 14th in runs to 10th during that stretch) this team could make a run.  That was still a possibility until about 12:30 last night, when the Astros lost their fourth straight game, and thier second staight series at home.

The Astros fell behind early to the Cubs w/ Roger Clemens giving up two early runs... uncharacteristic for The Rocket.  Normally this would be it for the Astros as run support for Roger has been lacking the last year and a half.  This is a different offense though.  This offense has a healthy Lance Berkman, who is arguabley the best offensive player in the NL this season, and deffinitely the most under-rated.  This line up also has a healthy Morgan Ensberg finally hitting and driving in runs.  This lineup has a consistent Aubry Huff finally hitting the way he did in the AL, a consistent Willie Taveras getting on base and actually using his speed, and a red hot Luke Scott hitting over .420 since being called up around the middle of July!  And of course you have the wonder boy... that's right Craig Bi-gi-O defying age and the odd, hitting 5 homeruns in 5 straight games during this stretch.

The Astros rally to tie the game in the bottom of the fourth on a Huff double.  Roger immediately comes back to give up three runs (the first outing of the season that he's allowed more than two runs this season) in the top of the fifth.  No need to fear, as the Astros ralley again in the bottom of the 6th off a two run double by Adam Everett and a two run pitch hit double by Orlando Palmaro to give the Astros the lead and put The Rocket in line for the win. 

The seventh and eight innings go as scripted w/ Chad Qualls and Dan Wheeler pitching a scoreless inning each setting up Brad Lidge for the the save and the pefect win.  I mean, this would have been the PEEEEERFECT win... rallying twice, picking up Roger in his worst outing of the season, setting up the rubber match today in a must win game.  So what happens?  Lidge gives up a line drive homerun to the first no name hitter he faces on a fastball that might as well have been put on a tee!  The team is deflated, much like they were a couple of weeks ago when Lidge and Qualls combined to give up a 5-1 lead that Roger had against the Diamondbacks a couple of weeks ago, and they go on to loose the game in 18 innings.

Way to go, "Lights Out" Lidge!  Way to keep that season ERA above six!  Way to blow your fifth save opportunity!  Way to make everyone feel as though no lead is safe when you come in! 

I think that instead of playing the music when you come into the game, and showing the lightening strikes and the exploding light bulbs, and the stikeout highlights, they should should just run a clip of Tom Bodett saying his tag line from the Motel 6 advertisements.  Que the Motel 6 theme song... Announcer: "Now entering the game in relief, Brad 'Lights Out' Linge!".. Tom Bodett: "We'll leave the light on for you."  That's the way it should go, becuase this dude isn't right, and isn't getting any better, and is going to have to be if the Astros are going to do anything this year, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Everyone wants to revert these problems back to the Pujols homerun, and that would make sense if he didn't come back the next night and get the save in the series clincher.  That homeruns means nothing, other than keeping the Cards from being completely embassased by winning 100 games in the season and not being able to win more than one in the NLCS.  Now the Posednick homerun in the World Series, on top of the Pujols homerun, that might have done a little damage. 

I however think that the real damage was done in the spring when Lidge participated in the World Baseball Classic.  Now don't get me wrong, it's his own fault for not getting started earlier in the spring on working out, but having a short spring training didn't allow Lidge to get his machanics down by the start of the season.  This is why he was tipping pitches in the first couple of months of the season, which isn't pychological but machanical, and this is also why his sholder flys open on his fast ball.

Now, this is where the mental part comes in.  The tipping has been taken care of, but the sholder is still flying open and shouldn't be at this point in the season.  The problem is that he's struggled for so long now that when he gets in trouble he tries to over throw the ball.  Greg Maddux does the opposite.  He say that when he gets in trouble is when he starts to take velocity off of his pitches so that he can better spot them.  Lidge on the other hand tries to just blow the ball by batters.  The problem w/ that is that when you throw 97/98 mph, the ball's going to have it's own movement on it and you can't really control where it goes.  Not only that, but Lidge's sholder flies open the harder he throws, and he finishes to the third base side of the mound either causing the ball to be way outside, or right over the heart of the plate, and anyone will tell you that if you connect on a 97 mph fastball that it don't take anything to get it out of the park. 

Now he's been hurt so many times and is so tense that it is mental.  It doesn't make any sense because he'll look great one night (like a week ago striking out the side on 10 pitches), and horrible the next.  He's over thinking, and he's no longer dominant like he's been for the last two seasons. 

The moral of the story being that last night's loss was the kind of heartbreaking loss that's hard to come back from... especially from 5 or 6 games... especially with a team like the Reds that just keeps defying logic and continuing to win ball games.  I would think that the Cardinals would be w/in reach w/ as terrible as they've pitched lately, but they're about to bring Molder back, which means that Weaver or Marquis won't be able to go out there and give up 6 runs in the first three innings, and if Carpenter and Molder can pitch well enough to keep the bullpen from coming in to the blow the game, then they should be able to win two or three out of every five games, and that should be enough to hang on to the Wild Card.

Prediction (now) Reds win the division.  Cards win the Wild Card.  Dodgers and Mets win the West and East respectively.  Who comes out of the NL?  Who knows?!  No one will have pitching (especially w/ Pedro hurt) and any of these teams could win in a five or seven game series.  Maybe next year will be the NL's year.

PS - Sorry for the length and the misspellings.  I had a lot to get off my chest and am a terrible speller.