OK, it's only one game, one game that looked painfully like what we've seen on the worst days of Astros teams over the last few years. An anemic offense couldn't muster more than two runs against a version of Zambrano that clearly didn't have his best stuff. Roy Oswalt struggled a little bit in the beginning with his control, and two Cubs hitters deposited the balls into the left field bleachers. Oh, and Bourn got a hit. Miggy had three. In between all of that Kaz Matsui made the third out of an inning at third base (he didn't check to make sure the outfilder didn't catch the ball, was standing on third looking dumbfounded while the ball lobbed into second base), Miggy was thrown out attempting to steal second on a ball that, one can only presume, he thought had gotten away from the catcher but had, actually, just bounced in front of home plate, making for an easy play. (Hey Jose Cruz. That's your call FWIW)
After all of the sloppy, opening day mess was over, the Astros were on the down-side of a 4-2 loss. The good news is there are 161 games left to play. Of course, that could also be the bad news depending on your point of view.
Moreso than yesterday, tonight's game will give us a small peek into the prospects of this year's Astros team. Roy Oswalt is the cannon, despite the result last night he's going to throw 200 innings make around 30 starts and have double digit wins. He pitched well enough to win last night, if the offense could have mustered anything with runners in scoring position. With the rest of the starting pitching however the Astros could find themselves bringing a knife to a gun-fight. Wandy Rodriguez has been great at home. He'll need to continue that trend, and improve on the road, if the Astros are to have a chance this year. After that? Hampton, Ortiz and Moeller are unknown entities.
It was only one game Astros fans, a game that had some brief flashes of positive, but also displayed some infuriating negatives that we've seen all too often from this Astros team.
