The Astros Suck

AP Photo/Keith Srakocic

How do the Astros suck? Let me count the ways…

So I’ve come to the conclusion that the ladies from A League of Their Own could beat the hell out of the Houston Astros right now, which, yes, very much means that MADONNA could beat the ASTROS.

1. Drayton McLane – Drayton is like baggage in a relationship. You start dating someone new and soon find out they are a mess and can’t seem to move past what the last girl or guy did to them. It’s exhausting and a waste of time, but it’s just life. That is Drayton. He is “just life” for the Houston Astros.

2. Pitching – The Astros pitching staff is giving up home runs like it’s BP. Or the Home Run Derby. Who cares which? The Astros have the absolute worst ERA in baseball at 4.83 – that’s 0.91 higher than the MLB average. When it comes to home runs given up, the Astros are the second worst, having given up 117 already this season. I’m not Brad Pitt and this ain’t Moneyball, but those numbers don’t look good.

3. Who? The Astros roster feels a bit like speed dating. They aren’t interesting or “good enough” to catch your eye, so why even remember their names? A few years ago you’d see a jersey with a player’s name on the back and stop for a minute wondering if that was a big player from before your time, or maybe the guy’s last name he wanted custom stitched on his jersey? Welcome to 2013 at Minute Maid folks – none of us have any clue who our players are on the roster. You could probably make up a name and no one would be the wiser. Seriously, try it and see what happens.

4. The fallacy that everything is bigger in Texas. Clearly this doesn’t apply to the Astros unless we’re debating the loss column (currently 33-61). For starters, our payroll is not bigger. We spent so much money buying Carlos Lee Whataburger the past five years, and now we’re spent. Houston’s Opening Day Payroll was a lousy $24,328,539.  That’s $15mil less than the 29^th smallest payroll of the Miami Marlins. There are at least three players, NOT TEAMS, that make more than the entire Astros payroll: A-Rod ($28m), Cliff Lee ($25.5.m) and CC Sabathia ($25m). And back to my A League of Their Own reference, that means that yes, Marla Hooch is bigger than Jose Altuve.

I’m not the best at math, but clearly there’s some sort of discrepancy there, yes?

Oops

5. The business inside Minute Maid. I guess it makes sense we can’t pay our players, we can’t even sell our outfield sponsorships, which many sports-biz related websites and an abundance of tweets have so kindly and pointed out. That’s what happens when your team sucks, people start to divert their attention elsewhere, like the snocones in the bathrooms or the glaring white space on the outfield wall where sponsors used to clamor to spend their millions for prime logo placement. Those days are long gone folks.

6. Where’s Waldo? There isn’t enough time to go over the dramatic happenings of the farm system, but where is all this good talent the Astros are drafting? The Astros take great pride in their draft picks (as they should), but why aren’t they bringing up those players who are excelling? Look what happened when we brought up Cosart recently only giving up two hits in eight innings of work? Or what about George Springer who’s still in Triple-A (.315 AVG, 26 HR, 72 RBI in AA & AAA combined) (17 games in AAA: .404 AVG, 7 HR, 17 RBU). The saying goes like this – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

So that doesn’t apply here.

7. Fans. I heard this joke last night: What song do Houston Astros fans sing before the bottom of the ninth inning? A: Nobody knows. There’s never any of them left. Boom. It’s funny because it’s true.  I know that there are some hardcore and loyal fans out there. I know this because I’m friends with a few and the other few pretty much hate me on Twitter, so I hear you. You exist. But for the most part, you can’t be found anywhere within the confines of Minute Maid Park, or at a sports bar, or wearing the jerseys or supporting the team in any capacity.

I’m going to keep going here, so you can keep counting if you’d like…

–       Six losing streaks of 5 or more games this season

–       Errors: 69 (most in MLB)

–       Runs Scored: 351 (3^rd worst)

–       Bat Avg: .235 (3^rd worst…Yanks and Marlins worse)

–       Home Attendance: 18,271/gm (3^rd worst…TB and Miami)

–       Overall Home & Road Attendance: 23,678 (2^nd worst)

–       Average Age: 27.1 (2^nd youngest: Miami 26.8)

A few jokes, just for fun…

Q: Whats the difference between the Houston Astros and a mosquito?

A: A mosquito stops sucking.

Q: What do the Houston Astros manager and Alex Trebek have in common?

A: Both of their jobs are in Jeopardy.

Click here for more “Astros Suck” jokes (some highly inappropriate).

So just how much do the Astros suck? You tell me…

This piece was part of The Blonde Side’s new sports segment airing on FOX26 Houston, Sports Uncensored.

*Thanks to The Blonde Side’s research assistant Adam Sahmel for the stats/figures in this piece and on air.