re astros are back in article c hhwv cvk austin ibm com marc yogi austin ibm com marc j stephenson writes keeping in line with the pessimists on the net i ll hold off on the astros being all the way back they could indeed contend but that would count on atlanta encountering some unforeseen problems such as injuries or keeping up their early season abysmal hitting while atlanta has the undisputed best starting rotation i feel that their relief staff may be suspect they don t have a real closer although mike stanton saves has been used in that role didn t stanton start off great last year and then falter despite this your point is well taken atlanta doesn t seem to have the same personality as a ny team thus is unlikely to self destruct for houston to take em atlanta needs to suffer some injuries particularly to their starting rotation astros relief corps holding together if doug jones keeps his changeup effective and xavier hernandez can be effective then it s passable there s no reasonable left handed help and the middle relief is iffy tom edens was expected to take over the joe boever setup man role but he s been injured and he was an expansion team acquisition anyway houston thought that boever would demand too much money so they let him go doug jones can lose his touch he went from cleveland s all star closer to the minors in a pretty short span from what i understand boever and murphy were considered expendable by the club houston felt that their positions could be filled by a number of players art doug jones is the key to houston s success he must have another great year for houston to challenge in the nl west lousey spring closer to the minors in a pretty short span right a strong rotation will take the pressure off of the troubling bullpen bit of shakiness at the fifth starter slot but that s basically normal taubensee anthony gonzalez and cedeno fulfilling some hitting potential anthony appears to be about there taubensee s swing looks a lot better this year solid knock against expos last night gonzalez is showing some early power and cedeno still has the loopiest swing this side of tim wallach the unsuspected strength of the lower part of the order has saved the club so far biggio and finley just aren t doing their job of getting on base instead of filling his role as an rbi man bagwell has had to assume biggio and finley s job biggio concerns me since he usually starts the season very strong on a side note are you at all concerned with the rumors concerning next year s uniform there is talk that their road uniform will be blech traditional grey with the word houston written across the chest if i m not mistaken their home uniforms may totally eliminate the color orange shiver mclane s favorite color is red so i m really upset the current unforms are dull and the new ones sound horrible i d like to see the uniform of the mid s return they may not have been pretty but houston had established a long precident of wearing the ugliest uniforms in baseball and i liked it end of the bargain remember two years ago a little relief goes a long way then they could win games but i doubt it i ll project them at wins astros fan since the days of staub morgan jackson aspromonte dierker marc stephenson ibm aws advanced workstations systems austin tx disclaimer the content of this posting is independent of official ibm position internet marc austin ibm com vnet marc at ausvmq ibm t l astros fan since the days of ryan scott smith cruz davis bass hatcher david s schwam university of houston st rp jetson uh edu
