If you are a true Astros’ fan, you must give up now

This is an appeal to all true Astros’ fans. It is very important that you abandon all hope from now until the end of the season. Stop dreaming about the playoffs. Stop patting this 2016 team on the back, and stop singing its praises. If you really want to be a true fan, you must stop being one.

You see there is this pattern that becomes very apparent when you look closely at this Astro season. This team is a bunch of contrarians. Whichever way the fan base blows, these stubborn blades of grass bend the other way. Don’t believe it? Well here are some examples.

Coming into the 2016 season after an unexpected run to the playoffs, through the Yankees and within a few outs of whacking the World Champion Royals, the fan base was ripe with optimism. With Dallas Keuchel, Collin McHugh and Lance McCullers Jr. anchoring the rotation, they just needed a little help from Mike Fiers or Scott Feldman or Doug Fister to improve. The bullpen was totally set now that they had the big armed closer Ken Giles at the back. On top of that, having Carlos Correa with most of a season under his belt, improvement expected from now uninjured Carlos Gomez and minor league help from Tyler White a much better offense was expected.

So what happened?

  • With all that full flown optimism, the team stumbled out of the gate like Joe Hardy turning back into Joe Boyd at the end of Damn Yankees. Keuchel’s loss on May 2nd dropped them to 8-18 and led many to bad mouth the local nine.
  • So, of course the team then went on a nice little 9-6 run and really started generating some offense leading to a 17-24 record on May 18. The local folk of course became much more optimistic at that point.
  • A four game losing streak, including a sweep by the Texas (this space for rent) where the team scored only 5 runs and lost three straight 2-1 games dropped them to their low point for the season at 17-28. Fans were abandoning ship and calling for the manager, general manager, batting coach and the MMP custodial staff’s jobs.
  • This then led to a 37-20 roll through the next two months as the Astros were the hottest team in baseball and nudged up within sight of the Texas (this space for rent) team. Folks were rejoicing and writing limericks about their ‘Stros.
  • Losing 11 of the next 14 games, changed the limericks from odes to obscenities. But….
  • The fans found some life after the team won 4 in a row against the Twins and Jays, however the life was snuffed out of them when…
  • The team lost the next five, which left them one game over .500 at 61-60, ten and a half games behind the (this space for rent) for the division lead and six and a half out of the second Wild Card Spot. Funerals were held for the season, but nobody cared enough to attend.
  • The obvious reaction to the fans starting to look at the off-season or watching pre-season NFL games was that the Little Engine That Might (as long as no one was caring about them) ….all of a sudden Could. They went on a 10-2 run that has brought them to the brink (1 game back of the 2nd Wild card) of a playoff spot.

The natural reaction is to praise this team, talk up the heroics of Correa, Evan Gattis, George Springer, Jose Altuve, Keuchel, Giles, Devenski, etc. Well stop it. Just stop it right now. Go back to questioning their heart, their crazy swings, the short outings by the starters, and the home run launches against the bullpen. No matter what happens, you must show that you doubt them, that you have given up, that the task is too impossible.

It will take all your focus, pessimism, cynicism and any other -ism you can muster to not get behind this team. But you have to become steadfast and drive this team to the finish line by not supporting them. It is the only way.

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255 responses to “If you are a true Astros’ fan, you must give up now”

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  1. Becky – I would say the time for him to spend has come. I don’t think that spending will come in the way of free agents, but of resigning his own young nucleus.

    I think the Astros did it the right way. When you are at the bottom of the heap when it comes to prospects AND major league talent, where they were when they started shipping Pence and Bourn and company out, you don’t really want (or going to get) good free agents.

    Every great team that is memorable is built around players from your system with a small peppering of free agents. The Yankees of the late 90s/early 2000s, the Red Sox of a few years ago, the Cubs of today, the core is a group that arrived together, then they made that trade or FA signing of a Clemens or Lester or whatever they needed to put them in the front. Even our Astros of the late 90s to mid 2000s was about Bagwell and Biggio and Oswalt and Berkman with the occasional Kent or Beltran or Johnson or Clemens/Pettitte peppered in to make the stew perfect.

    That core needed to be there first. You can argue it is just coming about with Altuve and Correa and Keuchel and Springer to start looking at filling that spot in the rotation with a bona fide guy, that next player that will round out the lineup, etc.

    You can also argue that he spent 47 million on a relative unknown 32 year old that we had no idea how he would perform knowing that he has never seen this level of play and is 32. Hopefully its well.

    I’m optimistic that he will open up the wallet and we will as soon as next year see another 100 million payroll, and in 5 years we are perennial contenders and sit around 150 million – and I’m pretty sure I’m considered the most cynical person in these parts. Unfortunately, I don’t see any real answers in terms of FA for THIS offseason that I would open up the wallet for. Maybe Chapman, but I suspect he stays in Chicago.

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  2. Pretty scary we are fighting for our lives and we are praying for Brad Pheasant. that is scary. Wasn’t he DFAD in like 2010 with Lucas Harrell? (-;

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  10. Oh….Lord Kenneth, you know how to make a woman sweat! Two pass balls and an error, wasn’t exactly how you want to start the ninth inning. Mr. Fister had better get with the program, because Hinch has REALLY used the bullpen in the last three days.
    Still….they are hanging tough in the wild card chase.

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  11. Tim, we can’t reply but yes, Hinch used the bullpen efficiently tonight…..BUT who is gonna be available tomorrow if Mr. Fister can’t get through 4 innings??? Peacock was a lucky man tonight, he walked the tightrope for the entire time he was pitching.

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