Before we begin this post on the frivolities of baseball, let’s pause a minute and honor those innocent men and women, who lost their lives 19 years ago today in a vicious attack on the heart and soul of America.

Sometime around 5:30 PM California time on Tuesday, the Astros were in a world of hurt. A quick summation of their woes after dropping the first game of a doubleheader to the A’s 4-2.

For most of the 2020 season, fans have thought that the Astros would be in the playoffs. As recently as last Friday, the Astros entered the first game of the Angel series with a 6-1/2 game lead for second place in the AL West division which would have guaranteed them a playoff spot about three…

If this post had been titled the Astros Quiet Assassin, it might have been talking about Michael Brantley, who has been a force this season when he was not dealing with a quadriceps injury. But adding the word quirky in there points to only one player, the enigmatic Zack Greinke.

Father of the blog, Chip Bailey sent me a note with the following link and a suggestion it might make a good subject to for my next post. It involves minor league rankings.

He has been on the Astros’ fans radar since before the draft of 2015.

The last time the Astros saw the A’s back in early April…..er……August they were coming off of road series against the Dodgers and D’Backs that had dropped them from 1/2 game up in the division to 2-1/2 games back of Oakland.

Ironically, the Astros crossed the halfway mark of the season midway through an unexpected and unscheduled doubleheader on Tuesday night. Those are the perfect adjectives for this craziest of baseball seasons – unexpected and unscheduled. Rather than go through a bunch of full-year projections today, the theme will be to throw out some random thoughts…