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Take notes Cincitucky.

The Houston Astros are poised to join the American League West in 2013 and also, in my opinion, to lose about 130 games.  I know the Cubs' record is worse, but they don't have Jed Lowrie batting 3rd.  Whoa.  The 3 spot is generally reserved for a team's best hitter and into that role the Astros place Jed Lowrie?  The best hitter on the 'Stros is Jed Lowrie?  Heck, Lowrie might be their All-Star, but there is no way that the guy maintains power production a hundred points over his career slugging percentage.  Houston has what many consider to be a solid #1 starter in Wandy Rodriguez, but maybe you'll feel differently after you read this MLBTradeRumors.com piece comparing him to Jason Vargas of the Mariners.  Yeah, the Astros suck so bad that they made Ubaldo Jimenez look like... um... the Ubaldo Jimenez of two years ago.

Although Jimenez was pulled with 2 outs in the 7th after 110 pitches, he did only allow 4 hits all day.  The 4 walks remain problematic with just 66 of his pitches for strikes.  Ubaldo did not have command over his get-me-over curve and was forced to tempt Houston batters with fringe pitches.  The Astros were only too happy to oblige, fanning 8 times.  Even in this dominant outing against a collection of nobodies (imagine 7 Aaron Cunninghams, Travis Hafner instead of Carlos Lee and a the pitcher hitting 9th, or I guess 8 Aaron Cunninghams) Jimenez put 8 men on in 6 and 2/3 innings pitched.  That is the 1.20 WHIP appearance that will help bring his averages down to what we discussed after his last outing.  While I agree that Ubaldo has had a nice run over his past 4 starts (2-1, 25.1 IP, 21 H, 7 BB, 25 K, 2.05 ERA), his overall numbers (4.59 ERA, 1.55 WHIP) are mediocre at best.  We will get a few more nice starts to drag those numbers closer to what I predicted, but do not expect a season with anything better than a 4ish ERA and a 1.4ish WHIP.

The rest of the story is same sh!t, different day.  The bullpen was great and the offense sucked.  The lineup looked like nine Aaron Cunningham's out there.  Wait, do you know how many hits Slater has in June?  ONE!!!!!!!!!!  He's 1-for-10.  That's OK, he was much better in May when he went 3-for-20.  Oh and no roster moves.  Freakin' idiots.

We had better sweep these bums.

1.5 up on Chicago and 3.5 ahead of the Tigers, who haven't been mentioned here for awhile because they're so epically good that they've spent the past month signing autographs for Michael Jordan and all the living former Presidents.  In fact, there's a ballot initiative on the books in Kansas to amend their textbooks to indicate that the 2012 Detroit Tigers (rather than a Judeo-Christian deity) are responsible for creating all life on Earth.

I heard that only the Tigers can beat Chuck Norris in a fistfight.

Roll Tribe.

Cheers.

P.s.  Yeah, at least Houston fans know how to act when Choo catches a ball at the wall.  My favorite is the dude in the orange.  Oh my stars!

P.p.s.  The Tribe is now 15-7 in games where the winning team scores 4 runs or fewer.