Just as we were getting excited about a playoff push, a number of injuries started to screw everything up.
Berkman:
"We're going to have that because we have an old team. Whether it's this year or next, we're going to have to have some new faces in here. It's inevitable, but in a way it's nice to see guys that the organization thinks highly enough of to come up and try to help us. The older you get, the tougher it is to make it through 162 games in one piece. Really and truly, for the average age we have, we've done a fairly decent job of keeping everybody healthy. We haven't had a whole lot of guys out at the same time. It seems like we've had a guy go out when somebody else is getting healthy. We're still right there, and if we can get everybody fully healthy, there's still a chance to make a run here in the second half."
Ed Wade:
"We've had a significant amount of health issues to work around and navigate through, and we're still in the thick of things. We need to get healthy and stay healthy, and that's usually the case with any team that has a chance to win. We need some guys to step up. Norris is our version of a Trading Deadline move at this stage. We need him to pitch at the level we think he's capable of pitching. We've had our share of odd injuries along the way and some of them you could anticipate with age, but it's just been one thing after the other. But I can't use that as an excuse because I think we've done a really good job of having players step up and pick up the slack for us."
The Astros play teams over .500 in 30 of their last 57 games, and have nine games remanining with the Cubs and Cardinals.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
