Buster Olney's Insider-Only blog post details the Astros of tomorrow.
Olney:
It was about this time a year ago that the general manager of the hottest team in the National League recognized the promise of his club. The Padres had traded their most prominent player, Jake Peavy, and then had reeled off a bunch of wins, and Kevin Towers -- then the GM of San Diego -- spoke about the promise of the Padres, about how their pitching was coming together and how the team's strengths really seemed to fit its park.
Towers was fired within a couple of weeks after that, but the Padres turned out to be as good as he thought they might be; despite their recent losing streak, they lead the NL West by three games.
And meanwhile, the Houston Astros are the 2010 version of what the Padres were last year.
Ed Wade:
"There's no reason for us to not feel like the pitching will continue to be good going into next year. What we have to do is use the remaining time to give these kids an opportunity to perform, and then objectively assess what we've seen."
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
