NL Central Small Talk (wild card, win, games, Marlins)

[lakecountylifer]

Originally Posted by ayersd1

Reds win again! I love the make up of this young team.

Don't worry---as long as you believe "in dusty we trusty" your nice young team will offensively look like Corey Patterson (who dusty ruined in Chicago) and Prior/Wood----(Dusty loves the minimum pitch count at 145). Dusty is also the worse in game manager ever...period.

[case44]

The word right now is that this weekend's series between Chicago and Houston at Minute Maid will be postponed. We don't have any other word as yet what will happen. The Cubbies will, instead, fly back to Chicago to avoid being involved with Ike. Stay tuned for more. Oh, and the Astros have won 13 of their last 14 games going into Thursday night's action and are just 4 games back in the Wild Card hunt.

[Drover]

Looking more and more like Ike is gonna smack Houston around like it's Tina. First two games postponed, tentatively rescheduled for Sunday, location TBD.

[case44]

And we've had another postponement in our division today. The Brewers-Phillies game got rained out in Philly today.

[case44]

A month ago, I was just like many of you out there, writing the Astros off the page and this NL Central division basically being just a race between Chicago, the Brewers, and the Cards. So, what's been happening lately prior to Ike's fury? The Astros have only gone 36-16 since the All-Star break and 23-8 since Carlos Lee's season ended with an injury. They're in third place now. Now, realistically, they won't catch Chicago for the division title, so their focus is to get a Wild Card berth. Here's a link to more below.

Justice: Latest joy ride provides quite a rush for Astros | Top stories | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Now, we'll hear more real soon about how Houston's series with Chicago will be scheduled. I'm confident they'll get, at least, one game played by Monday, but it's also possible they can play Sunday. A double-header most certainly will be played, too, along the way. The two teams were going to be idle Monday, anyway, so scheduling Monday would make sense. And word is that Minute Maid didn't see any structural damage, so the park will be ready when needed. Downtown Houston and the Texas Medical Center have the only reliable electricity in the area for right now following Hurricane Ike. What will be interesting in the next few days will be this: Which team will this storm delay adversely affect?? Will it be Houston, with another 2005-like tear that they've had?? Will it be Chicago, who is trying to regain momentum after a recent slide?? We'll know soon enough.

[ThatTNGuy]

About the only thing left to cheer for as a Cardinals fan is Albert Pujols and his amazing season. Just when I think that he can't do any better, he comes out with a bum arm and turns in an MVP season.

As for the rest of the team, whatever. They're done.

[Drover]

At least they made a season of it. That's more than most people expected back in April.

Meanwhile, the Brewers appear like they're trying to hand the wildcard spot to the Phillies. Maybe the 'Stros can sneak up and snatch it from both -- hopefully not at the expense of the Cubs these next few days. It's amazing how the Cubs haven't played a game in 3 days, yet they've gained a game and a half in the standings and the magic number has fallen by 3.

[ThatTNGuy]

Originally Posted by Drover

At least they made a season of it. That's more than most people expected back in April.

Certainly. I would feel a lot worse if I wasn't cautiously optimistic about next season. With some additions here and there (mainly to the bullpen - take note, Mr. Mozeliak), I think next year will be a lot of fun. It's been frustrating because there were many instances where the Cards blew prime opportunities (see the 4-game series where Milwaukee swept them in St. Louis), but like you said, nobody expected them to play even this well. You take what you can get, I guess.

I really wouldn't mind seeing the Phillies overtake the Brewers. I usually don't have a problem with Milwaukee, but I've heard a lot of talk from their fans this year - they seem to have forgotten that the last time they made the playoffs was 1982.

[MILWCITY]

Well we are this years Mets. Milwaukee aka; Beer City, Cream City, Milrockee, The ILL-MIL, Brew City, Miltown becomes officially becomes North Chicago and with the scrubs and their fans in MKE for the next two days drinking our beer on Water and Milwaukee street. I guess it's okay since I can take in better baseball than I've seen from my home team in the last two weeks, I'll be pulling for the 'stros because under no circumstance shall I ever cheer for the scrubbie off-blue!!!!

[MILWCITY]

If the Brew Crew looses tonight I may have to jump off the Hoan Bridge!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!