Sports Justice: What’s in the numbers? An amazing fact about the Astros

If this was “the team Ed Wade envisioned”...Oh, please let him share a preacher’s tent with Dr. James Xavier.

The Astros are baseball’s only winning team with a negative run differential. They’ve given up 27 more than they’ve scored. They’ve got a losing record in one-run games (20-21). So how did this happen?

It could speak highly of the character of the club. They refused to quit in games. They played all 27 outs.

Are these cliches? Sure they are. There’s also truth in there. The Astros came from behind to win 41 times. They won 15 times when trailing in the seventh inning. They won 18 games in their last at-bat.

Those numbers could be a tribute to people like Miguel Tejada and Darin Erstad and Ty Wigginton, who play every inning of every game the same way. The score of the game or place in the standings don’t dictate their effort. They are professionals in every sense of the word.

...This was the team Ed Wade envisioned. Speed at the top, boppers in the middle. He thought he had it just right. Michael Bourn and Kaz Matsui were going to apply the pressure, and with them on base, Lance Berkman, Carlos Lee, etc., were going to get plenty of opportunities.