It is painfully obvious we are entering a decade run of 95+ loss seasons. One MLB caliber position player (Altuve), 2 back end rotation pitchers (Norris and Harrel) and 2 MLB caliber relievers (Wright and Lopez). 5 MLB quality players on the entire roster. And all the trades we've made have just netted us B and C- rated prospects. Even if a couple hit we're still screwed. We're looking at a Pirates/Rays decade long run of losing and being the laughing stock of MLB. Moving to the AL West only makes things that much more difficult . I've seen predictions we'll be competitive by 2015 or 2016. More like 2022, and thats if we sign all of our early draft picks and don't make any poor selections. At least fire Mills and sign Borkowski to manage and give us some eye candy in the dugout. You owe us that much Mr. Crane. And $1 dogs and $2 beers to drown our pain.

Crane: "What's our record, Millsie?"

Mills: "Thirty-six and seventy-three."

Crane: "Thirty-six...and seventy-three. How'd we ever win thirty-six?"

Mills: "It's a miracle."

Crane: "It's a miracle. This...is a simple game. You throw the ball. You hit the ball. You catch the ball."

Lollygaggers!

Serious overreaction.

The Astros are not the Pirates. I am not sure how much Crain will spend on this team but even if we have a payroll in the mid $60 mil range it will be $15 mil more than what the Pirates spend. Besides it seems the Pirates only have one good position player at a time. They have done nothing with finding stud arms. They have just not done well enough in the drafts to have multiple guys in the bigs at one time.

Look at the Braves, why are they where they are right now? Guys moving getting to the Majors together from the farm system.Then they have spent on guys to go with them.

I don't think the Astros will have dark days for any decade. During this series several Astros player player were very impressive.

The most obvious was Jose Altuve. he plays hard, is a very good lead off batter and is an excellant second baseman in all aspects of the game as far as i could see in this series. He will only get better.

He may have to work on getting out of the habit of chewing on his fingernails during the game. It shows he is concentrating but after you get down to the nubs it might be painful to throw.

Lucas Harrell is no back of the rotation pitcher. He is a rookie pitcher with a winning record on a team with a losing record who battles every hitter every inning and is confident in his stuff.

I believe Bud Norris has great stuff, but the Braves broadcast team said something I agree with completely. I believe they may have picked up this info from Astro announcers Jim Deshaies, who is because friendly with Joe Simpson of the Braves crew. They were saying he has no confidence in his secondary pitches when he gets behind in the count and always goes with his good fast ball in situations like that.

When he improves those pitches and feels he can trust them more he'll be way better.

Wesley Wright is a nightmare to lefty hitter. J.D. Martinez has a good future and there are others among in the younger player who will figure out the leagues and come to life.

One guy I never liked as a Braves and don't think you'll get anything out of is Schafer. He's a clown and useless. IMO.

Have patience and beat the <hell out of the Nationals.

The dark days have been here since 2009. However I think to say that they will last for a decade is not true. We are already stockpiling some good talent there and I think in 3-4 years we should at least be in the W column more.

Did you all forget who puhlmyfngr is?

The Dark Days began 9/20/2007. The clouds lifted 11/27/2011.