The Texas Sports Guy

Just to set a little background for this post...

Last night I stayed up until 12:30 AM to watch the Astros lose to the Cubs in 18 innings. Texas legend Roger Clemens was in line to get the win with the Astros holding a 6-5 lead heading into the top of the 9th. Chad Qualls and Dan Wheeler were completely dominant in the 7th and 8th innings respectively. Garner brings Lidge into the game, who has the highest ERA of any person in the Astros bullpen, and he promptly gives up a lead-off game tying HR to Matt Murton. Just to further make my point, disregarding the 18th inning, when Dave Borkowski was obviously out of gas, let's look at the stat line for Lidge and all other relief pitchers last night from the 7th inning through the 17th inning...Here's the box score

Lidge: 0.2 IP, 3H, 1 HR, 1 R, 1K

All others: 10.1 IP, 3H, 0R, 6K, 1 BB, and not a single Cub hitter advanced to 2nd base against an Astros reliever in the 7th, 8th, and 10th through 17th innings.

So with that said, here is a copy of the email I sent to the Astros, and copied to Fox Sports SW and AM 1300 The Zone, the TV and radio affiliates for Astros broadcasts in Austin.

"I am a loyal fan (of the Astros) over the last three seasons. I live in Austin, so I am not a season ticket holder or a regular attendee of games, although I do see the Round Rock Express play from time to time.

I have only one purpose for writing this email. I wanted to let your organization know that I will no longer be watching any Astros games on TV or listening to any Astros games on the radio until Brad Lidge is either sent down to AAA for the rest of the year or demoted to a role in the bullpen where he has no control over the outcome of any games (i.e. not pitching unless the game has a minimum 6-8 run differential either way).

We're 120 damn games into the season, and the Astros closer continues to be the guy with the highest ERA on the team. I checked, and the only pitchers with a higher ERA than Lidge are either in Round Rock right now (Gallo, Astacio, Buckholz) or have a grand total of 4 innings pitched all season (Hirsh). I don't give a damn who the closer is as long as it's not Lidge. It can be Qualls, Wheeler, Springer, Miller, Nieve, or Borkowski. The standard issue Garner “Closer-by-committee” speech he gave after the all-star break isn’t good enough, because he said the exact same thing after the All-star break, and Lidge has continued to remain the closer throughout.

Once I see a press release that states that Lidge is either pitching for Round Rock or no longer the closer or set up guy, I will begin once again watching every game I can on TV, or listening to every game I can on the radio when I don't have access to a TV. Until that moment, I am boycotting Astros broadcasts entirely.

And just so that this email has a little bit of teeth, I will be copying this email to Fox Sports Southwest and AM 1300 The Zone, the Austin affiliate for the Astros. I know several thousand people feel the same as me from reading sports message boards last night; if a few thousand feel like sending the same email, maybe we can evoke a change, because we all know Garner is too much of a dumbass as the manager to make a change on his own."