Falling 'Stro

If you're a team that is surprisingly contending behind a great offensive core, but only have one legitimate pitcher, it stands to reason that you would protect that pitcher as well as you can, right? Well, not if you're the Astros.

"Oswalt walked off the mound at the end of the sixth inning Saturday night having thrown 105 pitches. More important, he had already felt a “twinge” in his right groin area.

When someone, presumably pitching coach Dewey Robinson, approached him about going back out for the seventh, Oswalt said he tried to make it clear he’d had enough.

“I told them I thought that was it,” he said after the game. “They wanted me to go one more.”

In his postgame news conference with reporters, Cooper remembered the conversation differently.

“He just said he thought he could go back out for the seventh,” Cooper said. “We felt we could get one more out of him.”

Oswalt did go back out for the seventh, but threw just five more pitches before summoning the medical staff and limping off the mound."

Nice job Houston. Have fun with your new "ace", Wandy Rodriguez. At least Lance Berkman has a 231 OPS+. (That's not a mistake - it's actually 231.)