The impending arrival of the St. Louis Cardinals late in the season seems to spell doom for the incumbent Houston manager, as the last two Astros changes occurred at a similar point.
In a supreme giveth and taketh away example, Cecil Cooper both received and lost his managerial assignment under those very circumstances. Perhaps it is too strong to say the Cardinals actually drove the change, yet the timing seems more than coincidence. It is easy to imagine that the Astros front office wants their club to play especially well against the rival that is on its way to its seventh post-season appearance this decade.
On August 28, 2007, former bench coach Cooper managed his first game as skipper of the Astros after taking over for the fired Phil Garner. On that evening, the Cardinals arrived at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. Cooper’s Astros lost his first game as a major league manager, 7-0, but come back to take the final two. He finished the season 15-16 and the “interim” title was removed.
With the Cardinals again set to appear in Houston, two years and a month after his hiring, Cooper was let go by the Astros on Monday. He was under fire even before his club lost seven in a row and eight of ten, including three against Milwaukee last weekend.
With the Astros formally eliminated from post-season contention, the front office apparently decided to drop the axe now. Third base coach Dave Clark will take over for the final two weeks of the season, 13 games in total. Like Cooper before him, Clark comes into the job no prior major league managerial experience. He is the franchise’s seventh manager since Tony La Russa joined St. Louis in 1996.
(Update: For the record, Clark’s club lost their first game under him on Monday to the Cardinals, 7-3.)
Overall, Cooper was just over .500 at 171-170 at the helm of the Astros. His record against St. Louis was only 16-18 (.471). Garner managed Houston to a comparable record against the Cardinals, 24-25 (.490), though he led his 2005 club to the NL pennant and a .524 mark in 530 games with the Astros.
I wasn’t a big Cooper fan, but I believe the Astros’ organizational issues are far deeper than can be fixed by the major league manager. With a barren farm system, a reliance on middling veterans and a dearth of major league pitching, Cooper’s ultimate successor may have a difficult time posting a winning record in 2010.
The Cards must look like a red cape through the eyes of an angry bull, Drayton Maclane.
Its swell to have Drayton as owner of a team in a big city within the central division. Hope he stays in the saddle for decades to come.
DeRosa with another solo homer.
I wonder what the record is for highest share of homers being solo, by a Cardinals player? Could be a question for Tom Ort.
Yeah, Houston clearly needs a new GM more than a new manager.
nutlaw, as Jumbo notes, it starts with the owner.
Jumbo, please check out the DeRosa solo home run article I posted on the front page. Thanks for the inspiration.
STL -155 +105 9 -150 +105 9
HOU +145 -125 +140 -125
The money does not reflect the apparent pitching match up. Someone thinks the sinker won’t be sinking………………….. interesting conjecture.
Could the gamblers know even less about baseball than Alan Greenspan did about the economy?
I would say the Houston veterans were probably doing the betting.
A team in Houston’s position would be auditioning potential promotees from AAA I would think. This pitcher came in with 8.50 era, and it went up.. AAA must be barren. Must suck to be an Astros fan, team has checked out and gone home, no hope for next year. Owner deserves to go broke selling that kind of product.
The look on Tejada’s face on that no throw……….. The betting line went up close to game time. Somethings funny there. He has been accused of being a player.
Miguel’s just mad about getting traded from a shitty team to a potentially even shittier team, and about that perfectly good juice he threw away without using any, and getting outed on the age thing by dastardly media, and thrown under bus by Raphael over some ‘vitimins’, and getting convicted of lying to liars for which he is contrite and sorry especially to the kids. Winning teams will be lining up at his agents door.
Good one BB……………… The guy can hit. Its my guess, that he guessed, that he would be moving along. You can’t blame a guy with off shore connections for making a little meal money. I would would bet on that. He didn’t have to do much which made life easy. If it were a tight game, he would have flubbed something.
You guys shouldn´t talk like that about the most likely choice for a backup plan if DErosa falls through.
I really don’t thinks so. MT will command a salary that we won’t be offering. I wish though. He is a player.
Agree with some ideas in BB’s post 0. Getting convicted of lying to liars has to be tedious. A lot of Congresspeople are themselves pumped up on Botox. Some may be using steroids too, since steroids have been marketed as elixers of youth. Not just Roger and Barry, but Ponce de Leon himself would find them irresistable, so why not our elected leaders as well? They too are human.