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The Astros vaunted offense collected ten hits last night. Unfortunately, they only converted those ten hits into three runs. Even worse, Brandon Backe once again fell apart in the sixth inning, and with Oscar Villarreal once again failing in his attempt at being a pitcher, the Astros found themselves losing for the first time in six games by a score of 8-3.

Lance Berkman continued on his roll, going two for three. But though he was able to get on base, he was not able to do any damage by way of scoring or knocking in runs. And Brandon Backe tied his career high with nine strikeouts, but he also surrendered six hits and four runs in his six innings of work, continuing with what has always been a problem, going deep into the game.

The Astros won last night, 4-3, on a lucky Carlos Lee single in the ninth with Kaz Matsui on third base that Washington centerfielder Lastings Milledge gave up on. I’m not going to make many fans here, but damn, if there’s any team that deserved to win this game last night, it wasn’t the Astros.

I don’t know how the Astros are winning these things. They’re being outplayed, outhustled, out-hit, and out-pitched. Well, most of the Astros are. Lance Berkman tied the Astros team record last night when he got his eighth straight hit in the fourth inning. A hit which just happened to be a home run. A monster of a home run that landed on the choo-choo tracks.

You knew we couldn’t let the Rockets’ season come to a close without hearing from Daryl Morey one more time. So what is the Rockets GM up to now that the team has been eliminated? Is Tracy McGrady really the best passing wing in the NBA? And does Morey still think Boston is the team to beat this year? Read on to find out.

JCF: So now what? Do you get a break? Or do you just dive straight into draft and free-agent prep?

DM: It’s both. Free agency arrives a couple days after the draft so you gotta be ready for both. So with the coaching staff it’s more about free agents or trade targets. Then with the personnel side it’s more draft. Then we’re also working on off-season player development plans for the players; strength and conditioning plans as well. So we’re packing in a lot of off-season planning this week, then that will free up more time to study free agents, trade targets and draft eligible players for the next seven weeks.

JCF: So you don’t mind running down your list of trade targets, do you?

Nothing ruins a sporting event more than some hack who won’t give the score, or keeps screaming, or gets facts wrong. Here are Houston’s five worst offenders.

5. Clyde Drexler was one of the greatest basketball players the city of Houston has ever produced. As a broadcaster, well, let’s just say that as a broadcaster he was a better coach. Sure, he’s an improvement over Calvin Murphy, but that’s just because he doesn’t waste time talking about cookies.

4. Mark Vandermeer has a great voice. Unfortunately, when he’s broadcasting a game, you get the feeling that he’s more concerned with trying to fit in one of his catchphrases than he is with actually describing the play. You also get the feeling he’d be happier hearing his voice on a SportsCenter highlight than with the Texans winning a game.

I’m sure some of you saw the story last week that the Minnesota Wild have renewed their lease with the Toyota Center, and as such, the Aeros will be remaining in Houston for five more seasons. I for one am happy about that. I’ve become a big hockey fan.

The interesting thing, to me, is with the AHL as a whole. Specifically, just how many teams will there be in the league next year? I ask because the Dallas Stars terminated their arrangement with the AHL’s Iowa Stars. So, at the moment, there is no AHL team playing hockey in Des Moines.

The Dallas Stars are building an arena in the Austin area, and it is there that their AHL-affiliated team will play. There’s just one problem: This arena won’t be ready in time for the 2008-2009 season, so currently the Dallas Stars have nowhere to put their not-ready-for-primetime players.

Yeah, yeah, the Astros won 6-5 last night, but damn, did any of you actually watch that game? It was awful. Home plate umpire Brian Runge called one of the worst games that I’ve seen in years. He was bad for both teams, though that balk on the Nationals in the seventh inning was a rather unbelievably bad call in my opinion. The Nats outfielders made Carlos Lee look competent in the field, and when Lee looks competent, you know the outfielders are bad.

Do I have any other thoughts? Yeah, Shawn Chacon sucks, and the fact that the team is still depending on him to be a solid pitcher does not bode well for the rest of the season. But I am very much liking that Fat Elvis is becoming the Big Puma – last night was the first five-hit night of Lance Berkman’s career. I’m thankful every night for Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence in the outfield, especially, once again, after watching the Nats trying to play out there.

But despite the Astros coming from behind, again, to win this game, I am still in agreement with the Chron’s Brian McTaggart when it comes to this team. They’re not that good. When the offense is clicking, like it has been the past week, it can beat just about anybody – except for good pitching; I firmly believe good pitching will always defeat good hitting. But when the team slumps, there is just not enough good pitching on the roster to pick up the team.

The best thing that could happen to Brian McNamee in the Clemens defamation suit happened yesterday. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison ruled that Rusty Hardin could remain as the Rocket’s attorney in the case, despite the fact that one of the main witnesses, Andy Pettitte, was also represented by Rusty Hardin for a short period of time.

Oh, don’t be fooled. There is a conflict of interest regarding Andy Pettitte, but the judge ruled, correctly, that Brian McNamee was not the correct party to request Hardin’s removal from the case.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to watch is disturbing, and it might not be appropriate for young children, people with weak stomachs or heart conditions, or any person of average intelligence.

I give you Jose de Jesus Ortiz on ESPN yesterday, making the entire city of Houston look like country bumpkins.

Richard Connelly has noted how the Daily News called out the Chron as Rocket's house organ. But SI.com is on the Chron's case as well, and the writer, Jon Heyman, made note of some misleading writing in the Chron’s Rocket apology story: "The Chronicle apparently was trying to bolster Clemens by saying the report came in a 'tabloid' rather than crediting the Daily News, and leaving the reader to wonder whether it could be The National Enquirer."

But to me, what's more interesting is the civil war that appears to be erupting within the Chron sports department. It's not often the Chron writers attack each other in public, but this morning, Richard Justice called out the media toadies who are asking us to lay off Clemens by stating that Rocket brought this all on himself, and noted that these toadies are trying to "not let the facts get in the way of continuing to suck up to the Rocket and Rusty."

The New York Daily News has its version of the Roger Clemens apology. (Although come on – is it an apology if you don’t say what you’re apologizing for?)

We noticed this little dig, after a quote from Rocket’s pronouncement: “…Clemens said in a statement handed to the Houston Chronicle, a favorite outlet for Clemens and his lawyer Rusty Hardin.”

The Chron’s Jose de Jesus Ortiz Ortiz tells us he prayed for Roger Clemens at Mass yesterday. He also tells us we need to leave Rocket alone because no matter what Rocket has done, picking on Rocket harms the Rocket family.

Gee, Ortiz, are you referring to Mrs. Rocket, who Roger threw under the bus by admitting she used HGH? Do you mean that same Mrs. Rocket who had to sit behind Rocket while he was testifying before Congress, the same Mrs. Rocket who had to sit there as her husband exposed her secrets to millions of people?

I want to know where Ortiz’s cares and concerns were in December and January and February and March and April and May as Team Rocket went on the attack against Brian McNamee. I don’t recall Ortiz telling us to lay off McNamee because of the effect on McNamee’s family when Rusty Hardin played a tape of a phone conversation between Rocket and McNamee, a phone call where a desperate McNamee pleaded for Rocket to please call his son, an ill son who still worshipped Rocket. And where was Ortiz and his call for sympathy when Rocket and Hardin were out there calling McNamee a rapist? Or when people close to Team Rocket were calling McNamee a drug pusher?

There was a time, not too many years ago, when Milwaukee Brewers closer Eric Gagne saved 84 games before blowing one. But he was with the Dodgers then. He was doing HGH. And he was yet to get injured.

The Eric Gagne of the Brewers is nowhere near the Gagne of the Dodgers. He’s more of a Brad Lidge from the Astros-era than he is a Brad Lidge from the Phillies-era (Lidge is 1-0 with 7 saves and a 0.00 ERA so far this season). And Sunday afternoon, with the Astros trailing 6-4 coming into the bottom of the ninth, and Gagne on the mound, there was just this feeling that the Astros could still win this game and sweep the series with the Brewers.

The Astros did tie the game, the sixth run coming on a bases loaded walk to Berkman. Which in itself was appropriate being that if it were not for Lance Berkman’s bat, the Astros would not have been in the situation to tie the game. Berkman, with a homer and two doubles, had accounted for three of the four runs going into the ninth, and his walk accounted for the sixth.

To be a sports fan is to embrace the inevitability of pain.

Sure, every once in a long while there those who find themselves lucky enough to cheer for teams like the Bill Russell-era Celtics or 10-Cups-in-15-years Montreal Canadiens. But for most sports fans, embracing your favorite franchise often means bracing for the worst, year after year after tortured year.

Far more often than not, your team is going to end its season with a loss. That’s just the way it is. Of course, all losses are not created equal. That’s why ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons created his ingenious “Levels of Losing.” But no matter how you slice it, the agony of defeat is never pleasant. It’s sort of like that horrific Def Leppard and Tim McGraw collaboration ABC is using for its NBA playoffs coverage. You can listen to it loud. You can listen to it soft. You can even change the channel the second that blasphemous first note bombards your sense of hearing and good taste. But no matter what you do, exposure to such toxic audio assault is going to leave you nauseous and begging for mercy. Losing is like that, too.

I have never understood the popularity of CBS Sports broadcaster Jim Nantz. I find him to be rather bland and inoffensive, and I’ve always kind of felt that he holds the viewer in a kind of contempt. Sure, he’s not a pompous jerk like Joe Buck. But he doesn’t have the wit or cynicism of Bob Costas. Nantz isn’t good. He isn’t bad. He’s just a guy who’s gotten lucky by being in the right place at the right time.

Nantz comes before us with a memoir, Always By My Side: A Father’s Grace and a Sports Journey Unlike Any Other. The memoir exists to serve two purposes: It is a brief of his broadcasting career, and it is a loving tome to his father, who’s in the late stages of Alzheimer’s. For purposes of a framing device, the book is set in 2007 as Nantz embarks on a mythical epic journey – mythical because I’ve yet to find anyone who feels this feat was monumental – of becoming the first broadcaster to do play-by-play of the Super Bowl, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and the Masters. A journey he makes with thoughts of his father always at the front of his mind.

The whole world’s been looking at the Rocket/Mindy McCready affair this week, even though it appears nothing (allegedly!) happened until she was of legal age, but there's another major statutory rape story involving a pro athlete that’s been almost completely ignored.

It began to surface on Sunday when the Buffalo Bills drafted offensive tackle Demetrius Bell from Northwestern State in the seventh round. It was noted that Bell's mother raised him on her own, but it was also noted that his father was Karl Malone, former power forward for the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers, and that Malone offered no support. The Buffalo News followed up, and discovered that it appeared that Bell's mother was 13 at the time of his birth. Malone, at that time, was a college sophomore at Louisiana Tech.