The Astros were done in by somebody Monday afternoon in Kissimmee, but whether it was by the lady behind the plate or the Detroit Tigers themselves isn't clear. Detroit commited six errors in the game but held the Astros to only four hits and benefitted enormously by high strike zone calls from home plate umpire Ed Hickox and beat Houston 8-4. Wade Miller took the loss, pitching one perfect inning and one perfectly lousy inning among his three, as Houston's ST record dropped to 2-2.

I shouldn't have spoken so soon yesterday about last year's here today, gone tomorrow offense, because that's what it was today, as well. Four hits will not get the job done unless you happen to be the '66 Dodgers, but the lack of punch was not the whole story of the Astros' futility. The hitters were barking all day long at Hickox's sissy strike zone, an ephemeral thing, completely the product of Hickox's imagination. Lance Berkman erupted after being called out in the sixth, something we saw a little more of last season but still quite a rare event for the calm Lance. Willy Tavaras got rung up in a crucial spot after the Astros had scored a couple of times in the eighth to get to 8-4; then, in the game-capper, Houston loaded the bases in the ninth only to have Mike Coolbaugh fall victim to Hickox's girlish, every-pitch-is-a-strike kind of zone.

Had this been a regular-season game, it would have been no laughing matter for either Jimy Williams or Tony Pena. Hickox was an equal-opportunity offender out there, but the Astros were clearly hurt more by his zone. The major-league strike zone is supposed to be between the knees and the belt; at the highest, just below the letters on the team uniform, but Hickox was well above that most of the time, making it easy for a cadre of Tigers' pitchers who didn't deserve such luck, given the six errors in the field behind them.

Wade Miller's first start of the spring wasn't a good one. After a perfect first, the Tigers nailed him for five runs in the second. Eric Munson homered on the inning's first pitch; Greg Norton walked; Warren Morris doubled in a run; another double plated two more; and a Nate Cornejo sacrifice and a single got the final run home. Miller became the first Astro to go three innings this spring, but once those runs were up in the second, the Astros were forced to try to play catch-up, not an easy thing to do when the umpire calls you out on pitches no sane big-league hitter would dare chase (or be asked to chase by most umpires).

Houston did score a run without a hit a little later to make it 5-1, and Jared Fernandez held the line with two impressive knuckleballing innings in the fourth and fifth. The Astros cut into the lead a bit more in their half of the fifth when Adam Everett was nipped with a pitch after Houston had loaded the bases on an error, a single, and a walk. But here again, Hickox spoiled the rally by calling Craig Biggio out on strikes just before the Everett AB. This particular final strike might have been legit, but Biggio squawked anyway.

Octavio Dotel had a spotty sixth, giving up a run on a couple of walks and a hit. The hit was nearly turned into an out at the plate on a throw in from Berkman, but Brandon Inge, laboring somewhat around 3B, beat the tag at home. Detroit padded the lead in the seventh, knocking Kirk Saarloos around for two runs and three hits, but the first of those runs came home on a throwing error by Raul Chavez to 2B. Through the first four games, we might argue some about how good the pitching has been (to me, it's been mostly decent); but there's no arguing that the defense behind the pitchers has been poor. It has to get better, and soon. Neither the fielding nor the throwing (with the exception of Richard Hidalgo in RF) has been anywhere near the quality it needs to be.

SS Tom Whiteman homered to RF with one out in the eighth, and Mike Coolbaugh reached on an error at 2B. Charlton Jimerson slapped a single to LF, then stole 2B, with Coolbaugh dancing off 3B. When the Tigers' catcher threw the ball away trying to get Jimerson at 2B, Coolbaugh scored and the game was suddenly 8-4. It was then, however, that Hickox took the game back in his own hands, ringing up Tavaras and watching as Phil Hiatt's deep drive to LF was knocked down by the wind and caught for the inning's final out.

Bobby Chouinard and Dan Miceli pitched well for the Astros in the eighth and ninth, and Houston did mount a two-out rally in the ninth on a walk, a single to RF and an error at 2B, but the ignominious called third strke on Jimerson to end the game just left me longing to chalk this one up to experience and hope for a much crisper effort and better umpiring on Tuesday, when Tim Redding faces the Indians. The Astros will get their second spring look at Jake Westbrook then, and with any luck, none of us will have to choose whether Houston wins or loses because of the team they're playing on the field (always Tigers, metaphorically speaking) or because of the mysterious figure who always stands dark and brave behind the plate for us, but who sometimes inexplicably calls the game not as a contest between men but as if it were a Saturday afternoon affair in girls' fast-pitch softball.