Tim Redding gave the Astros four very good innings Saturday afternoon in Kisimmee against the Indians, but the Astros' defense began to crack in the middle of the game. By the end of the contest, that defense had cracked completely, and Cleveland trotted home with a 6-3 victory. The Tribe put up two runs in the fifth against Jeriome Robertson, aided by a Houston error, then gleefully accepted two Astro errors in a three-run ninth that nullified a Houston comeback and put the game away. The sloppily-played affair dropped Houston's ST record back to .500 at 7-7-1 and it was not, from my point of view anyway, a pleasant game to listen to despite the relatively-few players used during a middle-of-the-schedule game in March.

There were positive things happening in the opening innings today. Redding was once again delightfully sharp, spacing three hits over his four frames, striking out three and walking nary a man. Those first few innings featured a regular season-quality pitching matchup between Redding and C.C. Sabathia, who did what I'd hoped Redding might do and went five full innings. Sabathia didn't give up much--five hits over five innings--but Richard Hidalgo did reach him for an impressive homer to LF with two out in the third.

Redding had been aided here and there in keeping Cleveland off the scoreboard. The Astros turned a 4-6-3 double play for him to end the first, Lance Berkman tracked down a deep drive to LF by Coco Crisp to end the third, and Hidalgo nearly took a double away from Ricky Gutierrez to open the fourth. When Jeriome Robertson began a relief stint in the fifth, however, the atmosphere of the game changed, and you could feel it hundreds of miles away. Robertson, as is his style, his way, began picking at the corners with soft stuff, missing his spots and falling behind batters from the outset of the inning. A single ot LF by Ron Belliard was followed by a walk on a full-count pitch to light-hitting catcher Tim Laker. Robertson, immediately in hot water, got a 6-4 force out on John McDonald, but after coming inside on Sabathia, Robertson was victimized by a bunt play that Morgan Ensberg couldn't handle. His throw to Jeff Kent wasn't a good one, and the error allowed the tying run to score. The two plays--the forceout and the Ensberg throw--were a telling sequence in the game. The Astros could have had a double play on the ball to Everett, but one of the defensive weaknesses of Kent Houston is forced to live with is that Kent doesn't turn the ball at 2B back to 1B very quickly. Eric Bruntlett, taking over at 2B for Kent in the sixth inning, does turn the ball quickly and turned it then for a 5-4-3 double play. Back to the fifth. For his part, Ensberg, too, has weaknesses. He doesn't come in on balls in the grass very well, and his throws to Kent, whether he's seeking a forceout or a double play, are not always throws that Kent can handle. If the trio of Ensberg and Everett and Kent were all young, I'd say they'd eventually learn to be a smooth-functioning threesome together, but the truth is, Kent's not going to be Houston's 2B forever, and I'm afraid we're never going to see these three be as coordinated as any of us would like.

With the score tied and runners now at 3B and 2B, Everett was able to pull off an alert play, nabbing the runner at 2B trying to advance on a grounder, but the lead run also crossed on the play. Robertson pulled his game together in the sixth enough to have a decent inning but, truthfully, without the Bruntlett turn at 2B, that inning would have been a disaster, too. A base hit allowed, a walk, a wild pitch (perhaps not completely the pitcher's fault)--it was not a good day for Robertson, who is, frankly, losing ground in his battle for a spot in the Astros' bullpen. Mike Gallo, who followed him to the hill today in the seventh, might be slightly ahead--or greatly ahead--of Robertson in the club's thinking. Robertson's only real advantage over Gallo headed into ST was that he does have the capacity to be a starter if the club needs him. But unless Robertson is just lights out the rest of this month or unless he's just utterly electric at New Orleans, Houston might not need him as a swing man or emergency starter. There are too many other options available. By the time the Astros might need him, Carlos Hernandez, Taylor Buchholz, or even Ezekiel Astacio will have built up arm strength sufficent to make a start in the big leagues, and any of those men are, like Robertson, just a phone call away.

Gallo was no more fortunate than Robertson was in watching the defense behind him. The walk he gave up to open the seventh was his own darn fault, but a swinging bunt to move that man, Lou Merloni, along and a base hit to RF moments later by Coco Crisp gave Cleveland a 3-1 lead. Jose Vizcaino, playing 1B at this point, cut off Hidalgo's throw in toward the plate on that single, and I gotta wonder why, just because it was. . .well, a throw in from Hidalgo. Unless Hidalgo slips in the grass or a bird flies by to distract him or somethin', it seems to me you let Hidalgo play everything he can get to and make every throw he wants. The Astros might have had a shot at Merloni, and they really had no shot anywhere else.

Behind now by two runs, I didn't see much hope that Houston would rally and make a game of it, but the club did. Ex-Brewer Jeff D'Amico entered the game in the sixth, picking up where Sabathia left off, and he went the rest of the way. Houston got up off the deck against him, though, in the eighth--a couple of hits, a sacrifice fly to CF by Bruntlett, and a big base hit to CF by Raul Chavez, I believe--tied the game up at 3-3.

But when things go bad, they go bad, and this was not a good day for the Astros. The defense in the ninth in back of pitcher Tony fiore was just awful. Errors at 3B and at SS, along with a walk and four hits, allowed Cleveland to put up three runs and forced Jimy Williams to bring in Kirk Saarloos to get the inning over with. Fiore, who's had a couple of good outings before this clunker, is pitching now just to get noticed for a later date and may have already done enough to impress management. It's hard to be mad at him for what happened in the inning.

It's a little easier, though, to be unhappy with the defense as a whole this afternoon. Those weren't rookies out there making the decisions in the field, however difficult the plays might have been to make. March has not been kind to either the Astros' defense (except for the pitching generally) or to most of the offense. We're halfway through the schedule now, and it is to be hoped that, with most of the questions on the ballclub already answered, the lineup will settle down and play better baseball. Houston needs to field the ball more cleanly and make sharper decisions about where to send the ball when a play has to be made. We can say to ourselves "the games don't count" all we want, but what does count in the spring--what has always counted since the first spring training--is the mental preparation of the players for the long season ahead. It's said that in football and baseketball "you play like you practice." That's also true in baseball, and probably more so. No other sport depends so much on rote drill, doing the same things over and over again to achieve, not just proficiency, but excellence. We laugh and laugh in the stands watching such drills and chat amongst ourselves. On a day like today, with the sun shining under a comfortable sky, why not? We ought to laugh, and love the game all the more. But practice is also a serious thing. Teams that execute are teams that win, and the Astros need to start doing both. With April 5 merely two weeks away, it's time to get serious.