Yeah, it's Spring Training, but let's be honest here: the Mets are pathetic, and they're going to be pathetic all season long. To lose to them in such a weak, roll-over-and-die fashion is unacceptable at any time, March or July. It's unacceptable, and it should be embarrassing, no matter who the Astros happen to be carrying on the travel roster. All in the world tonight's loss does is re-open the question that haunted Houston all of last season: how can this offense look so good one day and so inept the next? That's a legitimate question, and I know some intelligent fans are starting to ask it again even now about this year's team during what has been an extremely uneven offensive spring. It's a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily by the stupid, insulting cliche, "That's just baseball." The only answer that will satisfy any of us is for the Astros to admit that, Spring Training game or not, "We just let it happen to us." And it has happened way too often to the Astros since 2002.

The Mets kicked Houston's butt tonight with pitching against which the Astros did nothing but watch as strikes were called. True, Wade Miller did give up a fourth-inning homer against Ty Wigginton, but that should not have been allowed to beat him. It just shouldn't. Courtesy of the Internet feed, I have no idea how Houston scored its lone run or the Mets scored their third, but I don't really care to know, either. All I am certain of is that Houston should have been much better at the plate than it was. And David Weathers--Jesus, David Weathers--OWNED the Astros again in a one-inning relief stint. The solution to that problem I know: don't let the game get to Weathers in the first place.

Houston might have had a chance for a ninth-inning rally, but the luckless combination of Jeriome Robertson and Chris Tremie teamed up to let Roger Cedeno get to 3B and then race home on a ridiculous passed ball. Was it Robertson's fault for throwing garbage in the dirt, or Tremie's fault for showing why he's always been a AAA catcher?

The Astros should not be in the business of losing to the Mets. Losing some vicious game to 'em on a Mike Piazza homer, maybe, or an epic six-game NLCS if they must, but not this, not a walkover, a totally-lifeless, uninspired performance against a terrible team. Not this late in Spring Training. If there's ever a time to kick the water cooler in March, tonight's the night for it, not because Houston lost, but because they were so flat in doing so.

I would prefer not to re-write Astroday Extra for the third time in two days, but I will, painful as the process is. (Trust me, a writer's memory is a dog that won't hunt if all the birds are lost.)

I will live with Internet radio, curse it, and rejoice that I have to endure it only a few more days.

But I will not roll over like the Astros did tonight and tell you they did wonderful work when in fact they did not. I have high expectations for this ballclub in 2004, and there are no excuses that I will accept for anything less than a top-notch effort every night out of the box. The Cubs and the Cards, the Phillies, the Marlins and the Padres are all going to deal Houston some misery during the season, and that I can deal with, but losses like this one, where the club just goes down with a whimper against a team whose best talent is still in the minor leagues, no sir. That makes me angry. And it ought to make Jimy Williams angry, too--enough to say a few pointed words in the clubhouse about what the only goal of this year has to be, and how to achieve it.