The Houston Astros are in shambles.

After a hot start, they completely tanked in May and June and are now in a closely-fought battle with the Reds for last place in the 6-team NL Central.

So big changes need to be made.  And they need to start in the front office.

Owner Drayton McLane can’t very well fire himself, but he needs to fire somebody.  With all the indications that manager Cecil Cooper and pitching coach Dewey Robinson have contributed to creating a toxic clubhouse atmosphere, he can start with them, but most of the blame for this putrid team must be laid at the feet of GM Ed Wade.

To be as fair as possible to Wade, he was apparently under strict orders from McLane to field a contender. But what Wade did was take a team in no position to seriously contend, and completely torpedo any vague chance it might have had with a series of atrocious moves.

It’s not like I foresaw this suckage or anything, months ahead of time. Oh wait, I did.

A quick glance at the performance of the guys Wade brought in, compared to the performance of the guys he shipped out, reveals the magnitude of the tranwreck, as all of his major acquisitions have tanked.  Leadoff man Michael Bourn has a .288 on-base percentage and a .600 OPS. Second baseman Kazuo Matsui has an only slightly less abominable .678 OPS. Imported closer Jose Valverde has posted a 4.24 ERA and a 1.42 WHIP. Shawn Chacon added injury to insult by physically assaulting Wade and getting released. And marquee big-name acquisition Miguel Tejada’s .779 OPS is actually 86 points lower than that the main player he was acquired for, Luke Scott.

Meanwhile, Scott has become one of the best hitters on the Orioles, fellow Tejada trade pieces Matt Albers and Dennis Sarfate have been amazing out of the Baltimore bullpen, Chad Qualls leads all Diamondbacks hurlers in relief innings, and Brad Lidge has utterly dominated as the Phillies closer.  Throw in Trever Miller’s decent performance out of the Rays’ pen, and Wade gave away or let go almost an entire major league bullpen which is much better than the one he currently has.

The Astros have no business trying to field a contender this year.  They should be tearing everything down and rebuilding from the ground up.  And that needs to begin with the front office and the coaching staff.  But mostly Ed Wade. Because even if they think they should be trying to contend, Wade is clearly not the man to try that with.

- What They Need Index -

He moved in front of me until we were chest to chest and then he shoved me to the ground. When I attempted to get to my feet, he shoved me a second time.

This was not taken from a script of a Lifetime Original Movie starring Joanna Kerns. These are the words of Astros GM Ed Wade describing his encounter with pitcher Shawn Chacon, who was put on waivers yesterday after admitting to putting his hand around Wade’s throat and throwing him down to the ground.

As a follow-up story, The Houston Chronicle’s Jose de Jesus Ortiz wonders what exactly is going on between the Houston pitchers and their coaches, more specifically, pitching coach Dewey Robinson.

De Jesus Ortiz recounts an incident back on May 17 - facing the Texas Rangers, Astros ace Roy Oswalt complained to Robinson of pain in his groin after completing the sixth inning. Instead of being taken out, Oswalt was asked to give the team one more inning, but instead failed to record an out in the seventh (gave up consecutive hits to Ian Kinsler and Michael Young) before being removed. Following the game, Oswalt told reporters:

“”I told (Manager Cecil Cooper and Robinson) I thought (the 6th inning) was it,” he said after the game. “They wanted me to go one more.”

What makes this strange, however, is that Astros manager Cecil Cooper recounted this very differently:

“He just said he thought he could go back out for the seventh,” Cooper said. “We felt we could get one more out of him.”

Sounds like someone’s lying, or to put it more nicely, someone has “communication problems”. Anyhow, back to de Jesus Ortiz’ column. Cecil Cooper obviously denies that there is a communication problem between the pitching corps and their coach. Oswalt, however, uses words that are probably a little too open to interpretation when talking about his first year manager and pitching coach:

“I won’t say it’s a communication problem. Sometimes we see different from them, and they see it different from us. You still have to play no matter what.”

“I think it’s a lot of (it happening to be the) first time they’ve done this job. You worry about too many things at one time instead of just being worried about being focused on the team and know that everybody here is trying to give 100 percent. Sometimes the game is starting to look a little easier from the sideline than it does on the field. Overall, it’s just trying to get accustomed to the job.”

I can’t say that I blame Oswalt if he’s sounding a bit frustrated. I mean, Dewey Robinson seems to endorse the most useless baseball “skill-enhancing” product I have ever seen. Apparently, pitchers’ in-game performances are elevated by 3 bazillion percent when you begin calling the outside corner of the plate “7″.

Thanks goes out to Zvee Geffen for pointing out the Oswalt-part of the story.