Austin

It is quite ironic that two of the biggest topics in the news this week are the World Series and the upcoming election, which will determine our 106^th winner of the Fall Classic and our 112^th United States Congress.

There isn’t a whole lot that links the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers, who are making their first appearance in the World Series.

Since Bleacher Report is such a distinguished blog, I must presume that Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane reads it, especially the postings that appear in the sports section of the Houston Chronicle . Perhaps he's reading this very post, thinking to himself, "What kind of a writer uses a weird name like Zoe-wee? Is that a pen name?"

It was reported today that the Texas Rangers voided IF Khalil Greene’s contract, essentially ending any chance Greene has of playing baseball again this season.

Greene wasn't released because of nagging injuries, age, or terribly declining performance; but because his head's just not in the right place.

Lock this guy up. Just do it. He's on the brink of "Pierredom." Make that "Crawfordom." And you can get him cheap! Julio Borbon  is set to bat leadoff for the Texas Rangers, and he will be a big reason why the Rangers will take the AL West in 2010.

Baseball may not be on the hearts and minds of many right now, but it will be in the next couple of months.

In part one of this series of seven on the Houston Astros baseball team, we took an in-depth look at the potential pitching rotation for next year’s team.

If you're a regular reader of "Here's a Thought," you probably know that I don't like to use ERA very much.

Instead, I prefer FIP, tRA, and xFIP when discussing pitchers. The statistics are just luck-adjusted ERAs, so they slot in nicely to ERA's "traditional" statistical role.

The Los Angeles Dodgers flew down to Houston riding high after sweeping their opening homestand against the Giants and Rockies, and having won a total of eight straight games. The Astros help bring them back to Earth taking the first two games of the series before the pitching of Chad Billingsley (pictured above) prevented a sweep in the final game.

Manny Ramirez continued his torrid batting, going 5-for-12 with five RBI. It wasn't enough however, as the Dodgers struggled to deliver in the clutch, a measly combined 3-for-29 with runners in scoring position.