Houston lost today’s contest to the Cincinnati Reds 8-2. Looks like Berkman taking the road trip wasn’t enough to give the team their second W of the season.

From astros.mlb.com

Stros at the plate: “Brian Bogusevic had two hits. … Lance Berkman was 1-for-3 with a first-inning double. … Hunter Pence was 1-for-3 with a sixth-inning single. … Geoff Blum was 1-for-3. Jason Smith tripled in the eighth and scored on a two-run homer by Drew Sutton. ”

Stros on the mound: “Starter Jeff Fulchino was hit around and gave up four runs, three earned, on five hits over two innings. … Gilbert De La Vera pitched two scoreless innings with one walk. … Fernando Nieve gave up two runs, one earned, with one hit and two walks in two-thirds of an inning.”

Sounds to me like Nieve and Paulino have eached pitched themselves right out of the picture.  Maybe Houston can trade Nieve?  Teams will probably just wait until he hits the waiver wire and then pick hiim up.

Today make a dozen losses in a row for Houston and fan blogger Chip Bailey from the Houston Chronicle is asking if a manager can lose their job in Spring Training. Really Chip? Gimme a break.

 De La Vara and Arias both pitched two scoreless innings which is good news.  We still have 3 weeks of Spring Training so everyone needs to chill out, especially you Chip.

Also, one thing I have taken from this Spring Training so far is that Houston has a nice core of talent coming up right now.  Not necessarily a large amount of players but a good group of quality players.  Two or three years from now these guys are going to be making impacts at the big league level.