Sometimes you get bad news such as Brandon Backe and his upcoming Tommy John surgery, and you start to wonder how it would have been if the Astros had him in good health throughout this very streaky season. Backe has been one of Houston’s highest hopes and I hope this doesn’t end now with him being sidelined for at least a whole year. We wish him the best.

And speaking of streaks, I don’t want to bring it, but I can’t help it. Well, I’ll rephrase it for a different take other than the obvious one: Two straight sweeps, this time against the Brewers. And this game was played how it was meant to be during the whole year: a solid outing by Pettitte, with 2 runs off 7 innings, doubles by Ausmus and Taveras, and a 2-run homer by Craig Biggio, his 18th of the year, for a  5-3 final.

It’s always nice to sweep, folks.. Now here comes a true test to see whether these "new and improved" Astros are for real. Yes, folks, we’re about to meet the Mets once again, and most probably we’ll see the return of Tom Glavine this Friday. We’ll watch, and I hope you do too. (Oh, I won’t mention him, don’t worry. Astros fans know who I’m talking about.)