On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Houston Astros (74-67) at Colorado Rockies (67-75) 8:05 PM ET

This kind of reminds me of one of those mid-January college basketball games between, say, Siena and Boise State, where they're not really shoe-ins to get in the tournament so you start talking strength of schedule and RPI rating and all that nonsense. With the Astros and Rockies, there's some strength of schedule involved here too, as you start to wonder whether the Astros play enough dog teams down the stretch to stay on their current hot streak and make up the seven games they're behind in the wild card. Or whether the Rockies play enough games at home to make up the five games in the NL West. Conventional wisdom says no, but after these very same Rockies pulled of their miracle last season, everything is on the table. All we need is Dick Vitale to call this one.

When the Rockies went on their amazing run in September and October last year, culminating with 21 wins in 22 games and a World Series berth, a lot of superlatives were thrown around in the media. Normally I'm the guy that rolls his eyes at those kinds of things, but that Rockies' run last year was really a once-in-a-lifetime type thing. Don't tell that to the Astros, though, as they've won eight in a row to pull to within six games of the Brewers for the wild card and they're feeling awfully lucky:

"The Rockies did something very special last year," Astros general manager Ed Wade said. "I know people say it's an aberration, but as long as we continue to go out there with the attitude we've shown the last third of the season, it's not beyond the realm of possibility."

People said it was an aberration because no one had every done anything like that before. Wade's insane vision of Astro Utopia requires them to jump over three teams (St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee) in 22 games. Even if they go 16-6 (a .727 winning percentage), the Brewers will have to go 10-12 in a stretch where CC Sabathia will pitch five times and they have 12 games against the Pirates, Reds, and Padres. Seriously, Ed, it's not happening, so just made Randy Wolf an insane contract extension offer and let's get on with our lives.

After giving up a single run in the first inning last night, Roy Oswalt shut down the Reds over the next six, picking up the win. I know, I know, it was really quite shocking. In his 27th career appearance against the Reds, he improved to an amazing 22-1. That's not a typo: twenty-two and one!

Here's John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer (before the win was officially wrapped up) trying to wrap his head around Oswalt's pure and utter domination:

Studying the numbers from Oswalt v. Reds, it's hard to understand how he's 21-1. He was great against the Reds in his first three starts -- 23 innings, one run. Since then, he's been good. He has a 3.08 ERA. That's only slightly better than his career ERA of 3.19. But he's 102-62 against the rest of baseball. That's a .621 percentage. Again, good. But not an other-worldly .955.

How good is .955? The next best by someone with 20 decisions or more against the Reds is .696 (16-7 by Bob Welch).

Looking at Oswalt's 27 games as a whole, he's posted a 2.50 ERA against the Reds. In his 23 games against the Pirates, on the other hand, he's posted a similar 2.57 ERA but has a relatively pedestrian 11-6 record to show for it. Obviously there's some luck at play, but it makes you wonder if he has something against the fair city of Cincinnati. Did he eat a bad batch of Skyline Chili? Did Pete Rose welch on a bet? Did Carson Palmer fail him in his fantasy football playoffs? What's the deal?

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Philadelphia Phillies (65-58) at San Diego Padres (48-75) 8:05 PM ET

Premature to say that this game against the downtrodden San Diego Padres is a must game for the Phillies? Definitely. And just because the Mets are on an upswing against league dregs like Washington and Pittsburgh and the Phillies were swept by a division leader doesn't mean the Phillies are dead and buried. But just five days ago the Phillies were up on the Mets by two games. On this day, it's the reverse. So this is a valley that the Phillies would do well to dig out of starting tonight. The Phillies have the right guy on the mound to do that in Cole Hamels.

All year long, I've been laughing at the Astros and Ed Wade's "win now at all costs" plan. With the way the team is configured and their minor league system in such bad shape, focusing on the present seems to be at best myopic and and worst, destructive to the future of the franchise. I've considered a lot of questions about the Astros and Wade this year, but suddenly it seems like I've been missing one all along: what if Wade's plan works?

Last night the Astros beat the Giants 7-4 for their eighth straight win climbing to 62-59 and within 7.5 games of the Brewers for the NL Wild Card. With six weeks of baseball left, the Astros are apparently actually still in contention, tied for fifth place in that Wild Card race with the NL West leaders. They've got a ways to go to hurdle the Marlins, Phillies, Cardinals, and Brewers, but stranger things have certainly happened. If they pull this thing off, are we all forced to admit that Ed Wade is some of higher level genius?

The thing is that while being 7.5 games back with six weeks to go, the fact that they have four teams ahead of them for the wild card is going to make contending nearly impossible for the Astros. And while I'm sure it's fun for Astros fans to see their team win, that doesn't change the identity of the franchse. They're still a team mostly full of declining veterans with no real help coming from anywhere in the minors. The glimpse of a pennant race this year doesn't change any of the damage done to the franchise by Wade in the past ten months.

Somebody, anybody, give Barry Bonds a job. He's an interesting character. He'll bring fans into the stadium and sell merchandise. He'll hit you at least 20 homeruns in your DH or "bench" positions. The steroids and the media circus might be a detraction, but hey, you could add Amy Winehouse to your 40-man roster and get more production in the heat of constant scandal than you'd get from, say, Andy Marte. Andy Marte couldn't hit .200 if he had all season. Barry could probably do it in one game!

Whether or not he's good for baseball is irrelevant. He's good for The Dugout. MLB, pretend you're the NBA for a minute and put him on whatever team needs "stars." While you're at it, put Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame. And come up with about 12 new words that rhyme with "stained" or "game."

Is Barry Bonds retired? I'm not sure! Let's ask him! Tonight's Dugout is after the jump.

(spoiler: no)

As soon as Carlos Lee went down yesterday, the "Barry Bonds to Houston" rumors started swirling. Given their position on the periphery of the Wild Card race and Ed Wade's, "Never say day even if there hasn't been a pulse for a month" attitude, they just seem to be a logical fit. They denied interest in him this morning, but that means almost nothing. Now Cecil Cooper is threatening to quit if the Astros sign Bonds. From Richard Justice's blog at the Houston Chronicle: ''Bonds is not a fit for us. If he would come, I would go. I wouldn't want to deal with it.''

I started to talk about this in my post this morning (linked above), but I'll expand. Cecil Cooper is wrong. The Astros organization, as currently assembled with no actual minor league prospects, is completely screwed for the future. They're teetering on the edge of Pirates/Royals level oblivion. They are currently eight games behind an inconsistent Brewers team for the NL Wild Card. That's a hot streak and a Ben Sheets injury away from being interesting.

If they don't contend this year, it's not happening again until at least three years after Wade is fired (you can write that down). Wade's plan is horribly misguided and foolish, but if he's putting all of his eggs in one basket then he should fill the basket. Bonds is free, in terms of talent needed to acquire him, and cheap in terms of money. He's a better hitter than anyone the Astros have in their organization, and they're probably the only team interested. It's admirable that Cooper is willing to stand his ground, but Bonds is his best chance at making the playoffs as the Astros manager.

Ed Wade and the Astros have been doing some crazy things this year in the name of the pennant race that only they know they're in. At the trade deadline they picked up Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins despite being below .500 and down by double digits in the Wild Card race. Now that they're above .500 and have cut the Brewers lead to 8.5 games, they lose Carlos Lee for the season to a broken pinkie. The only real solution left would be Barry Bonds, but even they wouldn't, would they? The Astros say they're not interested:

"I don't see us pursuing that," Wade said Sunday.

[...]

"I don't think that's a possibility," manager Cecil Cooper said. "Not that he's not a good player, (but) I don't think that's someone we're interested in."

I've made fun of Wade's awful work all year and I'm going to do it again. He's dug his team so deeply into the ground, that the only thing that even makes sense right now is to sign Bonds and hope he gets them into the playoffs. Bonds would actually be the least damaging of all of Wade's moves, because he wouldn't cost them anything in terms of prospects. If you're going to go all-out, you'd better go all the way out or you're just hurting your team.

They're called the dog days of August for a reason. With the trade deadline in the books, major league teams are, barring a waiver trade, stuck with what they've got on the roster for the duration of the regular season. That means injuries, like the one suffered by Arizona's Orlando Hudson in the photo to the right, will shape the pennant races much more than they have over the last four months.

Five teams in the hunt for a playoff spot got bad injury news in the last 24 hours. Here's a look at who's hurt and how each team will cope with the absence of a key player over the final seven weeks.

- Carl Crawford, LF, Rays: The speedy Tampa Bay outfielder injured a tendon in his right middle finger on a check swing last night and was placed on the 15-day DL. The Rays are unsure how much time he'll miss, but a Seattle trainer told him he could miss six-to-eight weeks. If he's out that long, it could be devastating to their chances of holding off Boston in the AL East.

When the Houston Astros decided to be buyers at the trade deadline, it was somewhat confusing. The Astros were 50-57 on July 31, in fifth place in the NL Central, and trailing the Cubs by 14 games. In the wild card race, they trailed Milwaukee by nine games. It was pretty obvious to anyone with half a clue that the odds of the Astros overtaking either team, especially after they'd each added a top line pitcher to their rotation, were somewhere between slim and none.

This did not faze Ed Wade, however, as he made the deals anyway in hopes of helping Houston reach the post-season. To their credit, the Astros have played pretty well lately. They've won seven of nine since the deadline, but they still find themselves 12.5 games behind the Cubs and 8.5 behind Milwaukee. If that isn't enough to help the team realize that 2008 just won't be the year, maybe this will do the trick. Carlos Lee is likely done for the season after breaking his pinky finger.

Lee was hit by a pitch thrown by Bronson Arroyo in the third inning of the Astros' 3-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds. He left the game immediately to be taken for X-rays.

"I knew right away it was not going to be good," Lee said. "It hit me square. It's a bad deal, but what can I do? They said six to eight weeks, so probably I'm out (for the season). Unless the guys make a comeback and I'll be back for the playoffs."

Though if the Astros still don't want to give up, I hear that some guy named Barry Bonds might be available.