The Houston Astros announced the firing of manager Cecil Cooper Monday afternoon.
The news comes on the heels of a seven-game losing streak, including a winless road trip to Cincinnati and Milwaukee, that officially eliminated the Astros from playoff contention in 2009. Dave Clark, previously the third-base coach, will act as interim manager for the remainder of the season.
In slightly more than two seasons on the job (he took over after Phil Garner's firing in 2007), Cooper's Astros were almost exactly .500, recording a 171-170 record, but he failed to take them to the playoffs in either of the two seasons which he opened with the job.
MLB Power Rankings:Where MLB FanHouse's editors, writers and bloggers team up to break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world.
Sorry for the delay, kiddos, on the Power Rankings. I'm sure you spent the entirety of Wednesday wondering "WHERE IN GOD'S NAME ARE THEY??? WITHOUT THEM I'LL HAVE NOTHING TO BANTER SENSELESSLY ABOUT TO MY CO-WORKERS!!!1" Or something like that. Either way, it's time to debate the worthlessness of your favorite baseball team in numerical form once again. Do enjoy.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That David Ortiz pulled within one homer of Yovanni Gallardo on the MLB leaderboard. Yes, Big Papi finally hit a home run. It took him 149 at-bats to get his first homer of the season, while 318 other players had hit at least one -- including two by Gallardo, a Brewers pitcher -- but Ortiz got on the board with a fifth-inning homer, helping the Sox to a victory over Toronto.
Ortiz had been slumping so badly that manager Terry Francona benched him for the whole series last weekend in Seattle. Ortiz joked after hitting the homer on Wednesday that he was so desperate he was "about to hit right-handed."
WASHINGTON -- You'll have to forgive the Astros if they're not that worried. After all, they've been down this road before, starting slow only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and work their way into the playoff race.
Houston is buried at the bottom of the standings in the six-team NL Central just over a month into the season, a surprisingly familiar position for a franchise that has had two sub-.500 seasons in the last 14 and has made the playoffs six times over that span.
Perhaps most distressing: Its biggest star, Lance Berkman, has been a big part of the problem.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That Matt LaPorta has arrived. LaPorta, the key player the Indians got in exchange for CC Sabathia last year, finally donned an Indians uniform on Saturday. LaPorta did not get into the game in his first day in the big leagues, but Tribe fans are certainly going to be eager to see him when he does.
LaPorta, 24, was the seventh overall pick in the 2007 draft. He is a big-time slugger, considered one of the top hitting prospects in baseball. LaPorta has played outfield and first base. The Indians could use him at either of those spots, or at DH in place of the injured Travis Hafner.
MLB Power Rankings:Where we care what you've done for us lately when we break down the who's who and the what's what in the baseball world each week.
Baseball is here. Only for three days so far, but that's enough for knee-jerk reactions and our collective excitement, certainly. Are the Yankees in trouble? Will Ken Griffey, Jr. lead the Mariners back to glory? Are the Orioles for real? Are the Braves bound for the playoffs again? Will the Marlins manage to save baseball and win the National League East? What happens when Jim Thome and Kyle Farnsworth meet in a hadron collider?
Find out the answers to these questions -- and more! -- after the jump.
Around this time every spring, the hard roster cuts start coming. The cuts that come from the beginning of camp through the first three weeks or so of March are always easy and expected. The cuts that come in the last week are the tough ones and, inevitably, feelings get hurt.
David Newhan was cut by the Astros today and he's a good example of that. After being released, he expressed some frustration with manager Cecil Cooper because he read in an MLB.com article that Cooper considered him to be about seventh on the Astros' depth chart and shortstop and that there wasn't much of a chance of him making the team.
The Astros exceeded expectations last season, but they still have some changes to make if they want the baseball world to see them as a serious contender. First, the bottom half of their tentative rotation (Brian Moehler, Russ Ortiz, the half of Mike Hampton that hasn't crumbled off) is looking pretty dicey. And second, their logo continues to look like that of an Internet service provider. Ever wonder why the cable guy never shows up on time? He's busy playing mediocre baseball in Texas.
Over the last few years the idea of Miguel Tejada moving from shortstop to third base has come up on a number of different occasions. As Tejada gets older teams fear that the 34-year-old -- who turns 35 in May -- Tejada will start to lose some of his range at short, and would be better off at third where it's more about reaction time than range.
The problem is that every time somebody's brought the idea up to Tejada, he's said no. Well, Miguel recently returned to Astros camp after the Dominican Republic was eliminated from the World Baseball Classic. He had been playing third base. It seems that Tejada may have discovered he liked playing third because now he's telling everybody he's totally cool with moving there if the team wants him to.
Michael Bourn is really, really fast. This we know. He stole 41 bases in 51 attempts last season. This is the kind of speed old-school managers are sure to fall in love with. You see, in the archaic times when on-base percentage was viewed as some sort of devil's tool, you just batted your fastest guy first. Once he gets on base, he can steal second and he's automatically in scoring position.
Of course, you did see the words, "on base" in that sentence, right? Bourn is really, really bad at that. He had an absolutely dreadful .288 OBP in 2008.
The Houston Astros announced the firing of manager Cecil Cooper Monday afternoon. 
MLB Power Rankings
Starting Five
WASHINGTON -- You'll have to forgive the Astros if they're not that worried. After all, they've been down this road before, starting slow only to rise like a phoenix from the ashes and work their way into the playoff race.
Starting Five
Around this time every spring, the hard roster cuts start coming. The cuts that come from the beginning of camp through the first three weeks or so of March are always easy and expected. The cuts that come in the last week are the tough ones and, inevitably, feelings get hurt. 
The 
Over the last few years the idea of 
