FanHouse Chris Sampson

And I don't mean Lisa Gray's Astros blog, which is, in fact, a fun place to be. I mean the literal dugout of the Astros. The NL Central proved itself once again to be the most fun division on the planet where teams are so good that everyone on every team loves each other... oh wait, I mean the frustrations of another NL Central team boiled over last night when newly demoted ex-closer Dan Wheeler shoved Chris Sampson across the dugout when Sampson tried to console Wheeler after a bad inning.

Still burning up inside over an eighth inning somehow turned disastrous and wound up costing the Astros a much-needed victory Wednesday night, reliever Dan Wheeler was in no mood for consolation.

Astros starter Chris Sampson found that out when he tried to approach Wheeler shortly after the reliever had given up four runs en route to suffering the loss in the Oakland Athletics' 7-3 victory at Minute Maid Park.

Wheeler is, of course, very sorry about the whole thing.

"There's nothing going on between Chris and I," Wheeler said. "I love Chris. That was just frustration on my part. That's all it was. That's really all. I'm a professional, and I should be better than that. I take full responsibility."

Phil Garner actually said he didn't notice the fight until he saw footage of it after the game. A manager with Garner's tenuous job security probably shouldn't be admitting that he's not paying attention to squabbling players in the dugout. Well, unless he's trying to get fired. Given the way this season has gone, maybe he is trying to get fired.

The Astros season thus far has kind of been like a roller coaster. And by "kind of" I mean "very much like." They started 1-5, jumped to 9-6, dropped to 10-15, evened out at 21-21, and now have lost seven in a row to fall to 21-28. Earlier this week they were in second place in the NL Central trying to take advantage of the Brewers slide, today they're in fifth place in the division, ahead of only the awful Reds. Chris Sampson took the loss last night as the 'Stros lost to the Diamondbacks for the third night in a row.

"It's frustrating," Chris Sampson said after absorbing the loss. "It's real frustrating. As a team, everybody is really frustrated. At the same time, we have guys on the team coming in to hit early. It's not for a lack of effort."

The Astros lost the previous three games by a combined 31-5 and have been outscored 58-12 during the losing streak. But Sampson kept this one close with a decent outing.

The worst part about it is that while the Astros have faced some good pitchers during the losing streak (Tim Lincecum, Barry Zito, Brandon Webb), they've also faced the likes of Brandon McCarthy, Micah Owens, and Edgar Gonzalez. Not exactly a top-notch rotation there. And every single win has gone to the opposing team's starting pitcher. That's one hell of a skid.

All spring the Astros wondered who would fill the final slot in their rotation. Chris Sampson rode a mediocre spring to fill that position over Fernando Nieve, Matt Albers, and Brian Moehler (who wound up in the bullpen). Instead it seems that the spot that was most in jeopardy was Wandy Rodriguez as the fourth starter. Wandy finished the spring so poorly he needed a solid showing in his last Grapefruit League outing to prevent himself from being demoted to AAA.

Heading into Saturday, Rodriguez had given up six runs (five earned) over his last eight exhibition innings, including the three runs he gave up March 20 in a Class A outing. He was markedly better Saturday, giving up two runs on 10 hits with two strikeouts in six innings before a crowd of 29,551.

"If he had really scuffled today, that might have changed our minds," Purpura said. "We met this morning and kind of lined things up and made kind of an A and B plan. And this is the plan that we chose."

Wandy is probably going to be on a short leash this year because Nieve had a better spring than either Rodriguez or Sampson, yet will be heading back down to AAA Round Rock to start the season.

When your rotation consists of Andy Pettitte, Roy Oswalt, and Roger Clemens you don't have to worry much about who starts after them because you're going to win a lot of games. When that rotation gets broken up, suddenly fourth and fifth starters become much more important. That's the situation the Astros find themselves in this spring and they're having trouble filling the rotation out.

With less than two weeks remaining before the start of the season, the Astros still haven't answered any of the key questions they had when spring training began one month ago.

At the top of that list is the competition for the fifth and final spot in the pitching rotation, which is a four-man race among young righthanders Matt Albers, Fernando Nieve and Chris Sampson and veteran righthander Brian Moehler.

They have had their ups and downs this spring and will have only a couple of more chances to show manager Phil Garner and his staff what they can do.

"They're all scheduled to pitch right on through to the exhibition series against Kansas City (March 30, 31 at Minute Maid Park)," Garner said. "It may take me that long to figure out what I'm going to do."

It seems like as easy as it was for the Cardinals to answer their rotation questions, it's been every bit that hard for the Astros to answer theirs. With the way the four competitors for the spot have pitched, it's pretty hard to even call any of them the "winner" for the final rotation spot, no matter who ends up with it.