That. Just. Happ-ened.

Get used to that phrase because I will be using it again. I love it. And if I were on the Astro’s Marketing team I would already be printing t-shirts donning the cry for fans to mock opposing hitters.

This afternoon the Houston Astros won their fifth game in a row and, much to the delight of the Atlanta Braves, capped a 4 game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies.

• Game 1: Brett Myers, former ace of the Phillies, went 7 innings, gave up 2 earned runs, and struck out 9 for the victory.
• Game 2: Houston won a 16 inning marathon game and got to watch their former ace Roy Oswalt play left field for Philadelphia. If you told me at the beginning of the season that I’d watch Roy Oswalt play left field against the Astros, I would have laughed harder than the Florida Marlins on the way to their bank. Bud Norris went 6 innings and gave up just 2 earned runs.
• Game 3: J.A. Happ allowed two runs over six innings against his former team and picked up the victory over Roy Halladay.
• Game 4: Wandy went 7 innings, gave up a single earned run and struck 6 while walking one. With the victory, Rodriguez now has 10 wins with a 3.87 ERA. Pretty remarkable considering how bad his first two months were. Carlos Lee hit his third homerun in the past week.
• Overall: Chris Johnson raised his batting average 12 points to .342. Hunter Pence continues to have a great season now hitting .283 with 79 Rs, 20 HRs, 80 RBI, and 16 SBs. In the 4-game series, Houston allowed just 7 totals runs.

For most of the first half of the season, Houston looked like the worst team in baseball. But thanks to a huge second half in which they’ve gone 22-16, the Astros are just 1.5 games behind the Brewers for third place in the NL Central. A feat many including myself would have thought nearly impossible as recently as the all-star break. This team continues to make me extremely optimistic about the future for Astros fans.