Adam Wainwright mourning will continue for some time, but the St. Louis Cardinals have company in the NL Central mausoleum—Jason Castro, the Houston Astros' 2008 first-rounder, American Idol finalist, and would-be starting catcher, tore his ACL, leaving the Astros on the hook for another season of J.R. Towles trying to figure out why hitting in Major League Baseball is so much tougher than AAA for him. That's not Wainwright territory—Castro, 24, hit .205/.286/.287 in 67 MLB games in 2010—but it's bad news for a team that couldn't really afford any.
↵Over at Crawfish Boxes the move is predictably down. Castro was one of the reasons to watch the Astros in 2011, and now, for all the wrong reasons, he'll be one of the reasons to watch the Astros in 2012. They expect to see Humberto Quintero and either Towles or Carlos Corporan picking up the slack at catcher, and hope, meanwhile, that erstwhile Cardinals prospect Brett Wallace can pick up some slack in terms of brightening the franchise's gray future.
↵Maybe they can put Wallace at catcher? He wasn't a third baseman, either, but we tried it anyway...
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