Roy Oswalt is following up his first 20-win season with another super effort (8-7, 2.72). Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

I've been wrong about a lot of things in my life. I'm wrong all the time.

I had Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter. I took Field of Dreams in 1989, and Driving Miss Daisy won. So I went with The Shawshank Redemption in '94, and Forrest Gump ran away with the thing.

Being wrong is nothing new to me. I picked the Cowboys in the Ice Bowl, the Vikings in the Super Bowl (four times) and the Russians at Lake Placid. I thought Vanilla Ice had a chance at stardom. I was heavy into tech stocks in the late '90s.

Heck, I always misspell Willy Mo Pena.

But I'm not the only one in this business who trips up once in awhile. Herewith, as an intro to the weekly E-Bag, are three supposedly surefire baseball truths that just aren't so surefire, not as I see it:

The Astros are done: Wrong. They're down, for sure. They're hurting. They're still not scoring many runs. But they're 12-7 in June, creeping ever closer to .500. And boy, the top of that rotation is a bear. Roger Clemens and Roy Oswalt both rank in the top five in the National League in ERA, and Andy Pettitte is throwing really well (a 2.93 ERA in four June starts). The pitching staff has the third-best ERA in the league this month (3.43). Lance Berkman (three homers in June) and Morgan Ensberg (seven) are starting to find their strokes. And they still have seven games left before the break with Cincinnati and Colorado, two teams that we can safely say are done. Remember, the Astros were a .500 team at the break last year before a second-half tear earned them the wild card. Could happen again. Not saying it will. But it could.

Home run hitters are a dying breed: Last we heard, homers were down a bit all over the league, for maybe a multitude of reasons (Barry Bonds missing being Reason No. 1). But the dip is percentage points, folks. Chump change. As we head into the weekend, before Friday night's games, six players have 20 or more homers and 11 have 18 or more. By my calculations, then, by the time the midpoint of the season rolls around in 10 days or so, we'll have at least those 11 players on track for a 40-homer season. It's a good bet that two of them, maybe three, will reach 50. Nobody reached 50 last year (Adrian Beltre had 48). And only nine guys had 40 dingers in '04.

The A's are done, too: No, no, they're not, either. Just about everyone who counts -- Joe Blanton, Danny Haren, Barry Zito -- is pitching pretty well. Justin Duchscherer, a fill-in closer, has been perfect. They're 13-8 this month, and they have the second-best staff ERA in baseball in June at a little better than 3.43. Their comatose offense is coming around, too, led by Eric Chavez (.360, seven homers in June). Maybe the best thing they have going for them -- besides a general manager who's plenty willing to get down and dirty in the trade game -- is that they play in the American League West. Though the Angels are starting to play a lot better, with another hitter at the trade deadline or another starter, the A's can make a move on them.

On to this week's E-Bag, which touches on those inexplicable Nationals, puddings, fakes and cakes, and that one team that you just know is not getting the recognition it deserves.

Read on ...

How are the Nationals in first? Maybe I have been ignoring stats all my life and just never noticed it before, but has any team led this late into the season allowing more runs than they have scored? Also, they are last in the division in runs scored. As a Braves fan, this is killing me.
-- Stephen Cooper, Atlanta

I'm not sure about the day-by-day historical context, but your gut feeling has to be right, Stephen. A team that gives up more runs than it scores (at this writing, the Nationals have scored 297 runs and given up 305) and is still way above .500 (42-30) at this point of the season has to be a rarity. The phenomenal 18-7 record in one-run games kind of turns things around for them.