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2023 Houston Astros Thread


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1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

In my mind, the greatest moment ever is ALTUVE HAS JUST SENT THE ASTROS TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!! because that moment made us all little kids again.

I haven't jumped around and screamed like that since "He's going for the cornerrrrr... HE'S GOT IT!"

And I did it again last year twice:

 

 

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yep that homer in gm 1 vs SEA made me act a fool in a very public display of Astros fandom and had an entire bar of strangers howling at me. Didn't care, had fun.

But that didn't send them to the WS. 

And Yordan's bomb in the WS, as massively important as it was to winning it all, the only way it could upstage "THE MOMENT" of Altuve's HR was for it to happen in the bottom of the ninth.

We're picking nits here but Altuve's walk-off destruction of NYY and Chapman was just the stuff of little kids'  dreams. 

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Alvarez's home run was clearly bigger than Altuve's for the very reason mentioned earlier in the thread. You can't be arguing about how Altuve is the greatest Astro because of wins and championships and then turn around and argue that a home run that won the ALCS before a World Series loss is bigger than a home run that won the World Series. 

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9 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Alvarez's home run was clearly bigger than Altuve's for the very reason mentioned earlier in the thread. You can't be arguing about how Altuve is the greatest Astro because of wins and championships and then turn around and argue that a home run that won the ALCS before a World Series loss is bigger than a home run that won the World Series. 

we're talking about the dramatics of THE MOMENT so yeah you can. 

ETA: Chas's defensive gem and Mancini's magical snag at first base were huge moments in that game as well and if either don't happen, we may not remember Yordan's HR the same way. The Altuve moment ENDED THE GAME AND THE YANKEES SEASON.

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2 hours ago, Gourmand said:

on a tshirt, yeah. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Earl forever, he literally made me into an Htown sports fan lifer when I was just a little kid, and Nolan was a baseball giant. 

But as eloquently said upthread, it's THE MOMENTS that Altuve has given us that cements his legendary status. With all the heartbreak I suffered as a kid with the Oilers, Astros, Rockets and Phi Slama Jama Coogs, you learned to always expect the worst to happen when you were most exuberant and anticipating great things to happen.

Altuve changed all of that. Dream did too, but he had Elie and Horry and Sam Cassell delivering alongside him whereas Altuve has had soooo many huge individual moments on the biggest stage. 
 

In my mind, the greatest moment ever is ALTUVE HAS JUST SENT THE ASTROS TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!! because that moment made us all little kids again.

Jose Altuve didn't win us two world series though.  He was the straw that stirred the drink but it was a team accomplishment all the way.  Last year we won a world series with him starting the playoffs 0-27. Imagine that happening to Bagwell.  Well, you couldn't because if he took an o-fer the team wasn't going to get him 27 AB's they were going to lose 3-0 or 3-1 and be done.  He's the face of this dynastic run but this is a team game through and through.  During the regular season (most season) 40 or 45 guys matter over the course of a year. During the playoffs 15 matter over the course of the playoffs, probably, with the top 5 or 6 being most important.  He's had some really bad series in the playoffs and been given the opportunity to overcome them because the team is so great.  

Again, this isn't taking anything away from Altuve because he has provided SO MANY great opportunities for us and I love him for it, but to do that at the expense of Biggio or Bagwell or Nolan Ryan or Earl Campbell is not necessary imo.  

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1 hour ago, cabowabo said:
7 hours ago, patrickdrinksbeer said:
that dave raymond audio is 100% sarcasm. he’s got a very dry sense of humor.

Sean Salisbury and his crew had their panties in a wad on this this morning. Unbelievable that they don't realize the guy was being sarcastic. Fucking idiots.

Never listened to that idiot’s show in the morning. If you’re not listening to Payne & Pendergast or John & Lance in the morning, you’re doing it wrong.

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28 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Never listened to that idiot’s show in the morning. If you’re not listening to Payne & Pendergast or John & Lance in the morning, you’re doing it wrong.

As I was reminded last week in Houston, your sports radio choice depends a fuckton upon what part of town you're in.

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I'll take my crow on overreacting to the rangers call. My bad.

All this debate about Altuve , Bags, and so on, makes me appreciate this run since 2015. Like I tell lilshep he is living my childhood dream of Astros greatness. I only dreamed of seeing the Astros play in 1 world series. Never thought I'd see them accomplish what they have. For those reasons I'll go with Altuve, George, CC, Yuli and many others. Just wish Davis,Doran,Scott, Cruz, Spiers and countless others had thier day in a world series winning parade.

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32 minutes ago, slorch said:

As I was reminded last week in Houston, your sports radio choice depends a fuckton upon what part of town you're in.

610’s signal is rock solid throughout the city. ESPN 97.5’s signal sucks. Better to use their app to avoid dead spots.

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58 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

Never listened to that idiot’s show in the morning. If you’re not listening to Payne & Pendergast or John & Lance in the morning, you’re doing it wrong.

Agreed, but John and Lance don’t come on until 7 am. Many of us are at work by then. 

Seth Payne wants to talk about the Texans 1000% of the time. If 610 was your only source of information, you wouldn’t know Houston has a baseball team. 

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15 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Please Astros release the lineup soon so we can change these arguments 

When you get: Dubon/Keppinger/Brantley/Diaz (at DH where he sort of sucks)/Tucker/Singleton/Pena/Meyers/Maldy because we've already won 2 out of 3 there is an off day tomorrow and only Maldonado and Dubon don't need rest you aren't going to think this is very funny tough guy.  

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OK, now I'm pissed.  I had cleared out most of my schedule for today to allow a quick trip down to Arlington for JV vs Scherzer.  I just had one stubborn client call that I couldn't get off the schedule today at 3 pm.  Toyed with the idea of taking it from the road, but I lead the call and didn't want to shortchange the client.  At 2:55 I get a message that we need to punt to Friday.  If they would have told me two hours ago, I could have still made it down.

Rage GIF

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On 9/5/2023 at 12:18 AM, UTexasFight said:

Hopefully they (or the FO) also implored Dusty to give Yanier a shot at catching Framber or JV this series as a trial run for the postseason. 

otherwise get ready to see him riding pine tomorrow and/or Wed.

I expect we’ll have Chas in center tomorrow with Yordan (or Brantley) in left and the other at DH. They won’t put Yainer’s glove at first over Abreu with ground ball Framber on the mound.

on Wed, it’ll probably be Dubon back in center thanks to his two HRs today and the nice catch he had with Yordan/Brantley flipping LF/DH opposite whatever they are Tuesday. Maybe we’ll see Yanier at first with JV being more of a fly ball pitcher and likely fewer infield ground balls.

Please please.

Brantley is .362 career average against Scherzer in 28 ABs. Hopefully he continues that tonight 

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13 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

Since it’s a JV day and Dusty has already said Brantley is playing, presumably at DH, we’re not going to like it.  

Same lineup as last night except Brantley over Yordan? Right after he hit a big HR to maybe get back on track?

julia louis dreyfus do not want GIF

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1 minute ago, UTPhil2006 said:

Altuve 

Pena

Yordan LF 

Breg

Tuck

Diaz 1B

Chas CF

Brant DH 

Maldy C

Accomplishes Brant and JV wishes. Dubon in CF if JV is adamant and switch him and Brant if need be 

 

Altuve must be tired after hitting all those home runs and made outs in his last 2 ABs yesterday, so he is a prime candidate for a rest day.  I mean, Kessinger is basically the same guy anyway.

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6 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

JV should get to choose Maldy or Dubey. Not both. Too many moving pieces to get both 

 

1 minute ago, henrygandorf said:

to that end, one pitcher on the staff should be allowed to have a maddux-style personal catcher.  one.

Fuck one to both of those.

Nothing Offer GIF

 

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3 minutes ago, Hank Chinaski said:

Chas has been as good as Tucker offensively this year. Diaz hits as well as the best offensive catchers in MLB - Will Smith, Sean Murphy, etc.

We sit them routinely in the middle of a pennant chase. Our manager treats them like spare parts. It’s insane.

My dream was that Diaz would catch either Framber or JV in this series as a trial run to potentially see Diaz in the postseason for more than France or Brown starts….but I should know better

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3 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

to that end, one pitcher on the staff should be allowed to have a maddux-style personal catcher.  one.

Agreed. Until you are down to 3 weeks left, you have off days every week, and you are 1.5 games away from being out of the playoffs. Then you ride your best (if there's a huge fucking chasm between the two) to the end of the season.  

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Xposting from another site when the question was why doesn't Dusty like Chas- I've heard a couple stories that are so specific I can't tell them.  Here's the general sense though

 

The Athletic last year wrote a fawning story on Dusty Baker- here is it's lead:
Arroyo:
 I was standing out in front of the hotel with a girl and he walked up to her and he said, “You know who I am?” She said, “No.” He said, “You seen that commercial with the guy with the beard in the beer commercial, the most interesting man in the world?” And he said, “Well, I’m the second-most-interesting man in the world.” That was pretty much the damn truth.

This is the kind of Vibe he creates:
Blanton:
 He calls me and Shawn Kelley and is like, “Hey, can I see you guys in my office in 10 minutes?” As soon as we walk in, Dusty’s smoking a cigar, Tupac was blasting so loud you couldn’t hear him talk and he just gives us a speech.

Kelley: He’s just so cool and himself.


Then these are the kind of gifts he gives and the stories he tells:
Heisey:
 One time he called me into his office in Cincinnati. I don’t do a whole lot of cussing, and he knew that so he’d always apologize for cussing around me. He goes: “Hey, Heisey, I know how you grew up. I know you’re a cheap (expletive). I think you should give this to your wife.” And he gave me this Louis Vuitton purse.

Arroyo: He brought me a Buddy Guy shirt.

Blanton: He left moonshine in my locker…I went into his office, and he was like, “I got it from a buddy of mine. I know you’re from Kentucky so you probably like that s—.”

Werth: He called me in one day and was like, “You like classic rock, don’t you?” I was like, “I can appreciate classic rock. I can get down with all genres.” Then he hands me this autographed picture of the lead singer of The Who and tells me, “You remind me of that dude. I want you to have that.”

Solis: I told him I was a huge reggae fan. He goes, “Man, I know the lead singer of your favorite band.” It’s called Revolution. We’re in San Francisco playing the Giants and he calls me out of the clubhouse one day and the lead singer is standing right there. He goes: “I told him you were a big fan of his. Why don’t you guys chat it up?” It was unbelievable! The next day he had an unreleased album from them waiting in my locker.

Glendon Rusch, Cubs: I’m getting changed and Dusty comes out and he’s like, “G-Unit” — he called me G-Unit — “G-Unit, come here.” … He brought me in his office, introduced me to Hank Aaron and I just sat there for probably, no exaggeration, 15 or 20 minutes and just listened to those guys talk baseball and tell stories. I was so overwhelmed.

Wuertz: When he was in Chicago, he got to know the Obamas really well.

This is obviously a man that considers himself to be very cool and very chill and very suave and worldly. Now, picture the guy in your friend group or peer group that is a big time geek, socially awkward, never seems to pick up on context clues nor what's going on around him, and is kind of loud and talkative in a goofy or harmless but not mean kind of way (Chas, since he came up more or less) and what do you think Person A is going to think about Person B? That's sort of the dynamic the stories I've heard about Chas point to, and how his teammates were talking about him in 2021 and 2022 when that stuff happened. Now, I bet now that Chas is a 4 or 5 WAR player putting up numbers that's a little different.

To quote Bull Durham “Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy and you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back on your shower shoes and the press will think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you’re a slob.”

 

 

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Just now, UTexasFight said:

I would like to understand how many other managers wildly change their lineups every single game.

Dusty has caused us to be numb to it, but are there any other managers tinkering every single fucking game the way he does?

Not the base guts of the lineup.  Day game after a night game, or righty v lefty sure. Everyone does that to some extent or another.  Resting before an off day also isn't super uncommon. But wholesale mickey mouse bullshit like this?  No, not really.  

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allocating PT for Chas and Diaz the way Dusty does would be like:

1. the Rangers making Garcia and Heim part time players

2. the Mariners making Julio and Raleigh part time players.

The difference is that Chas has been better offensively than Julio or Garcia and Diaz has been better offensively than Heim or Raleigh. And they are both good defensively.

Somehow the Rangers and Mariners understand that playing your good players is conducive to winning. The Astros should have at least a 5 game lead right now.

Edited by Hank Chinaski
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