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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread


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1 hour ago, elfenix said:

The Astros lead the league in runs the seventh inning or later (135) but are 3-21 when trailing after 7. That seems weird

Definitely a weird stat. But perhaps it simply means our starting position players get a lot of “wasted” production off bad relievers late in runaway wins. Whether Hinch keeps our better hitters in there more than other managers do theirs I don’t know, but a lot of our guys seem to have padded their numbers late in routs. Maybe it’s just an impression. 

Edited by Gut Wagon
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42 minutes ago, slorch said:

The playoff run last season says differently, but yeah, sometimes it really feels that way.  They absolutely feast on shitty pitching.

I don't know that the playoffs were different.  The World Series and ALCS went 7 games and in both, the Astros did most of their damage against the worst pitchers.

In the 3 WS losses, the Astros scored 1, 2, and 1 facing Kershaw, Hill, and Wood, and couldn't break through against the Dodgers bullpen. 

The Astros roughed up Darvish twice (who was shitty in the WS even if he isn't always shitty), and didn't do a whole lot else in those games.  This is pretty key because it gave us the only "sure" wins of the WS, and had the Dodgers at a real disadvantage.  What worries me is that Dallas Keuchel seems like he could be Darvish in the playoffs this year.

In one of the other 2 wins, Hill kept the Astros at bay for the most part and the Astros were able to get a few runs late and in extra innings.  The other win is really the only anomaly.  The Astros broke through on Kershaw in the 4th and then won in extra innings while pitching fell completely apart for both teams.

Edited by FondrenRoad
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I don't know that the playoffs were different.  The World Series and ALCS went 7 games and in both, the Astros did most of their damage against the worst pitchers.
In the 3 WS losses, the Astros scored 1, 2, and 1 facing Kershaw, Hill, and Wood, and couldn't break through against the Dodgers bullpen. 
The Astros roughed up Darvish twice (who was shitty in the WS even if he isn't always shitty), and didn't do a whole lot else in those games.  This is pretty key because it gave us the only "sure" wins of the WS, and had the Dodgers at a real disadvantage.  What worries me is that Dallas Keuchel seems like he could be Darvish in the playoffs this year.
In one of the other 2 wins, Hill kept the Astros at bay for the most part and the Astros were able to get a few runs late and in extra innings.  The other win is really the only anomaly.  The Astros broke through on Kershaw in the 4th and then won in extra innings while pitching fell completely apart for both teams.


This reads like you’re saying we shouldnt get credit for winning the World Series because we “only” beat up on darvish and other lesser than pitching
“Playoff suck” is still at a whole ‘nuther level than regular season suck.
And what you are describing is exactly what defines a world champion in a 5 to 7 game series: sure, your best might be better than my best on a given night, but top to bottom over a 7 game series my team is better.
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Just now, UTexasFight said:

 


This reads like you’re saying we shouldnt get credit for winning the World Series because we “only” beat up on darvish and other lesser than pitching
“Playoff suck” is still at a whole ‘nuther level than regular season suck.
And what you are describing is exactly what defines a world champion in a 5 to 7 game series: sure, your best might be better than my best on a given night, but top to bottom over a 7 game series my team is better.

 

Not at all.  Of course they get credit.  I'm replying to someone who said the current Astros feast on shitty pitching while the playoff team didn't.  The playoff team did feast on it, and you're correct, that is what it takes.  Other teams tense up and can't even hit shitty pitching.

There is a lot of "play like you're supposed to" in the playoffs, and the Astros did, almost to a man.  Darvish didn't.  That's all I was pointing out.  To a lesser extent, neither did some of their hitters, and our pitchers played them perfectly, again like they were supposed to.  If Bellinger is going to swing and miss at everything low and inside, then you oblige him until he does something different.

The only Astro who got rattled the entire playoffs was Reddick, and that's a testament to a young team that deserves to be world champion.

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first of all, we don't leave our stars in longer, but we have more of them and have a better offense than most.  every team feasts late on shitty bullpen guys and pads stats.  remember, teams put their worst relievers in games they're losing late - by definition, this will continue to perpetuate itself.  

second, you can say we didn't get to good pitching in the playoffs, but we did plenty against sale and kimbrel, then had some key moments against jansen, chapman and whomever else.  we really didn't hit much on the road in a lot of the playoff games, regardless of who was on the hill.  i think our run and our production was pretty typical of what a ws champ does on their way to winning.

as for the "weird" stat of scoring late in games but not coming back often enough, i think it's all relative.  you always remember the bad beats more than the good scores.  that's how life is.  we remember certain blowups against good teams when a win would've been so nice, but slipped away because of giles, harris, joe smith, etc.  yesterday sure seemed like a normal, solid, road win for the boys.  but think how kc feels.

"we were about to break out of a big slump, at home, a bunch of guys injured/ejected, and had the lead in the 8th, and fucking blew it."  sound familiar?

we were getting our doors blown off in minny (the lmj game maybe?) and the twins announcers were like, "you just feel like the astros will find a way to get back into this."  we did.  we either tied or came within a run or so from 8-2 down, but lost the game.  those things even out, and we'll win a lot of games now that our bats have woken up.

the first 6 weeks of the season the starters gave us great outings and we weren't trailing that often.  when we were, the offense wasn't clicking.  we are not really built to be a "cardiac kids" bunch that's never out of it.  we're built to knock you down early and put our foot on your throat.

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I certainly don't know how our innings per position player stack up against other teams with good offenses, which is why I phrased it as possibly just being my "impression." It might not be accurate at all. But if it is accurate, it explains why we've had so much trouble winning when trailing late but score so many runs from the 7th inning on.

Regardless, I agree that it's easy to remember our few facepalm losses so far this year. In fact, I remember some from way back in my half-century of Astros fandom. Wish I didn't, but a few of them are still hard to erase from my brain.

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28 minutes ago, Gut Wagon said:

Regardless, I agree that it's easy to remember our few facepalm losses so far this year. In fact, I remember some from way back in my half-century of Astros fandom. Wish I didn't, but a few of them are still hard to erase from my brain.

This is the first thing that popped into my head reading that:

 

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Great hustle by Correa.  It's weird some of the doubles you see with the way outfields shift these days.  That was basically a shot up the middle but the CF had to run so far to get to it that Correa was able to take 2.

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58 minutes ago, TonyTexas said:

They have been doing this shit all year. I don’t see how it works if you are burning multiple pitchers a game regardless of the score or game situation.

Bringing the lefty in to face Yuli was an odd choice.

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