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2018 Houston Astros Season Thread


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1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Crazy the Astros have post season team hr records.  I recall the days where a single player (Dave kingman?) had more home runs than the Astros had as a team.

1979 Dave Kingman hit 48 home runs and the Astros hit 49.

The lowest homerun total in team history came in 1981 when they hit 45 but that was in the strike shortened 110 game season.

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I still don't understand why Cora pulled Sale after the 4th. He literally had just finally settled in and seemed to be grooving.  I have a feeling that game has a totally different outcome and feel if Sale pitches the 5th and then they bring in Kelly to pitch the 6th & 7th.  That to me was dumber than getting ejected for arguing strikes and balls on a pitch that wasn't blatantly one way or the other.

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i'm sure he wanted to let kelly start a clean inning.  if sale lets a couple guys get on, they don't really have that shutdown guy who can get out of it.

i was hoping sale would come back out.  guy hasn't pitched 6 complete since july 27th.  everyone talking and writing about his alds performance, using words like "brilliant" and "unhittable".  he went 5.1 and gave up 2er/5h/2bb in his start, then he came in and got 3 outs in the 8th inning of g4.  none of that screams "omg he's back" to me, but everyone wanted to proclaim just that.  i guess because it was against the vaunted yankees?

last night i heard no fewer than 4-5x that sale is a 7 time all-star.  he's pretty young to have accomplished that.  but to me, it also says he starts seasons like the best pitcher in the league.  he typically doesn't finish that way.  if i'm boston, i'm not super optimistic about getting 5+ strong in g4 or g5 in houston.

tonight is 100% must win for them.  hopefully price is shaky and cora gets itchy.  do we know if eovaldi and porcello are slated for g3/g4 or is one of them on standby tonight?

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Am I the only one who thought Verlander was actually a lot more dominant and in control of the outcome of that game than he's been given credit for? Yeah, he was missing and nibbling in the 5th but they weren't hitting him and they looked afraid to swing the bats. 

I was actually questioning Hinch yanking him when he did because I knew there was no way they were gonna score again off him, but I get it. AJ was playing the long game and saving JV's pitches for later in the postseason.

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yeah, other than the 5th, he was lights out.  i said in the thread last night more than once that i would've left him out there for the 6th and 7th (or as long as he wanted to go).

i love that we have guys who can come in after him and i don't get crazy nervous.  wasn't like that last year (like when jv had to come out in for g4 in boston).  shit like that won't likely be required this year.

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I thought JV could have come back out for the 7th but with as good and deep as our bullpen is, I was ok with taking him out too.  Until he lost it for that stretch in the 5th, it was looking like he could have gone 8 or 9.  He was only at 33 pitches through 3 and 48 through 4.

The fad is to pull your starter after 3 or 4 innings (and for the media to kill managers who don't) but I think a huge key to our success the past 2 years is that our starters are going deeper than anyone's.  Last year part of that was by necessity as the bullpen guys faltered but there is a ton of benefit from the traditional model.  I think the combination of fatigue and overexposure killed the Dodgers pen last year and the same thing will happen to Milwaukee this year, likely this round but if not in the WS.

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1 hour ago, kevwun said:

He had thrown 80+ pitches and his fastball was down 4 or 5 mph. He probably didn’t want to push him.

 

Yeah, he also probably didn't want to see him give up a couple more and possibly have his confidence rattled for Gm5.  As it was, it was a subpar start, but not a disaster.

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1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

Am I the only one who thought Verlander was actually a lot more dominant and in control of the outcome of that game than he's been given credit for? Yeah, he was missing and nibbling in the 5th but they weren't hitting him and they looked afraid to swing the bats. 

I was actually questioning Hinch yanking him when he did because I knew there was no way they were gonna score again off him, but I get it. AJ was playing the long game and saving JV's pitches for later in the postseason.

I was with Hinch on this one.  In the postseason you rarely see a starter go past the 6th, so the 5th wasn't a big deal.  Especially when you have McCullers and Mchugh to throw at them. JV was showing signs of fatigue, although his velocity was good, his location was poor, especially missing high on a lot of his 4 seamers. 

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58 minutes ago, kevwun said:

It’s a must win for them so it makes sense. They aren’t winning 4 of 5 if they go down 0-2.

I'm not sure there's a team in history that could beat this team 4 out of 5 with 3 of them in Houston.

If my math's right, we're 10-1 in postseason games at Minute Maid over the last two years.

 

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