Not sure how their starting pitching outclasses ours, it's a tossup at best. Their offense is a bit better, but Ramirez has been awful for a month or so (but now Donaldson is now maybe healthy?). Their defense and bullpen are vastly inferior. Should be a fun series.
The raw emotion of last years playoff run was special. Personally, I haven’t felt that way about a team, about players, about the specific games, plays within games ... not since I was at the peak of Rockets fandom during our championship runs. It feels like this will be slightly less stressful because we have a ring in hand, but once the first pitch is thrown, I’m sure we will all feel like we want to hurl.
Yep. But it’s not from first pitch or first minute of the game, and as you say the flow is way more choppy even while the action comes quicker, I’d that makes sense. But yeah, before you get inside the last 5 minutes there’s never the sense of “this could be the deciding pitch or deciding buildup of action” like playoffs and WC
I mean I get that. But how often do you see a football game with 3 scores or less? Soccer games average 3 scores probably while that’s exceedingly rare in football it’s the norm there in soccer, with games involving 1 score being super common (maybe the most common?) result. When’s the last time you saw a playoff football game end 7-0 or 3-0? You can probably find a dozen 1-0 soccer games in any world cup
Outclasses is probably strong but I’d have no preference either way amongst the starting matchups in game 1 or game 2, and I’d probably take their game 3 starter over our game 3 starter. Our bullpen is better. But when it gets shortened to their best 3 or 4 I don’t know that our advantage is all that big the way it is over a 162 game season. I fee like you could play this series 10 times and it’s break down 5-5 either way. I’m certainly not conceding anything to them, but I’m expecting us to have a ton of trouble scoring runs, and they are certainly potent enough to score on us (even though they too will have trouble with us)
This was my thinking after they won last year as well but a month or so into this season I said F it, I'm selfish. I want more, more, MORE! Especially if none of my other favorite teams(Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Vikings, Sacramento Kings) can't win a championship. Obviously if they don't win it won't be as depressing but I'll still be pissed and sad for a week or two.
Third Page !! Not too nervous, but games haven't started yet. Astros need to win multiple championships with this squad and advance to three WS minimum. Last year was Harvey IMO, plus we suffered three 100-loss seasons. Currently our championships are Jordan and Harvey. Need moar !!!
Heyward's K was great. Cubs were the 2nd worst team in MLB scoring 0 or 1 runs (39x). Orioles were the worst (40). Gore (CHC) is one of 4 players in MLB history with more SBs (27) than PAs (19) Minimum 10 SBs Eta- 28 now, then scores the tying run. F***
you might not want to watch the astros play then, once they get pass Cleveland if you think they're the scariest team
Not sure why some are so intimidated by Cleveland. They’ve had the luxury of playing the worst division all season and have a dismal record against winning teams. Outside Lindor, Ramirez and Brantley their lineup is pretty mediocre at best. How great would it be for Hamels to lose the wild card game for the Cubs @Buck Turgidson
It’s certainly not a tossup, at least statistically speaking. Granted we have JV which is about as good as you can get in the playoffs but as a group their top four certainly outclass ours. I don’t trust Keuchel at all and no one really knows what to expect from Morton and I don’t think you’d find anyone who would take either over Carasco or Klevinger this year. Never mind Bauer would probably win the cy Young had it not been for his stint on the DL. Hell they have all 4 w 200 or more strikeouts. Ramirez may have struggled to end the season but all their stars have outplayed all of ours save for Bregman. I have faith in our boys but it’s not a stretch to say their big time hitters have been better than ours this year. The bullpen is where we have a distinct advantage tho... if we can get to them early enough we can do damage but I think they’ll be our toughest challenge.
Part of their dismal record is because of a bunch of bullpen players that won't play in a short series anyway. Say what you want about their lineup, but they scored more runs than the Astros this season. The Astros are deeper than the Indians and that made them better in the regular season, but depth isn't very important in a short series.
Certainly possible, and the Astros also had some offensive injuries along the way. But my point is that Cleveland's offense is still up there with the big boys. I'd give the Astros a slight edge on offense, but we've also been unusually inconsistent - especially at home. Starting pitching is probably a wash. We have a slight edge in bullpen. I think the Astros should be and are favored over the Indians, but they have a better chance to beat us than Boston, NYY, or Oakland, in my opinion.
On the one hand regular season numbers and trends don't matter... on the other hand they do? That's not really analysis.
