One of them (take your pick) was caught in a #s game in the ALDS - he went with 11 pitchers instead of 12. Virtually every inning is important in a playoff series so I don't want to pretend they pitched in low-leverage situations - but he brought Rondon in with the team trailing, 6-4, and Smith in the 6th inning of a 2-2 game. Again, those are, by default, big situations (made bigger by their failures) because it's the playoffs but... it's (potentially) seven games in nine days including three in a row. You have to be smart with your bullpen; you can't overwork your studs or you'll gas them the longer the series goes. We saw that happen to LA in the World Series. Hinch hasn't been great in this series, IMO. But I think Rondon and Smith were defensible.
CF George Springer SS Carlos Correa 3B Alex Bregman 2B Jose Altuve DH Marwin Gonzalez 1B Yuli Gurriel C Brian McCann LF Tony Kemp RF Josh Reddick
I really hope Seth Beer, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker are on the team in Spring Training Those Left Power Hitters are real Middle Order Batsman, the hitters we have right now are utility hitter, High Contact, Low Power. Marwin, Yuli, White. Low Contact, McCann, Gattis, Maldonado CF George Springer 2B Jose Altuve 3B Alex Bregman 1B Seth Beer SS Carlos Correa DH Yordan Alvarez LF Kyle Tucker CF Tony Kemp C Brian McCann
What did I try telling you guys a few days ago... now it may not be the 3 hole but something had to change. Glad to see Hinch changing up the LU again. GO ASTROS!
Wasn't this the same thing that happened last year? Springer, Bregman, Gonzales, and Reddick all hit under .200 in the ALCS. Our bullpen was so all over the place we stopped pitching our closer and were using starters instead of normal relievers. If you are Hinch you have to work with what you got.
I don’t recall many changes, certainly nothing like this. It indicates panic to shuffle too much. It’s been a forgettable series for hinch. So far.
You posted earlier that hinch got cute and greedy trying to steal an inning and you were right. 6th inning in that spot is huge and you have so many better options than joe like Colin josh lance who can give you length. The confidence wasn’t there to have smith on the roster for ALDS yet game 3 tied in 6th you turn to joe smith? Despite being equipped with such a deep bullpen? That just doesn’t make much sense. Hinch shouldn’t have to manage perfectly for the Astros to win so down 3-1 isn’t on him as we likely lose game 3 regardless of joe smith given how quiet the bats were but overall this hasn’t been a good series for hinch. He wasted a gem from josh James by leaving him in too long yesterday getting greedy to finish out the inning. Biggest and most impactful blunder in my mind has been sticking with Maldonado this long. Maldonado has cost the team 6-7 runs in this series. You could make a solid argument it’s tied up 2-2 or up 3-1if he simply started a catcher who could protect the damn plate. All this said, poor pitching is the primary culprit for the 3-1 hole. We lost games scoring 5 and 6 runs which Shouldn’t happen regardless of who hinch trots out there given the talent level on the pitching staff.
I am a really big fan of the way this lineup is structured. To me, it's better than anything we've been rolling with. It gets Correa pitches. Correa is a big cog to the lineup. They're not going to want to walk him with Bregman and Altuve after, so maybe he'll see less breaking balls. Bregman will see pitches because of Tuve. Tuve is fine on his own. The only thing I don't like is McCann playing. This is a winning lineup. Astros 8 Sawx 2
I can see the Astros winning this game running away. I think they know they should've won yesterday. I just have this feeling that they're going to pull off what the Cubs did to the Indians in 2016. Both seem like similar circumstances.
For tonight, Marisnick in (and Reddick out), Maldonado (.200 career hitter against David Price) starting at catcher. Why is McCann (11 for 32 .344 vs Price) not starting? Is Maldonado's "defense" that much superior?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Astros lineup has Altuve back at DH, Correa at cleanup spot <a href="https://t.co/cku5YUIRil">pic.twitter.com/cku5YUIRil</a></p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="">October 18, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Correa moved to the clean up spot as well.
The good news is the path to game 7 is legit. We just need to execute. It's not blind hope. But we must expect some adversity along the way.
It really is. As an Astros fan you gotta take playing in a winner-take-all Game 7 which I believe favors the road team because there's less pressure.
Being down 3-1...I'll take a Game 7 regardless of anything other than it's because we won Games 5 & 6 to stay alive.
Well in 1995 the Rockets were down 3-1 to Phoenix in the semis and came back and went on to repeat. You just never know, especially in baseball.
