When I thought Javier was going to be back in Mexico or the series right after in MMP I started calling that the first day of the rest of our lives. We are 7-5 since then. Not good enough, but stabilized. The extra 10 days to get Javier back, and not skipping the Brown start cost us 3 games. Hope that doesn’t kill us in the grand scheme of things.
But what if Javier now stays healthy the rest if the season and would have been health-managed instead of fully healthy if he returned 10 days ago. What if, because of those 3 games, he can average 5 1/2 -6 IP instead if 5 IP the rest of the year? What if he can be 2022 Javier instead of 2023 Javier? We will never know.
We've now won 4 out of 5 and FINALLY have some games against non-playoff teams coming up. The A's and Angels have traditionally been a good way to pad our win totals over the last 7 years or so.
Fangraphs playoff odds 4/23/24 Mariners: (14-12) 60.0% Rangers: (14-13) 44.9% Astros: (7-19) 43.1% Angels: (10-16) 7.2% A' (11-16) 1.1% Today; Mariners: (25-22) 58.9% Astros: (21-26) 56.2% Rangers: (24-24) 27.4% Angels: (18-29) 2.0% A's: (19-30) 0.2% Since 4/23/24 Astros: 14-7 = 108-54 pace Mariners: 11-10 = 85-77 pace Rangers: 10-11 = 77-85 pace Angels: 8-13 = 62-100 pace A's: 8-14 = 59-103 pace Still have work to do, but the emergency appears to be over.
We are one (Verlander) pitch away from being on an 8-game winning streak right now. We've got the Angels and A's this week, while the Mariners have a 4 game series at the yankees and arlington has a 3 game series at the phillies. Then we get the Mariners head to head. Guys, I'm thinking 1st place by June.
Certainly the division lead should be in play when the Astros go to Seattle. Exciting yet predictable turnaround.
They don't cite weaknesses. They take the info at hand like remaining schedule and run 20K simulations. Then take the average record of those. They say the Rangers project to 80.7 wins in their model. ( Mariners 84.9, Astros 84.5)
Probably worth bumping this thread. Positives from this season so far: Meyers and Pena taking huge steps forward and could be star players for the next 3.5 seasons. Altuve showing no signs of Father Time catching up. Tucker playing like the MVP. The rotation has put up 7 straight good starts; Brown and Arrighetti seem to be rounding into form. Last night aside, middle relief (Martinez and Scott) has been excellent. Hader and Abreu have rounded into form. Pressly’s underlying numbers are still very good. 8 of Houston’s top 13 pitchers have an era under 4. 9 of Houston’s top 13 position players have a wRC+ over 100. A lot of the recent losses are the results of poor performance in high leverage situations, which could just be bad luck. Aside from 1B, now that Arrighetti and Brown look right, there are no other glaring holes on the roster.
This season it just seems like when they get a run of good pitching the hitting goes cold or is subject to insanely lucky sequencing. As soon as the hitting heats back up the pitching ***** the bed again/another pitcher goes to the IL/blah blah blah. Like the ingredients are there to make a run but it just eludes this team time and again. Sisyphean.
On the whole of this season, the pitching has been pretty bad (on track for ~7 fwar over a full season), while the position players have been very good (on track for ~28 fwar). But yeah, I would imagine their record in 1-2 run games is atrocious and beyond any explanation other than horrendous luck.
There is still a chance. Win today and they’re just 5.5 out of first. That’s definitely doable. Jettison abreu asap, the team is clearly pressing with him. Fielders have in the back of their mind they need to make a perfect throw, batters know they need to make up for his dog **** at bats, etc
