My only beef with the shift is when a man is on first with less than 2 outs. To me, the infield should be at double-play depth at all times if that's the case.
http://www.fangraphs.com/coolgraphs.aspx?lg=AL&div=W&stat=div Here's a nice graph of playoff odds for the AL West this year.
Nice. Odds seem a little low for Seattle, who are only 3 games behind the Astros with an almost identical run differential.
Astros have been rolling since end of May. It's probably factored in that the Astros are going to be pretty good down the stretch.
Mariners are 6.5 from the Rangers, though. Much harder to chase down two teams than one in the division because one of them has to win when they play each other.
Not Bregman..... hmmmm. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Astros have optioned 1B A.J. Reed to Triple-A Fresno. Move is not related to Bregman, I'm told.</p>— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/756276472533221377">July 21, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Hinch: Evan Gattis? Feeling OK. Feel we may have avoided big scare; will find out more when I get to the ballpark. Initial diagnosis was a contusion, will monitor him closely today. Swelled up on him pretty rough, big bruise. We were holding our breath a little bit. A.J. Reed? It was a bumpy entry. He ran into 1) league is tough; they'll exploit your weaknesses 2) he ran into a hot team where Marwin & Valbuena were playing well. His playing time got cut where he couldn't have that run of [8-12-16] at-bats in a row. He needed to get his mojo back. Swing efficiency can be cleaned up a bit. Performance part, you have to do well to stay up here, especially when trying to win. Important time for Preston Tucker? Haven't gotten that [offensive] production out of LF/1B. Bregman is doing great & will be here hopefully soon. Point about Tucker is very fair. He can help us. I'd extend it to DH as well. He can contribute as a LH bat. I don't know I'll platoon it all the time. Rasmus & Gomez need to get going in LF/CF. Tuck had a good season last year. Rough start, goes down to AAA, stabilized his swing & got himself under control. Tony D told me he was the most consistent guy prior to Bregman getting there. I'll DH him tonight, a few at-bats this weekend. Important for him to get up & running & challenge Colby/Gomez/DH position. Springer may DH this weekend. We need contributions & a longer lineup. Even though he'll hit at the bottom tonight, his bat has not been forgotten. Surprised how quickly the gap has narrowed? I remember a gap the other way that narrowed quickly last year. I'm not surprised. I don't watch it as closely as people think but we're very aware. On a nightly basis, difficult to ride the roller coaster at the end of July. In August & the last 6 weeks, it creeps up more. Proud of our guys. We've had to put our heads down since April & chug along. We'll keep playing good baseball. We'll make some additions. Everyone is excited for the new additions coming. (Tucker, Hoyt, Fields, Musgrove, maybe a trade) One lefty or two in the bullpen? I'd ride the fence on that one. Depends on how our RHPs are. Devenski is turning into a second lefty. Devenski is holding lefties to near .200 or below. He's a weapon to use against lefties. Balance in the bullpen is important to me. You want bullets in your gun to handle these situations. Second lefty is always nice. Having a 2nd lefty is ideal. If he's not effective, obviously a dominant righty.
