I was happy with the effort. If Marisnick (or a healthy Springer) was playing CF, I think either of those guys makes both of the plays in the first inning that Reddick almost made, and Lance probably escapes with only one run given up. We managed to avoid defensive letdowns on Tuesday night, but the defensive outfield of Aoki, Beltran and Reddick might be one of the weakest defensive outfields in MLB. Tuesday night it didn't matter, yesterday it did.
Would I lie to you, Joe Joe? Thanks for posting that, I would have sworn he'd thrown a few more sinker/splitters than that.
Not necessarily. It took Valbuena over 2 weeks post-injury to be 60'd. Soft tissue is tricky and typically doesn't heal fast, especially if it's being exerting (playing on it). Fortunately Springer has played again, unlike '14 and Valbuena last season.
I'm more concerned with Lance on the road than I am the bullpen usage, although Sipp is pretty awful. Not too mad about losing a road game to Cleveland in April. They're good, BTW.
If you look at the scatter plot for games this year with vertical movement for y axis and horizontal movement for x axis, you can see that his "4 seam fastball" this year is getting less vertical movement and is very close to his sinker movement. In other words, 4 seam isn't rising and sinker isn't sinking. They are having a tough time telling the difference between 4 seam and sinker and it is highly possible that they are classifying some non-sinking sinkers as 4 seam fastballs and vice versa. Hitters just see meatballs. Here's the scatter plots for Keuchel and Sipp. Besides for sinker and changeup, Keuchels pitches are distinctive clusters just based on movement (sinker and changeup have much different speeds), and typically are tighter clusters (i.e. much more consistent movement).
Losing a one run game to the best team in the AL is nothing to be ashamed of. Also, if they lose today, everyone should still be happy with a 3-3 road trip against two good home teams. No reason to overreact. It's a long season.
I have a funny feeling that we're going to get a damn good game out of Fiers, and do just enough damage to Kluber to steal one tonight. At the same time, I could also just have indigestion.
Agreed. We have 3 guys who can competently play CF (Springer, Marisnick, and Hernandez). They just all happened to get banged up in the same week. It happens. Did anyone else see Beltran out there and remember how brilliant of a CF he was 12 years ago?
I guess I take it for granted living in Houston. I've probably been to 200-300 games in my life, and they all started at the advertised time. I'm not sure how I would even feel if a game was washed out.
After you sit around for 2+ hours twiddling your thumbs in a packed bar by the park waiting to see if/when the game will start...really buzzed is how you feel.
I had Astros @ Phillies rained out on me after I drove from DC to Philly. That was annoying. Also I had an Oilers preseason game cancelled on me during warmups because of some turf issue that I vaguely remember. Another stupid one that happened even indoors.. And had an outdoor NHL Game postponed by 4 hours due to weather, but at least we heard about that one a few hours in advance--they were better prepared.
Some lineup shanannigans by Hinch, said "I'd rather hold [Springer and Altuve] out one game too long than play them one game too early." Plus in Springer's case the field's wet so that's a no-brainer.
i say mlb should cancel the game, give the astros the Win for staying in cleveland for 80 hours. i'll take it.
"A.J., he's always trying to take care of his players. He manages this team really good. So he decided to give me one more day and I'm good with it." -- Jose Altuve
ya. because Jose would definitely say anything to the contrary. yes. he's a good manager. some of his habits annoy me. deal with it.
