Saying he is playing below average defensively is not knocking him. It is simply stating the obvious. No one has said he won't improve or he is a lost cause.
Knock on wood, but we were two blown saves away from having a 7-game win streak! :grin: Will be interesting to see how this team performs down the stretch assuming they get a healthy Springer and Fowler back and producing.
5-2 against two "if the season ended today" playoff teams. I thought the Astros weren't competitive (at least according to some posters).
So we are doing this without Kike, Springer, and Fowler. Not bad. Good to see Marsnick get his few 2 hits and Singleton/Carter to continue to hit. Also good to see Feldman with the CG
36-39 over the last 75 games. For a team that isn't even trying to compete, we do seem to be very competitive. Really good to see Singleton hitting. Castro took an 0fer today but he too has been hitting very well over the last few weeks, .856 OPS over his last 18 games.
This is from July 28: "I'm trying to get the big-muscle-bodyness out of his swing and trying to get him more direct to the ball, shorten his path," Mallee said. "He's been overswinging and hitting long. We came out and did some tee work on the field and some flips and some high-velocity short pitch to where the ball is on him almost at the same reaction time as it is the game." Mallee called the results "absolutely amazing" and said now it's a matter of Singleton trusting it enough to use in games. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp...tebook_id=86754138&vkey=notebook_hou&c_id=hou
Hadn't been paying attention to the playoff races, so that's super cool for context! That's pretty impressive as well; didn't realize they were playing almost .500 ball (which was something Crane and Luhnow had talked about coming into the season, IIRC)!!
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/AGirlintheSouth">@AGirlintheSouth</a> Yes, he has worked with our hitting coaches and made some adjustments that seem to be paying off.</p>— Mike Fast (@fastballs) <a href="https://twitter.com/fastballs/statuses/495735118057574400">August 3, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Mallee has made adjustments with Carter's swing too that have definitely shown to have worked. Carter could be a big asset going forward if he can get his average up to around .250 and drop bombs.
I have friends that get annoyed by my texts of Carter's success during games Seeing him turn it around would be great. This seems to be one of his longer stretches of good fortune.
One thing he has shown, but like you said not consistently, is a very good ability to shorten up his swing when he gets behind in the count. He looks to me like he's a pretty serious "guess hitter". I'm not sure that pitch recognition is something you can drastically improve.
I've said it before, but based on mainly watching the Astros, I believe that, on average, Carter misses pitches he swings at by a greater distance than anyone else in the league.
Domingo got called back up, FYI. You would think he hadn't seen a slider before based on that last stint.
He doesn't have enough at bats to qualify for the "greatest distance missing balls on swings and misses" stat.
Ha! I had overlooked that. What he lacks in PAs, he makes up in combined distance. Sidenote: Would love to see Domingo go back down and just dominate. With Springer back this week and Fowler (does anyone know his time table?) back soon, he would be better served going to AAA and getting every day reps.
