There was no pressure on the Astros. They took home field advantage which is what the Royals played for all season long, so the pressure's on them, imo. I'll take a 1-1 split any day with how bad the Astros played on the road this year.
I expected the Astros to sweep through the playoffs, 12-0, so this is totally unacceptable. I renounce my allegiance, go Cubs!
I hate to play the blame game with managers when things don't go right but Hinch bringing in Perez instead of Sipp in the 6th was the difference here. He was being passive and trying to save Sipp for the 7th when the heart of KC's order was up in the 6th. Just plain dumb, I hate when managers have rigid roles for their 'pen.
I'd hate to have you as a manager, you'd micromanage everybody to death. Who cares whose fault it is? We lost, we're going back to Houston 1-1, which with Colin & Kazmir pitching is really all one would have expected. I'm sure it's easy to sit on your couch with your belly pushed out as a resting place for your brew, and state you would have done everything differently and we would have won. But there's a reason you're on your couch and Hinch is coaching a professional team. Definitely a huge game on Sunday, but you have to like Houston's chances to go up 2-1 with Lance & Colin following. We've played well for a couple weeks now, close game today, let's hope it doesn't upset our momentum.
Left handed Lowrie, i understand if is right handed, but left handed??? Actually, Conger is better from the left side. He hit .206 with an OPS of .641 as a left handed hitter. Conger, .279 and .892 OPS. Tucker, the same, better numbers. Why Lowrie? why????????
Pressure back on Astros true. Close to, but not an absolute win until elimination (Clutch City). I think we win though... by 3+ runs
Completely agree. It's going to be the rest of the night and a day of complaining until Dallas has a great game on Sunday, then everyone will jump back on the ship. Again, it sucks losing, but we are where we had hoped to be, split the first two, and have our Cy Young pitcher on the hill for game 3. Go Stros!
Hinch puts in Perez who should be in the minors. Then Hinch puts in Lowrie who watched 3 straight pitches as he struck out. Then when he finally gets someone on base, he puts in Gomez who got picked off by a pitcher who hasn't picked off anyone in two years. Hinch makes some horrible decisions. He would have been better off sleeping. At least he couldn't make game changing substitutions. All for the worse.
Sure - it's still an unknown. No one, including the Astros, has any idea what Fiers would look like out of the pen. He doesn't come in mid-game. He doesn't come into games with people on base. No one knows what to expect. Meanwhile, you have a whole bullpen full of people who are used to that situation. You're going to need them to win a World Series, and you have to be able to put them out there in important situations. You're not going to win another 9 games using only Gregerson, Harris, Sipp, and Fiers. As long as Kaz is in the rotation, Fiers' primary purpose on the team at this point is long relief - you bring him in at the beginning of an inning and with the intent of going several innings. He's better than Kaz and should be starting, but given that he's not, you don't try to shoehorn him into a role he's never played. Every game Kaz starts is going to be an adventure because he's probably not going to make it past 5 innings or so.
What? That makes no sense what so ever. Gomez got picked off, what in the world makes the difference if there's one out or none?
They won game 1. Must win for the Royals, if they go down 0-2, it's over. So yes, in game 2, the pressure was on the Royals.
gomez was the second out when he got picked off also, the commentators mentioned he was like acting all happy even after the game was tied. the fact that he got thrown out by a pitcher who hasn't thrown anyone out in two years is sad. anyways, it's hinch's fault for sending him out. i blame this entire game on hinch.
Yes, Hinch told Lowrie to not swing at any of the pitches thrown to him. I heard him say that honestly. He puts our fastest player to pinch run, but secretly told him to get picked off. Again, just confirming what I heard AJ say.
