The Astros are 7 games back of first place - but 3 games back of the second wildcard. And BTW: the Rangers were 7 games out of first place last July 31 when they dealt for Cole Hammels. It's like some of you are unaware of how long a baseball season is.... or how many teams make the playoffs...
The next 9 games will determine the deadline strategy. 5-4 or better and they probably try to make impact moves to improve the team. 3-6 or worse and they probably go into sell mode and shop all their pending free agents (Castro, Valbuena, Gomez, Rasmus, Fister, Feldman, Neshek). Somewhere in between and they probably stand pat and keep the team together to see if a miracle can happen, but won't trade prospects to improve the team. Taking 3 of 4 from the Rangers would probably cement them as deadline buyers.
They've literally gotten back into this thing with just one solid month of baseball. Sure, the past 2 weeks have been spectacular... but I wouldn't even call that "miracle" worthy. They can play .500 ball... be within 10 games of the division... still WIN the division... and nobody would consider it to be a miracle. They have their core nucleus... if they're not out of it (would take a greater than 10 game deficit + key injuries), and a deal presents itself to accentuate the core, they better damn well act on it.
Hate to see that, especially with a guy who's worked incredibly hard to overcome some significant arm injuries early in his career. The velocity dip is extremely concerning. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Vince Velasquez's only two pitches registered 86 and 87 mph on the radar gun.</p>— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) <a href="https://twitter.com/ToddZolecki/status/740597097477623808">June 8, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Just like Brady Aiken. On one hand, I like seeing the Astros dodge those bullets, but at the same time I want those guys to be able to succeed. They didn't ask for those injuries and Velasquez was flashing All-Star potential this season.
Not good at all. Yimi Garcia, Dodgers P, just got moved from the 15 to 60 day DL with a similar injury.
This board owes Luhnow an apology!!! But seriously... Anybody who realistically thought that VV would just cruise to a lengthy healthy career would be an idiot.
Velasquez had TJ surgery back in 2011... hopefully not a re-occurrence there. Speaking of Phillies pitchers... Appel is on the DL with shoulder issues in AAA, and Eshelman exited his last start after only an inning (unclear if injury related, but usually not a good sign to leave a start after a shutout first inning).
But if it puts this waste of time thread out of its misery - good for us! [Yes, I know.. says the guy posting in waste of time thread...]
Such a clown poster. Oh right, VV would only be a good pitcher if he averaged 200 innings a year for 8/10 years. I almost forgot.
No, you're right - the far more sensible approach is to orgasmicly report on his every start and then curse Jeff Luhnow as if the concept of perspective hadn't yet been invented.
