The pen is not horrible but they are not that good either. With the offense showing a pulse now the pen is letting the team down. The only constant this year has been the starting pitching. Not confident going to this pen in a close game right now.
Cubs have a pretty good pen. Padres, Brewers (Josh Hader is something else), and Dbacks also come to mind. I think we have either the 1st or 2nd best pen in the AL though. I'd say we're better than the Sox and you can make an argument for us against the Yankees. Problem is just accentuated because the pen mainly holds it down against inferior teams but against the top teams, they've blown it (indians, Yanks, Sox). To be fair, those are all good offensive teams sans the bottom of the Indians order. If you guys think our pen is horrible, watch the Mets or White Sox. Dumpster fire of a bullpen
Stros pen is basically average at everything. I want better. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2018-reliever-pitching.shtml
Does Seattle ever lose? Granted I'm not worried about them one bit(I'm actually still more worried about the Angels), but it's still very annoying.
In their last 25 games, they've played 22 against teams with losing records and 3 against the 30-29 A's. The schedules will balance out.
Except in actually giving up runs, where they are (or were before today) the best in the AL, both overall and per inning. Edit: They are 1st in ERA, FIP, and xFIP. Best in all of baseball in walks. 3rd in the AL in WAR despite pitching many fewer innings than other pens. Best in the AL at limiting HR's. 3rd in the AL in striking people out.
They are due for major regression. Weak SOS and a lot of 1 run wins. Basically the Rangers of a couple years back. Props to them for winning with their injuries and Cano suspension though. I also think their bullpen is a ticking timebomb
In June the schedules basically flip, lot of sub .500 teams for the Astros while the Mariners get 15 games against the Astros, A's, Yankees and Red Sox.
108+ Wins is still possible, so Win the series today. No Betts and bad bullpen losses recently.. Stat-pad today.
We have won 13 games by more than 6 runs. We have only lost 11 games by more than one. Only 6 by more than two. 16-1 in games decided by more than 5. Kind of a joke that us and Seattle are tied right now, but such is the luck of baseball. Still not the slightest bit concerned about them though. Remaining schedule is very soft for us from the looks of it.
Couldn’t agree more. They don’t have the arms to sustain their success. Plus, their schedule between now and the All-Star break is much more difficult than ours. They have 27 games against teams who will either most likely make the playoffs or be competing for a playoff spot (including a 10 game stretch against the Yankees and Red Sox). By contrast, after we play Seattle, we’ve got 36 straight games against teams who are extremely unlikely (or all but guaranteed) to not compete for a playoff spot. So there’s a very good chance we will have a respectable lead over Seattle by the All-Star break.
Also, just to add on to this, Seattle hasn’t played a likely playoff team (or a team who will be competing for the playoffs) since early May when they played the Angels. Since then they’ve played the likes of the Tigers, Jays, Rays, Twins, Rangers and A’s. That’s compared to the Astros who have played 16 of their last 18 games against very strong teams (the Angels and Giants are the two worst teams they’ve played over that stretch). Essentially all signs point toward the Astros still running away with the division to some degree and at some point. Just maybe not to the same degree as last season.
For Christ’s sake dude he 2 of the 3 batters he faced weren’t even on the playoff roster. He also has the lowest ERA of any closer in history or some crazy stat... dude is a bad ass. Let’s not get carried away here.
https://www.usatoday.com/sports/mlb/sagarin/ Sagarin rates the teams as: 1) Astros 2) Yankees 3) Red Sox 16) Seattle Those that feel we are better than our record and Seattle worse than theirs, Sagarin agrees with you.
Yeah i can. Why are you asking? Can you not name one? Or do you want me to name one so you can go look at their stats and compare them to the astros and then report back? Do your own homework. Our pen is utter trash. So sorry you cant see the obvious.
This team is playing 8 games below expected win loss, due mostly to a terrible record in 1 run games. We are the anti-Rangers in 1 run games so far. I chalk that up partly to a lousy pen in certain games, but also to a below average batting average in 2 out RISP situations. This team does need another reliable arm in the pen, but it also needs another bat in the outfield.
