They're essentially 5 games up now.... but will drop to 4 if they lose tomorrow while the A's are idle. Any combination of Astros wins/A's losses that = 3 will clinch them the division.
Easily Valdez's best outing of the season. 9 K's and most importantly only 2 walks. The movement on his stuff looks extremely difficult to square up. If just keeps those walks to a tolerable level we might really have something. And as usual you can tell the result by the absolute lack of posting activity.
Today’s events put us in a good position to be locked in by the Orioles series... that lets us line things up exactly how we want. Can’t say enough about the stellar outings from Framber and Josh James over the last month. Can anyone imagine making the case for one or both of them over Devo for the playoffs at the all-star break?
I don't know why but it still always surprises me how inconsistent bullpen pitchers can be from year to year.
In the case of Devo, he's beens surprisingly "consistent". Starts out the year great, fizzles after the all-star break. This year, Hinch intentionally limited both him and Harris' appearances/work-load early on (along with the fact that the starters were amazing)... and they both still fizzled. I think Devenski has major issues keeping his mechanics sounds. I also think hitters have picked up on some of the changeup tendencies in his pitch sequencing, which makes him even more hittable.
Great all-around effort today. Basically everyone contributed which is great to see. Game was never really in doubt. After so many up and down performances at home, it's good they ended the RS strong at home by sweeping the Angels and rewarding the fans at MMP. I had thought Gattis was dead weight, but he has really picked it up recently. You can tell from the interviews Hinch really wants Gattis to do well and be a part of the postseason run. If he can smack a few Extra Base Hits as a PH in the playoffs, that will be a solid contribution from a guy who's really struggled since his insane June. With Framber and Josh James pitching so well, Hinch is going to have some very difficult decisions to make on the postseason pitching rotation. You can pretty much pencil in Pressly and Osuna as his preferred 8th and 9th inning relievers and pencil in Sipp to face lefties in late innings but after that the Astros have so many quality pitchers that there will be 1-2 left off the roster. Good problem to have. Will make for some interesting discussion on here and on local sports radio.
As I said earlier in the week... if the Astros have a dominating playoffs/World Series... the total thread page count will be about 6 pages. Some of the "usual" suspects that only post their wisdom during and after losses have easily been identified... that's one benefit of this stretch drive where the team is on track for its best regular season ever, and some are still appalled and depressed at watching them play.
Still, it's not like Devo was making a bid for the All Star game this year like he did last year. Maybe I'm misremembering though and he was just being overshadowed by McHugh in the pen.
If I was a betting man, and I am, I’d bet they’re all on the Texans board. What’s better than an 0-3 team to give them a platform to keep crying/complaining. Don’t worry though, the first playoff game we lose they’ll all be back with the usual “Hinch sucks”, “I told you we should have traded for Realmuto”, etc.
Half the posts here are just complaining about other posters. Weak ass thread. Shut up you little babies.
At the end of June, which is the real midseason, Devo had a 1.34 ERA and 0.83 WHIP. He was actually a little better than last season, although he wasn't working the multi innings games this season. His falloff this year was decidedly worse than the last 2 years despite much less work, so I tend to think it was more injury related. At no point has he ever been as bad as he has since the beginning of July. One way or the other, at this point you can't rely on him to be one of your high leverage guys late in a season.
I think James has already made the roster. Unless Morton is down for long enough that he'd not be able to be the Game 3 or 4 starter, the Valdez has at least a chance.
