Straw put up a game worthy of Rickey Henderson Field, and I don't have a better compliment than that.
Nolan Ryan is also an absolute freak of nature. He would have been ringing up 450-500 innings a season 100 years ago and calling Ed Walsh a p***y.
This was the most satisfying sweep of the year for me. The youngsters all contributed a big hit or a big defensive play. The vets had big hits in all 3 games. Starters were lights out, and the pen had some minor issues, but no disasters. Great all around team wins.
This Astros team is deep. We seem to be able to plug and play positions with talented players without missing a beat. If you had asked me if we were going to sweep the A's without Springer, Altuve and Correa, I would have seriously doubted it.
What I liked about this game was that we had already won the series. A's clawed their way back to a tie late in the game and even if we had lost the game we still would have left Oakland with a series win. So it's easy to see where in the deep recesses of a player's mind they might justify letting off the gas a wee bit... But not this team. They just kept playing hard and eventually broke through. Not settling just for a series win, but earning that sweep. It's the sort of thing that separates champion teams from the really good teams.
