I hate this but it does feel like 1998 all over again. Offensive juggernaut gets shut down and we lose in the first round. I still think about that series often.
we haven’t lost yet. Rays have the best depth in pitching then any team in baseball. We aren’t going to out slug them. we are going to have to outpitch them, out hustle them, make better plays in the field, steal bases on Glasnow, don’t expand the strike zone, get some walks, hope for some seeing eye singles, Timely hits and a home run with runners on. Glasnow, Snell, Morton will be the biggest test Astros face during the playoffs... it might also be their last. Luckily we have Cole who can match Glasnow and Snell through 7 or 8. Harris, Pressly, Osuna will have to match Morton to close the game. Astros need to hit the mistakes and make the rays pay. We will win, need to take control of the game early.
This is NOT 1998. That series felt over after Game 1 when Kevin Brown absolutely shut down the Astros. We never even brought the series back home from San Diego. We've got the possible Cy Young winner on the mound at home in Game 5, there's no Kevin Brown to deal with on the opposing team, and we know the Astros players(save for Reddick) can produce in the postseason.
You mean it's been hard to score against the team that had the best ERA in the AL while playing in probably the toughest division in the AL (definitely tougher in terms of the offenses they faced having to play Boston and NYY that many times)?
We don't know that about Brantley, who has a career .328 Postseason OPS in 44 At-Bats. 11 games so sample size is small-medium but it's still incredibly bad. I mean.328 ? I would venture to guess many NL pitchers have better #'s than that in 44 At-Bats. Obviously catcher by it's nature is a hard position to have offensive prowess for any team. So you look at Chirinos/Maldonado, Brantley and Reddick and you have 3 very quiet postseason bats. Add in a less than 100% Correa and it hurts the offense even more. What made us great in 2017 was the bottom of the order being such a legit threat. Bottom of order this year isn't that. We weren't near the clear-cut favorites in 1998 as we are now. At least this team has a last shot at redemption at home - something the 98 team never had. But yeah, it's similar feel no doubt. Padres did it w/ Kevin Brown. Rays are doing it with depth of a bunch of good but not great pitchers - or the Astros bats are simply in choke mode - all depends on your perspective.
I hate to say it, but best record in the majors, best in team in franchise history, up 2-0 in the Division Series and you lose...yes, that is Choke City. Please please please win Thurs.
Hard to score, sure. It shouldn't be this hard to score. We are averaging 2.5 runs a game if you take out the fluky errors in Games 1 and 2. That drop giving us 2 runs in Game 1 was a blooper reel caliber drop. Rays gave up 4.0 runs a game in regular season. They are having much more success against the Astros than they did against the MLB over 162 games. That's beyond hard to score and into "severe underperformance/choke" mode isn't it ? I mean we are in the year of the juiced baseball. Balls are flying out of the park at record paces. Scoring is up significantly. 2-3 runs a game in this era and this year is really sad.
Its real simple Win game 5 - we move on. People forget. Lose game 5- epic choke for the history books.
This is why I don’t like it when the Houston teams are favored. Always like coming under appreciated with a chip on their shoulders.
For whatever reason, Tampa Bay matches real good against the Astros. Losing in the MLB playoffs sucks, but it happens to even the best squads. However, this postseason run is by no means over, there is one game with the Likely AL Cy young winner, Cole, and it’s in Houston.... Springer, Brantley, Reddick, Correa need to show up big time. But the Astros aren’t they only ones going to a game 5. Atlanta and the Dodgers are getting pushed too.... Frankly this is baseball, and in a 5 game series the team with the momentum can eek it out with the best of them.
Choke is too harsh. The Braves is going to help us because they choked first. I will say choke, if we repeat what the Braves are doing today.
Wow two game 5’s with the home team losing. One team got its heart ripped out in the 1st, and the other got its heart crushed in the 10th inning... I hope this is a wake up call to the Astros, that they have to bring it, no resting on their laurels... Let’s go Astros!!
Was thinking the same thing. This is probably the best thing to have happened to the stros bc they have to watch this and go, we can lose this