Ballgame! Sorry if I was a bit emotional. Verlander has defeated 29/30 teams. Only missing the Reds. Great all-around team win, everybody picking up each other and atoning for miscues. Now, time for Operation BTSOOTR!
I love Pena and am not worried about his defense AT ALL, but I would DH him on Monday (or even give him the day off altogether) just so he can reset.
Whosh... glad JV's runs were unearned Stros defense was amateur today. Pitching and offense showed up
Sounds like he was making excuses about Braves. Padres marlins and Mets beat those Braves teams. Braves we’re just a better team than the Astros in 90’s.
nobody said they weren’t. Im starting to think you never saw the games against the braves back then. You would know what he’s talking about.
I know exactly what he was talking about. Like I said marlins In 97 and Padres in 98 beat the Braves with no issues. Also Mets in 2000. Astros just didn’t hit plain and simple.
so you don’t know. I will tell you. The braves didn’t have to hit black on the outside. those 3 guys didn’t have to throw strikes
I just don’t have a bias take on the situation. Maddux Smoltz and glavine got wide strike zones vs every team in the 90’s not just the Astros. Astros bats went m.i.a. In the postseason as usual in the 90’s.
They got calls we didn’t get. It was obvious. It was a travesty. Is anyone saying that we were better than the braves? No. No one has ever said that.
"No issues"? The Marlins hit .199 with a .559 OPS. The starting pitchers who beat Atl? Livan Hernandez (2-0, you might remember highlights of one game in particular, game 5 in a 2-2 series) and Kevin Brown (2-0, yes, that Kevin Brown). Braves outscored the Marlins 21-20 over the 6 games. In '98 Sterling Hitchcock won both his starts with an ERA under 1. Kevin Brown threw a shutout. Pads team ERA was 2.78. (sounds pretty similar to the series before that) They were a very good team. Cammy's solo HR in the 10th of Game 1 changed that series, it was Smoltz vs Ashby and Atl needed that game.
I was too little to follow, but the biggest weakness the 1998 team had was facing right-handed power pitching. The Kerry Wood game, in hindsight, would foreshadow what sunk them in the playoffs. 1999 would have been the year - had Alou not torn his ACL, and the Astros re-signed Ausmus, and they traded Scott Elarton (and whatever else) for the two-time reigning triple crown winner Roger Clemens. A lot of what-ifs, I know, and but I think the 1999 team would have been better than the 1998 team had those 3 things happened (or not happened).
Ausmus was traded in a package with Nitkowski...then proceeded to have his best (or 2nd) year of his career at the plate. Made the All Star team. Stros traded back for him in another package deal after the Meluskey experiment in 2000. The Clemens deal was pretty much done, it was Hidalgo & Elarton for Clemens, with maybe some other minor parts/prospects moving to Toronto or in both directions. At basically the last minute, Clemens and his agents (Hendricks brothers, of Houston) submitted a demand for a renegotiated contract (Kevin Brown had just become the highest paid pitcher in MLB the day before). Clemens had 2 years at a very reasonable salary left on the 4 year deal he signed with Toronto. Gerry Hunsicker went apeshit (his point was that this is a trade, and they're treating it like a FA negotiation, all the while we're giving up good talent like a trade), and basically dynamited the deal, going full scorched earth on both Clemens but especially the Hendricks' at a press conference during the Winter Meetings. The Hendricks' fired a full salvo back at Hunsicker, and that was that. And yes, Alou and his damn treadmill accident. And Walt ****ing Weiss. Like you said...loooooots of what-ifs.
