Given upcoming schedules for the top teams in the MLB and the current player production trajectories on each team, will the Astros finish with the best record? Here are the teams in the hunt for the best record with under 40 losses as of today, 7/18/22: Astros Yankees Mets Braves Dodgers
The Yankees will regress some eventually. They have been playing way over their heads. The Astros haven't fully clicked yet and have not been at full strength.
Astros don't seem to care about the best record that much. Evident in their Oakland series. Hopefully being full-strength gets them going again.
If the Astros want to finish with the best record( and I'm not convinced they care) they will need to get healthy. They have been playing shorthanded and very right-handed in the lineup. 4 of regular 13 hitters are left handed and 3 of them are currently hurt. Lots of sloppy play recently that has been attributed to fatigue. They need to get healthy and rested on the position side. And a run producing bat brought in might be helpful especially if Brantley misses much more time. This feels a lot like 2017 but for position players rather than pitching. 1 really good acquisition could change the entire team and 2nd half of the season.
The Astros have won something like 26 of their last 34 games so it’s hard to say they haven’t fully clicked yet. It’s a pace one reasonably has to assume can’t be maintained so there’s regression potential for the Astros as well despite the seeming easy strength of schedule.
Orioles win 6-3, coming back from an 0-3 deficit with 6 unanswered. With our win and the Yankees losing, we gain a whole game.
June 19 Yankees 49-16 Astros 40-25 Since then Astros 23-7 Yankees 16-15 That's a pretty good chunk of time to be playing essentially .500 mediocre ball.
I generally think it's silly to overreact to regular season stretches, everybody has a lull at some point. But I think the underlying cause for concern is real for the Yankees. Their starting pitching after Cole is starting to look like just a bunch of decent guys. Cortes and Taillon now have extended stretches of less than amazing pitching. Montgomery has always been a solid starter, but not much more, and Severino hasn't quite been able to return to peak form and is now hurt again.
Agreed, which is why I think they will ultimately go for Luis Castillo. I am hoping that their management really believes their team currently constructed can win a ring. I don' think its good enough. Unfortunately, I think the Astros have shown them that they aren't able to get through the ALCS and may have made things harder for themselves in the long run.
It’s not that they are playing generally mediocre ball, it’s just you snipped the portion of their schedule where they had to play us If you take out their 7 games with us they are 14-10. That’s a 96 win pace. Nothing wrong with that. We are what ails the Yankees. Full stop.
BTW- it isn’t the Yankees we need to worry about for the best record it’s the Dodgers. I’d put 51% chance of them getting it- 25% Astros, 24% Yankees.
I'll play. The went 3-0 against AAA Oakland during this stretch. Take out the Astros and A's, they are 11-10.
Dwight Schrute meme False. you aren’t getting with the picture. This is supposed to mock the Yankees. There’s never a bad time to do that. man’s the thing that hurts the Yankees most is believing they are incredible and that the Astros are their daddy. Play along. Encourage that.
We’ve got 37 games against teams within a couple games of 500. Tiers- shitty: 10 Oakland, 8 texas, 6 angels, 3 Detroit, 2 Arizona right around 500 but probably shitty: 3 Boston, 7 Baltimore, 4 White Sox, 4 Cleveland playoff maybe, but probably still shitty: 4 Seattle, 3 Minnesota, 3 Philly good teams: 3 Atl, 6 Tampa 67 games total: let’s go ahead and finish 45-22 and set a franchise record for wins at 109
