Now that we are on the right side once again, some more bright news. Astros unclaimed money: Altuve: $239 ( State Farm ) Tucker: $282 ( Axos Bank ) Biggio: $40 ( Baylor University ) Bagwell: $718 ( Chubb and Son ) Reddick: $78 ( LoneStar ) Keuchel: $2,928 ( Undisclosed )
Just that quick, Tucker's OPS is 14 points higher than last season. June has been his best month this year, so he's trending upward. Bregs raised his OPS 18 points last night but he's still having his worst year by far. He's gotten better each month this year so hopefully that trend continues. Abreu has earned his check this month and is giving the team exactly what it needs. Altuve is Altuve Astros are 5-5 (L10) for the first time since playing in Drake's hood. That series started a brutal stretch of suckage where they only won 3x in two weeks. Hopefully the bullcrap is behind them and they win this huge series vs Arlington. May the Lawd bless the arms of Javier, Urquidy, and Brantley, and Yordan's waist. When two or more are gathered in thy name......
The Astros pen is in great shape going into this series. Dubin threw 39 pitches Wed so still maybe not available, but he is the only one to throw more than 19 pitches (and none have pitched more than once) the past 4 days. The Rangers situation is a bit more precarious. They have a 7 man bullpen due to using a 6 man rotation. King threw 37 pitches and Anderson threw 29 yesterday ( thank you A.J. Hinch) Rodriguez has pitched in 4 of the past 5 days. That leaves them with Smith and Sborz who are their best, and 2 support arms - Burke and Barlow. Smith is the closer and has not pitched at all this week. They use Sborz multiple innings and 25+ pitches but not on consecutive days so getting him in today would be very helpful.
We were in Branson and decided to drive up to Saint Louis for game 2 of the series. Stadium is absolutely beautiful. Great place to watch a game! It was 92 degrees at game time and I wasn't even sweating Cardinal fans are super nice and classy, but they are not happy with the state of their team right now. Not used to being in last place. They really did seem down as a fanbase. Astro fans EVERYWHERE. I was looking forward to chatting it up with some of these "knowledgeable" Card fans, but most of my section had Astros fans We got 4 seats on row 4 right behind the Astros dugout for only $130. Would have been 4 times that at MMP There were luxury boxes but you really couldn't see them, so the ballpark really did feel like a throwback. Even had a real organ player! Meyers, Pena, and Tuve waved at all the Astro fans behind the dugout every time they came back in. Dusty turned around and gave us all a thumbs-up right after the game ended. Julie Morales was posing with fans for selfies. She seems to be exactly like her on-air persona. Smiling and happy the entire time After the game, Cards fans were asking us where we were from, if we enjoyed the game, etc. Super classy fanbase. Downtown St Louis is pretty empty and depressing, even during the middle of a workday. It was weird.
If we're replacing Alvarez (and Pena) for weakest (hitting) in the aforementioned order... this is acceptable. Enjoy this one, we may never see another sensical BO as the one posted today.