I will defer to you or Snake on that. If Arrighetti is ready, him. If not, Bielak or anyone who can eat some innings with a 5 ERA when needed. Then go 5 man rotation for the balance of the year and pray France’s last game was an abberation.
Bro how could you forget Maldy! Did you know in that 6 run 6th inning he accounted for 2 of the 3 outs?!?!
While y'all are finished with the game, I have to wait until just about now-ish to start watching it. Life sucks. I see what you did there.
Alex Cora has a very high baseball aptitude. He is excellent at stealing signs, figuring out when pitchers are tipping their pitches and identifying mechanical issues in a swing. He just notices a lot of nuances that few people do. He also isn’t a push over and will discipline and call players out that don’t give effort or do what they are supposed to. He is also innovative and will open to new ideas. I highly doubt Crane would hire him because of his connection to 2017 - but I think he is possibly the brightest manager in baseball. He is excellent at analytics, dealing with players and knows the fundamentals.
Abreu back to hitting, Yordan warming up, Pena hitting, Brantley possibly on the way, Altuve apparently hits better as he gets older.
Unfortunately, I had news of Altuve's cycle spoiled for me. Sucks, that usually doesn't happen when I read the series thread.
Astros moving up the OPS ladder -- from 9th to 7th after last night. Top 5 before season's end is probable with good health. Currently 5th in runs scored (although we've played more games than most) Spoiler
The Astros would be extremely smart to do this. Dusty's method of coaching though is... keep throwing them out there until they figure it out. Dana Brown will need to step in and make this call.
Sure, it's fun to joke about but Javier's entire year has been deeply troubling. Like you've said and others, I think shutting him down for a month is the best scenario. Even then, that might not do the trick mentally for him. Dude is shell shocked. We were fortunate to really bust out the bats and **** fools up for Christ last night. But Javier sporting a WHIP of 3 or more half his outings ain't cuttin it. Especially if JP isn't right for the playoffs. Hoping that was a blip.
The only issue with shutting him down this late is that it will then require him to do rehab assignments and ramp up again to get stretched out. Not a lot of minor league season left to allow for him to pitch there. Also, with his awful control, I do not think putting him in the bullpen will be much of an improvement. He’s a liability with runners on. Can only really start a clean inning. And at that point, it’s not much different than him starting the game (with less innings for the offense to bail him out). He’s either going to still get starts with maybe more days off in between… or be dropped entirely. If he is going to get starts, I’d rather they automatically plan on getting him out after 3 or 4 (or the first signs of trouble when he’s fatigued). Sorta how they were with Greinke. There’s still value there, but a far cry from what was expected of him. Brown or Urquiddy will have to be his tandem buddy. Then as soon as the off-season hits, get this guy on a diet and major conditioning program.
I don't know if the FO is okay with this or if this is 100% Dusty, but Javier has very stressful outings on the arm. He's not going deep into games, but he's still averaging 100 pitches per start. For all of August he is averaging 22 pitches per inning. I agree shutting him down is probably too late in the game. I think thy need to focus on limiting his pitches per outing and see how he responds to that. If they can only get 3 innings out of him so be it, but something has to change if he is gonna contribute in September/October. Right now he's not doing anything Ronel Blanco couldn't do.
Too bad our pitching hasn't been as good as the beginning of the season other than the random Framber no hitter and Verlander. Hopefully we can start firing on all cylinders.
