This team is their own worst enemy. Let's be real here. They should steamroller their way to a Back 2 Back Title, but they cannot get out of their own way.
Well, Maldy isn’t going to magically make Framber, Javier, France better. Diaz can hit and plays solid defense. Might as well put him in and see what happens
Sony Grey (last 7 starts 1.51 era) vs Christian Javier (last 7 starts 4.67 era) Must win game for Astros
B2B hasn't happened in 23 years, and save for the outlier late 90's Yankees it's only happened once since free agency took hold back in the mid 70's. I know fans hate hearing that, but it's the truth with the baseball postseason. We have basically the exact same personnel on our roster as last season, but for a multitude of reasons the team isn't as good, and that's common with most WS winners that try to run it back. We still could win it all, but no team should be "expected' to win it all, this isn't the NBA.
Yesterday was the 2nd ever loss at home in the ALDS for the astros since 2015. We don't talk about the first.
You took the words out of my mouth. Teams don't repeat often in baseball. There shouldn't be an expectation of a repeat from fans. The players might "expect" it of themselves in a positive thinking vibes sort of way...but expecting a repeat in baseball is akin to expecting to win the lottery at this point given the current playoff formatting.
It makes Yordan's HR last year in game 1 vs the Mariners that much more monumental. They had no business winning that game. The other two games could have gone exactly as they did... but them improbably winning that one literally changed a vast amount of probabilities/possibilities/and outcomes for the remainder of the post-season. This is the first time since 2015 that they're 1-1 in an ALDS. General probabilities say this likely goes 5 now.... but if the last 2 weeks hasn't taught anybody here anything, throw all of that stuff out when it comes to what actually could happen. Every game is going to be different. While I do believe in in-game momentum, we should know all well and good by now that game to game momentum means nothing (see 2021 ALCS, see 2022 WS).
The 2019 Astros (one of the greatest teams ever) lost 2 games badly to Tampa in the ALDS. The 2017 Astros lost three straight (badly) to NY in the ALCS. Even some of the better overall built teams during this golden era didn't steamroll anything before getting to the World Series.... short series baseball is just that random sometimes.
Roy Oswalt shoved the "inevitable" momentum of a Pujols bomb right up the Cardinals' collective ass all while smirking in his glove when he stepped off the mound each time.
Feels like Lopez threw first pitch strikes down the middle 75% of the time and Astros just stared at them every time. Nearly every at-bat started down 0-1.
There was a stat that it was the most called strikes he received all year. I suspect the Astros had a strategy to run up his pitch count and get him out of the game early or tire him out for game 4/5 ... but it clearly backfired.
Roy was so ****ing cool. He was already high on my list of favorite all time Astros…but that game…and that first inning where he made Pujols look silly while the announcers couldn’t stop talking about the last game…just absolutely sealed it. People still frame that Pujols HR as if the ‘stros didn’t win that series.
