This turnaround is reminding me of the Washington Nationals turnaround of 2019 where they had the best record in baseball after May 15th or so and went on to win the World Serious ...
Our guys did it! Our play has done a 180 here recently and that is exactly what had to happen to get back in this thing. But our ascent to the top, if were being honest, was just as much about Seattle and Texas being terrible mostly.
Yep! I didn't see it coming, but now that it has, we have to turn our attention to the remainder of the season. I wonder what's next?
I would argue Seattle was lucky being on top to begin with. Three 1-run victories vs the Astros and were winning 1-run games at a 80% clip -- that luck has dropped 30% over the past 30 days.
The difference is the Astros were/are established winners. Nationals had never won a playoff round before 2019. Lucky ass championships. Losing that Series still bothers me. Astros probably had the greatest team that didn't win.
This season really has been bubblegum and duct tape. 5 of our 7 projected starters on the DL, inconsistency from our big 3 pen arms, down or average seasons almost across the board for the hitters, our best overall player has missed 1/3 of the year, 7-17 in one run games. Every reason for this to not be our year, yet we're in first and have somehow cobbled together the 4th best run differential in the AL.
If the umpires would stop blowing (review) calls, it might help. The play with Dubon was horrendous -- Astros lost 2-1 Bad luck/hating has been an issue most of the season.
The whole thing is bizarre, offensively we only have the 9th best OPS during that stretch. Tucker went down, Bregs and Yainer stepped up, but the overall lineup production OPS wise has been pretty similar. Pitching has been quite a bit better, but that's really just Hunter Brown and the BABIP gods releasing Pressly from whatever hell they had him in. I mean we're clearly playing better, but not 8 games under to best team in baseball better. You would think a lot of luck in close games has gone our way, but that's not really the case either.
Everything gets magnified in close games and the Stros just haven't performed well in them (from the manager on down). You'd like to think they're due for a pretty sizable correction in the 2nd half, but who knows? @sealclubber1016 eta: everybody in MLB is within +/- 3 games in the - not necessarily indicative of anything as a whole - pythagorean "luck" department (Stros are -3) except the Rays and Cards at +7 and +6, and the A's and Reds at -4 and -6. Reds would be 4.5 games behind the Brewers instead of 8.5 if both teams were pythagorean-ly equal. Definitely have not paid nearly enough attention to the Reds to know if that's just noise or if there's something behind it.
Blanco saved the season. Framber (sans THAT inning) has been great. Martinez and Scott have both chipped in well. Right now, the offense is a bunch guys within 10 points (+/-) of league average OPS along with Altuve being very good and Alvarez being great. The fact our catchers are all above average makes the offense good, even without Tucker. If his leg ever reappears, the offense becomes great. Seattle has three players above league average, two of them are barely above, and the other is below 775. Astros need another starter (or two) because outside of Framber, no one has proven 130+ innings of effectiveness. JV and Garcia might fill the role, but we're taking a chance by banking on both of them. Man, the number of injuries is unbelievable.
