Still very very winnable. Good news is Hinch had to cover 3 innings of relief. Thank God Skubal didn't go 8 innings. Detroit likely will need to piece together both of their next starts between a questionable starter and the back end of the bullpen. No excuses but to chase both of these guys before they come close to finishing the 5th inning, hopefully it's more like the 3rd inning. If that's the case, huge advantage Astros. Again, like Framber, Brown has no excuse but to dominate this feeble lineup. It's all up to him. Same for Kikuchi, where Carpenter won't even be in the lineup once again. Brown just needs to avoid giving up a multi run HR from their only true weapon in Carpenter. That's the game within the game for him. Pitch around him. That's got to be the strategy. G2 Astros 5, Tigers 3 G3 Astros 8, Tigers 3
Oh haha I thought it was Kalas. in the future please don’t refer to that b**** as tk. there can be only one
Sure and the throw could have gone wide to first and tied it that way. Generally, I think bunting is stupid. There’s certain situations where it might make sense, but I’m not a fan at all of giving away a free out. In that situation, I realize that it advanced the runners where a hit could conceivably tie it, and you’re worried about a double play, but handing them the first out is a giant boost for their pitcher. It allows you to breath a little. I don’t think that can be understated. Also, I’m not certain that Diaz would have scored if Caratini’s blooper dropped, so it’s not like it’s a guarantee that a base hit in that situation would have tied it.
Is it confirmed it’s gonna be Hunter? I feel like Kikuchi might be the wiser choice in this scenario. I do worry about Hunter getting in his head.
The postseason home losses are really getting old though. Doesn’t help that MLB ensuring half the stadium is empty with lunch time starts.
Agree with all that you stated here. We've been a fairly bad station to station team (still remember Joe in spring training vowing his focus was on us being much better at small ball but that never really materialized). Bunting runners over and then needing 2 base hits, yeah you don't give away an out for that. And given our propensity to fail to score a man at 3rd with less than 2 outs, then all signs point to you NOT bunting in that case.
Yanks about to have the easiest route to the World Series if both the Astros and Orioles are eliminated early.
I like Kikuchi taking Carpenter out of the lineup. Plus can you imagine we don't even get to see what Kikuchi was going to be for us in the playoffs? That would be pretty depressing. I have to imagine there's no switching the order now with starting pitchers being creatures of habit and having gone through the timing of their prep work.
Elephant in the room. AJ Hinch may very well be responsible for both starting and ending the Astros reign of consecutive ALCS appearances.
