You gotta give it to this team, they really do whatever they have to in order to lose. They pitch well, they don't score. They score runs, then they don't pitch well. And If they do manage to have it close late the bullpen will blow it.
Or managers calling for hit and runs with two men on base, a full-count, less than 2 outs, a laboring starting pitcher, and the "meat" of the order coming up.
do not understand the hit and run with two men on in that situation. porter loves calling for the hit and run, and it seems like it bites the astros in the ass more than it helps them. when your team leads the AL in strikeouts, you can't call for hit and runs with two men on base when the team is struggling to score runs. doubt porter will be around if the team is ever good again in my lifetime.
It's almost like they knew Porter would be a bad manager, so they just threw him in there so as not to **** over any potential manager who actually has staying power in the MLB.
I wonder how many of what I would consider poor managerial decisions are related to the front office's statistics vs. Bo Porter's judgement.
I dunno... but I can't imagine any sabermetric or analytical model that shows that more hit/runs, or even stolen bases in general are a "good" thing. Especially on a team that strikes out as much as this. I'm all for being aggressive, or going for the "kill" when the team has a lead (as rare as that is)... but when you're behind by 1 run and you finally have men on base, and its the 8th inning, you have to be more mindful of what the situation is. Would be interesting if there was ever any "statistics" that show THAT is the perfect time to be overly-aggressive on the base paths. I also don't think any statistical models really show who should or shouldn't be used out of the bullpen... that's all about knowing your personnel and their capabilities on short rest or in certain situations. I don't think Porter has a great feel for that either.
I suspect the reasoning Porter would give was more to avoid a DP than a true hit and run considering Altuve has done a reasonable job of avoiding the strike out this year. Note, that I am not agreeing with Porter, just offering his possible justification.
i 100% think he was thinking that he wanted to stay out of the double play. altuve gets down the line as well as almost anyone in the big leagues. he doesn't hit into many double plays. it's easy to second guess at least a handful of decisions in every baseball game, so i don't want to get on porter too bad. but i just think it was the wrong move. i honestly cannot believe the team is worse this year than in previous years. at least it looks like villar might be a player.
I think the argument there was that Altuve is an extreme groundball hitter who almost never strikes out. 50% of his balls in play are groundballs, and he strikes out less than 10% of the time, and even less recently (in the last 2 weeks, he had struck out twice). So you count on him making contact and want to avoid a double play. I can't watch Astros games from Austin, so I don't know the specifics or how anyone looked at that particular time, but from a purely statistical viewpoint, it's actually not a terrible play.
This year, he's only had 1, but last year, he was 2nd in the league in double plays grounded into with 24 (not sure how many ABs he had with the opportunity).
I would still like to see the base running times for the entire team. Based on visual evidence, I cannot fathom that Gonzalez is a noticeable upgrade from anyone he pinch runs for. It was especially weird when Porter had Gonzalez pinch run for Dominguez in the 8th inning of a game the Astros were winning by a run or 2. Why take out an excellent defensive third baseman to gain a very small advantage on the bases? While Porter's decision last night can certainly be justified, I think a strike out throw out at 3rd - not second - against one of the best strike out pitchers in the league was a more distinct possibility than Altuve grounding into a DP (and I thought that before it happened).
I have a hard time complaining about a hit & run there. Altuve is the one guy in the lineup that is good at putting the ball in play and up to that point, he had faced Scherzer 6 times, and never struck out. The odds are in favor of Altuve making contact. It helps avoid the double play, plus allows Marwin to score from 2nd on a single to tie the game.
Statistically, I'm pretty sure this isn't true, though I haven't done the math. Altuve strikes out about 10% of the time. Scherzer obviously increases that, but Altuve's small sample against him was favorable, and Altuve was striking out less-than-average over the last few weeks. Let's estimate that probabability at 10%. Last year, Altuve grounded into 24 double plays. He had 236 ABs with runners on base. 96 of those were with 2 out, so no DP possibility. That puts us at 24 DPs in 140 potential opportunities - so that's 17%. But that ignores that some of those 140 times with Runners on may not have included a runner on 1st. About half his runners-on ABs had RISP, but we don't know if there was also a runner on 1st in those. So its a minimum of 17%, possibly as high as 30+%. Regardless, it's higher than his 10% strikeout rate, even if you add some cushion for Scherzer.
Tigers just efficiently dismantling this team. In a sport that usually features a good deal of variability, and any given series can typically be won by any given team (giving playoff baseball its "crapshoot" reputation)... the Astros sure take the randomness out of the game and are just consistently bad. They're about to take over the negative run differential lead... meanwhile the Marlins seem to have rebuilt their team/system faster (only a game out of first with a +25 run differential), with a similar gutting strategy and no #1 picks. Hmm...
This team sucks. Period. When you can't score with 1st and 3rd, no outs, and your 3-5 hitters coming up against a guy making his major league debut....Well, ya know....
