I don't know if this is a smart statement and there are probably 500,000,000 different interpretations of the following phrase, but an ideal Astros lineup would not have Villar, Conger, and Marwin in the lineup at the same time.
Sale is a good pitcher. Astros had a good opportunity to get a couple more runs in that 4th inning when Villar and Altuve were on 2nd and 3rd with no outs but the strike out kings Gattis and Carter came up. Gotta take advantage better in those type of situations. Recent loses have happened because of these type of situations with men on 3rd with less than two outs and the team can't get them home. Extremely frustrating.
Get your magic wand out and fix Lowrie's stuff. We knew this was a flawed lineup from the get-go. Total aside...how awesome would Delino Jr look at the top of the order, with Altuve and Springer behind him?
Yeah, that was a mistake... but the first MLB pitch he ever saw in the 2nd inning, the nasty first pitch slider, was likely a precursor to having Correa stand and watch that pitch in the 9th. Correa should be starting his memory banks now... something that the great players all do. Perhaps we'll see a different result when he faces Sale again next time (won't be till 2016).
Or, how awesome would Chris Sale look in this rotation... if they selected him instead of DDJr (Sale went 5 picks later)? What really hurts is that there are players the Astros "protected" ahead of DDJr that are no longer with the organization.... but they're going to have several examples of this type of problem with the amount of organizational depth they've accumulated.
I just want to see what a Altuve, Correa, Springer lineup produces for a period. I think that could be the future, Altuve's inability to walk aside.
Not sure how he'd "regress"... he's still basically developing. Had the Astros not tried to force him into being an infielder (during the Wade era), things could have turned out differently.
He's playing well now. I'm rooting for him to cease to play well, and resume sucking at baseball, like he was doing in our farm system when he was left unprotected. I'll accept any bad karma that comes me way because of this.
They didn't force him to do anything, he was a late bloomer and showed minimal skills in the IF or the OF, and the ball to his face last year totally threw off his progress. Keeping guys like Torreyes or Buchanan or White, guys that are roster filler at best, over guys with serious talent like DDJ is something I did not and do not understand. I said it then and I'll say it again.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The only Astros player who did not swing and miss at a Chris Sale pitch on Monday night was Carlos Correa.</p>— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/608120316162920449">June 9, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'm now sitting with Carlos Correa's family waiting for a cab. They're nice enough to pose for a picture. <a href="http://t.co/jc1TaDThiq">pic.twitter.com/jc1TaDThiq</a></p>— Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) <a href="https://twitter.com/OrtizKicks/status/608134599223296000">June 9, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
