One of the stranger melt downs in sports. He seemed to have a special career ahead of him as a pitcher but just couldn't prevent his own demise.
You would have been safe. The Astros were winning. Things going well = everything is amazing, people act like adults and have adult comments Things going badly = the world is **** and people revert (assuming they verted in the first place) to slobbering 12-year old short bussers with keyboard Tourette's
Glad the Astros won and took the series. Almost forgot how that felt. With McClure's emergence, VV's skills, and Beard we should never lose more than 4 consecutive again this season. We have enough hitting especially when Lowrie returns. The real Altuve isn't far away from returning either. Rangers lost Division lead - 2.5 games
Altuve, now, the problem is that the "real" Altuve does not hit .300, he has only hit .300 in the majors once, last year, before that, never. And, his OBP looks more like a .330-.340 than the .377 from last year. I expect Altuve to hit .290 with .335 OBP, which is not good enough, unless he hits with some power, he will NOT walk. Maybe get a lot of doubles. If he was able to hit .290 with walks, we could have a really good player, but a singles hitter, does not work the counts, swings at bad pitches, and does not walks, that does not hit over .315, is not going to help much. Now, if he was able to hit as Ichiro did, always over .300 and OBP of at least .350, then we are talking.
I am hoping this little break for Altuve helps him get out of this slump. Team will become very hard to beat with this Springer and the real Altuve at the top of the lineup.
Don't forget steals. Like last season, he's leading the league again. His speed also forces errors. He might not get a "hit" on a throwing errors or bobbles, but he got on and runners advanced. He's an overall plus for an offense. His .340 batting last season pushed his career average to over .300. I think Altuve's career BA will be closer to .320 than .290, but time will tell. I also think Altuve is forced to swing at bad pitches with the way umps call his strike-zone. There's a difference between 5'5" and people 6'+.
Lets all admire George Springer. Second season he seems to really be breaking out. Future repeating all-star for years to come.
You're setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment. Pretty much every team in baseball has multiple 4 game losing streaks in a season. The odds of a very streaky team avoiding is pretty much zero. This is ... weird. The difference between a 0.290 and 0.300 hitter is about 6 hits a season - or 1 hit every 25-30 games. That's not the difference between an acceptable player or not. If you didn't have the stats in front of you, you'd never be able to watch a hitter for a season and figure out if he's a 0.290 hitter or a 0.300 hitter. And weird to argue that the "real" Altuve doesn't hit 0.300 when he has a career MLB avg of 0.300, a MiLB way above that, and he's only 25 and should still be on the upswing of his career.
Almost forgt how that felt?? I'm relishing this entire season and it all feels amazing...the last 3 years were what felt bad. Also, our newest pitcher Spoiler
I said more than 4 games. With the pitching, Lowrie's return, and the team's overall avoidance of further injury, Stros shouldn't lose more than 4 consecutive games the remainder of the season.
He's actually one of the top players in the league at hitting the ball hard. He's just very, very unlucky.
