Ask Oakland how they feel about run differential. That being said, I believe Houston is the better team, but they will not have the better record. Perhaps in a few more gams
There's no need to ask them anything because their record isn't slightly behind anyone good. You know, the exact criteria I stated in the post you responded to.
The A's are a lot better than their record would indicate. That said, it doesn't matter how good a team is if they are unlucky, unhealthy, lazy, apathethic, or a long list of other reasons for them digging themselves a hole this deep. A's will likely be a playoff contender next season.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Astros are the dominant force in the American League right now, and after the events of the last two days, it's not really debatable.</p>— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN/status/616071128583266304">July 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Run differential is just one piece of the puzzle. If the Astros win today, they will have gone 6-4 over a tough stretch of games in which their run differential will say they should have won 8-9 of those games. It seems the "magic" from their early season run has vanished or really regressing back to the mean.
run differential is something you use over a longer period of time to predict (or really, understand past performance). It typically won't work as well over the course of a 3 game set or even 10 games.
The bats have also gone silent late in addition to the few bullpen hiccups in the one run loss games. The run differential is really pointing to the feast or famine that we thought would be the hallmark/frustrating part of this team before the season.
Correa day off boo. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Today's lineup <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> <a href="http://t.co/hmrdFZ1zdD">pic.twitter.com/hmrdFZ1zdD</a></p>— Adam Wexler (@awexler) <a href="https://twitter.com/awexler/status/616336949956087808">July 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
VV's description on Brooks Baseball: His fourseam fastball results in more flyballs compared to other pitchers' fourseamers, has slightly above average velo and has some added backspin. His curve is an extreme flyball pitch compared to other pitchers' curves, is much harder than usual, has little depth and has primarily 12-6 movement. His change is an extreme flyball pitch compared to other pitchers' changeups and is much firmer than usual.
Cool cool. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'm hearing it's going to be Dan Straily starting for the Astros on Friday in Boston.</p>— Brian McTaggart ⚾️ (@brianmctaggart) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/616343916577603584">July 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
