Its going to take a pretty big choke job by the Astros to give up this division to the Rangers. Not looking forward to day games in Toronto for the playoffs...
Rangers have a nice team, good rotation with 1. Hamels 2. Gallardo 3. Lewis 4. Holland 5. Perez (weak) Bullpen is not good. Lineup is good with Deshields and Choo decent with OBP, great hitter in Fielder, then a dangerous hitter in Beltre, Moreland is always a tough out, Odor is having a nice year, will Hamilton be back?? Good defensive catchers and Andrus who will hit .250. We should win as we have the best rotation in the AL, but Texas will fight until the end.
Damn! What a way to break the curse of loosing by 1 Run on the road! Jeez! They played pissed off allrite! lol Yo Go Gomez! Be Dat Dawg!
They've been playing better... but run differential suggests the standings will end up exactly as is. It would take looking very bad in the head-to-head matchups with them to lose this division... and that's what I would consider choking.
Astros get a trifecta tonight... 1) Offense showed up.... on the road 2) Keuchel pitched great.... on the road 3) Gomez hit well Great game, Stros!! Chance to win the season series (3-3) tomorrow
yes, but they acquired Hamels, and have Holland back plus Choo is starting to play better, maybe they get Hamilton. They've had many injuries but some of the pieces are getting back. We have a nice lead, but not a great lead. We have 2 tough series, Yankees and Twins (5 wins in a row) on the road, they have the Blue Jays and O's (struggling) to end the month. I like our chances, but still a lot of games left, and is our division to take, We are getting Springer back, probably first week of September, but it should take at least half the month for him to start hitting like he can. If Springers hits, and Carlos Gomez starts hitting, then we can get a lot of runs for sure with Altuve, Correa, Springer and Gomez in the lineup.
I think I read an article somewhere that Texas would need to finish something like 25-14 to have a chance to win the division and that was as of a few days ago...again needs to be researched but think that's the deal give or take a game or 2
Watching the highlights, Gomez's swing on his HR looked effortless. He shortened his stroke and was still able to go opposite field, power-alley with ease. Ala Cabrera. The bench clearing incident was nice too. The outcome of KC throwing him inside might be a joy to watch :grin:
Since 2002, run differential predicted 52 out of 78 division titles (66%). It correlates with 63% (19/30) of wild card births. So 2/3 of the time, it works every time. I thought that was intriguing.
Sex panther! I agree its not the "perfect" metric... but it does usually work itself out. This year, the biggest outliers are Oakland (last place with a + run differential) and Texas (4 games over .500 with a -24 run differential). For awhile, the Blue Jays led the AL in run differential only to be in 3rd place... its since worked itself out and they're poised to control their own destiny. I just feel the only way the Rangers win this division is if they not only continue to play improved baseball better than their run differential suggests... but they end up dominating the head-to-head matchup with the Astros.
The deal was if the Astros finish the season basically .500 (19-18), then the Rangers have to go 25-14 to win the AL West. That was two games ago, so the Astros and Rangers have both gone 1-1. So now if the Astros go 18-17 the rest of the way, the Rangers will have to go 24-13.
A breakout was coming for this club, too many proven guys in extended slumps for it to maintain. Hopefully this is just the start of a good stretch and not a one game explosion.
Last night was great, but it won't mean much if they don't carry it over into today. We need the bats to still be smoking in order to take this series.
