What's with the Greinke trash? I'm looking and see 3 bad starts in a row and 2 of them were the same team... He had 4 starts in a row in August where his era was 2.16 and then he hit the skids... Maybe the time off will help his arm? Not saying he's going to dominate or get bombed, just saying you can't assume his past few games near the end will continue as a trend. We destroyed Eduardo Rodriguez until we didn't last night... Let him go and run him as long as he keeps us in the game...
Just a theory, but looking at Framber's impressive start in June in Fenway we gave him an early lead... Maybe Framber's problem is he needs to pitch like he has a lead? Don't be afraid of contact and get some ground balls? I think Castro calling a game could help... maybe Boston has picked up on Maldanado's tendencies.....
When your first 3 starters can't even get through the third inning and two of them even two innings while giving up 8+ runs, I don't think the big problem is who came in after them or there are even a lot of particularly good options. Javier / Grienke combined need to take the bulk of the innings in Game 4, so you don't want to use them in game 3. Odorrizi served that role in Game 2 and wasn't available. Using anyone else for 3-4 innings means they won't be available in games 4 or 5. At some point you have to worry about just having enough arms available for games 4/5 over worrying about the Red Sox seeing them multiple times. The setup man and closer (theoretically the highest leverage arms) weren't used and should now be available for multiple innings the next two games. Everyone else should still be available for at least an inning in both games. All things considered, that's not as bad as it could be. The idea of an opener is interesting. They haven't done it during the year, and I don't know I trust a lot of the relievers that aren't Stanek/Pressly or that Garcia/Urquidy/Framber would fare much better coming in the second inning. It would be hard to imagine it being worse though.
Please.. No more grand slams No more walks where they end up scoring No early big leads for Boston No more costly errors Houston, score 1st Starter goes more than a few innings (although whether he's doing well or not, I think Grienke goes 4 inning at most) Tie the series I'm begging you Astros and baseball gods!! I wonder how the morale is. Someone needs to get loud and pump them up before the game. When they were down 3-0 last year, say the same thing that got them going. Do whatever. Have a voodoo ritual, anything!!!
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Astros do not give up a Grand Salami this game and will not be down 9-0 at any point.
I think the ideal situation tonight is that Greinke gives us 4+ and then Javier gets it to Graveman/Pressley Just can't get behind big early again. Hopefully Altuve/Brantley/Bregman wake the f*** up...especially Altuve defensively.
Brantley needs to go down in the order, even if it means bringing Tucker up to 3rd and having Bregman 2nd
I think there needs to be a change as well. I would do 1. Altuve 2. Bregman 3. Tucker 4. Alvarez 5. Correa 6. Yuli 7. Brantley 8. (McCormick/Siri/Meyers) 9. Maldonado I could also see swapping out Correa for 3 and Tucker at 5 At this point a change wouldn’t hurt.
Exactly. And if they want to split the L/R matchups then move Correa to 4 and Alvarez down to 5. Oh and Castro starting at least every 3rd game
We owe them a blowout game where Boston fan is turning off the tv at 8. Give me some first inning runs.
