[Official] Astros @ Angels

He looked pretty awful in his first game, no real way to sugar coat that. He was clearly jumpy, and chased some breaking balls clearly wide of the strike zone against a pitcher with god level stuff who then had no trouble putting him away. His last AB was by far the best, took some tough pitches, worked a full count and nearly hit one out. His power is absolutely legit, but we'll see how he handles MLB breaking stuff.

Defensively, fielded everything cleanly but made some poor throws. Don't wanna make excuses, but pretty much all his f**k ups can be chalked up as nervy f**k ups.

 

Agree - he looked like a nervous wreck at the plate his first two appearances. Defensively, he looks fast, smooth and decisive. He's gonna be fun to watch pick it, you can just tell. At the plate, his last at bat was encouraging. Really hard to judge him on the first two at bats when it seemed like he was on drugs he was so anxious.

 

How was Pressley's slider?

DD

 

Anyone see the Padres DBacks game last night. I didn't see it, but Padres pitchers held the DBacks scoreless on 3 hits until the bottom of the ninth with a two run lead, the play log then reads...
Walk
Walk
Wild Pitch
HBP
Wild Pitch (run scored)
HR (Seth Beer)

That's the Josh James Special...except it is Opening Day in the 9th which should have been a full strength pen. That has to be a sour Opening Day for Padres fans while DBacks fans get to call their team the cardiac kids for a while.

 

On National Beer Day, no less.

 

Can somebody call his the Corey Brewer version of baseball based on one game so he can have a Jalen green type.ascend.

 

I thought of all those failed 1B prospects in the post Berkman-era when I saw that homer, and thought of course it would be the one we traded away.

I then try to remind myself he's 6 games into his career and at that point Tyler White also looked like prime Albert Pujols at the plate.

 

He was pretty consistent last night. Maybe two questionable calls.

 

His arm is just fine. Nobody has a rocket like Correa. Maybe nobody ever.

Pena's transfer speed from glove to hand seemed terrific though. I know he had an error yesterday, but I'm actually pretty encouraged. If the kid can find his swing, he's the real deal.

 

The bigger question is how the **** do I record this?

 

So Ed Hickcocks let the Angels score their run. Alvarez only responsible for .15 runs. Nice.

 

That's what I was afraid of. I will definitely try not to compare him too much, especially being a rookie but I am going to miss that arm more than anything I fear. So valuable to keep runners off the bases as well as being a cutoff man on pretty much everything to the outfield. Not to mention what a momentum/morale killer a double play or out at home can be.

 

Created my AppleTV username in preparation for tonight. You're already off to a bad start Apple...

 

Lets see how pena looks in june or july.

 

I mean it was a freaking disaster. He committed an error. His first three AB's were completely overmatched with two bad K's and a nubber back to the mound. He had one loud-ish foul ball in the 8th before hitting a soft liner to the CF (not a bad AB) and he showed in turning two double plays that he has nowhere near the timing nor arm as Correa. Both were hard hit balls that ended up perilously close to having the batter beat it out.
He made a nice play on a bouncer over the pitcher to nip Ohtani at the wire at 1b.
It's game 1 of 162. I'm not writing him off. But hit was a really bad game.
I always said the hope should be that he can put up 2 WAR and be a legitimate starting SS. That is a really successful rookie season for a guy that's not a super blue chip. But the people thinking he was going to replace Correa or be 85% of him or something are probably settling in for a bit of a rude awakening.

 

I guess Altuve is washed up based on last night...

Not going to judge ANYONE on one game.

 

I mean- I said that it was 1 game and I'm not writing him off. There was nothing incorrect about anything I wrote, which was in response to someone asking how he looked last night.
If I set the over under at 2 on WAR (considered an MLB average regular) which way are you betting? Being an MLB quality regular as a rookie is really really good. He's replacing a guy who had something like 7 WAR last year and was top 10 (top 5?) in the MVP balloting. We would be insane to expect there not to be a pretty significant drop off. It is what it is. This team should still win the division easily. I think we are going to be really really good. But we got worse there. Maybe we get a lot better at 3b to make up the difference.

 

This is what everyone should be thinking.