I’m still not worried about the Angels. For starters, they’re only 1 game ahead of us. And that’s with them over performing and us vastly under performing. The Angels have the 4th highest BABIP in baseball at .303 whereas the Astros have the second lowest at .249. You can’t convince me the Angels will keep up hat BABIP and there’s no way the Astros will maintain that low of a BABIP. The fact that we’re only one game out despite that massive difference is a pretty good sign for the Astros. Syndergaard is also due for some regression. His ERA is about a whole run lower than his xERA. I don’t see a staff of Ohtani, Syndergaard, Detmers, Lorenzen, etc. holding up over the course of 162. Likewise I don’t see both Ohtani and Trout staying healthy all year and don’t see the rest of their lineup hitting as well as they have so far. I will say, I’m impressed with the way they’re playing so far, but I don’t see a realistic way they win the division at this point.
Redfish gave a really good answer and the thing I would add on top of that is that when you are stars and scrubs you don't have to make a big move that requires a lot of prospect capital, a lot of times you just can improve substantially by replacing a glaring weakness with basic competence. Competence on a rental in his walk year doesn't cost much. Think of how little we got for some guys like Oswalt and Berkman and Wandy Rodriguez when we started selling them off. Those guys weren't great anymore, but if you were replacing someone that sucks it's a good move. They've got a couple glaring holes in the OF and middle IF that could make them a lot better to add someone that's not great. Average can have a power. It does for LAA at a couple places IMO.
Tonights game looks like a tough one. Pretty good pitcher on the hill for the twins. Urquidy still somehow remains a mystery. hopefully the bats catch fire and make it all moot.
Astros-Dodgers had better ratings than Dodger-Red Sox 1 year later. Pretty sure more fans would tune in just to hate-watch the Astros than any other possible Dodgers opponent. MLB doesn’t have an agenda… they’re not organized/smart enough to have an agenda. And the more anybody would try and “rig” things, the more it would likely back-fire. The questions as to whether or not the Yankees have enough pitching to sustain them for a full season are still legit. If the Red Sox don’t ever get their stuff together, that division does get a little easier. But the expectations are the Rays will start clicking on all cylinders and the Blue Jays will stick around. The Yankees still very much 3rd in terms of projections.
It's harder to fix games in baseball than basketball. In basketball, other than the ball going into the hoop, everything is subjective and violations are a big part of the game. In baseball, they only thing a umpire can do is call strikes and balls but with strike zone box, it's pretty easy to spot a fixed game.
Maybe the Angels can add competence this year while staying healthy, but the Angels have 7 straight years that show adding competence and not having any stars get dinged up is hard to do. That said, the Angels can add all the competence they want at the deadline and have guys stay healthy....even then the Astros will still likely win the division with reasonable health.
I absolutely agree that we are in the drivers seat in the division. I just think this particular LAA team is the only team in the division I've thought to myself "I can see that breaking right for them to win the division over us" since we got good. Oakland was always a laughable idea to me that they would ever overtake us. Texas has sucked pretty much that whole time. The Mariners were total chumps and then overachieving chumps on smoke and mirrors one time. The Angels were always hurt or way too incompetent in many places. But look, they have the makings of a team that could win 95 or 100. That might still not be enough to beat us as I've always viewed this team as a 95 win team that could win 105 if we upgrade at the deadline and get a little lucky, but they actually are pretty good I think.
All the NBA has to do is put Scott Foster on a Chris Paul game=Automatic playoff loss. Harder to do in Baseball.
48% chance of rain. There is a chance of no baseball tonight. And these cities keep getting away with no roofs. Charge them an L for every rainout! Enough is enough. Houston first!
I don't miss the yearly rainouts in Pittsburgh, Cincy, St. Louis, and Chicago. Division games currently are set up fairly well: LA (doesn't rain), Oakland (doesn't rain... but has random freak weather), Seattle (roof), Arlington (dumpy roof).
So much this. Also- with the compression of the schedule this year non division rainouts are going to be a b**** to make up.
Monday August 8th, both teams have an off day. We're in Cleveland heading home and they're at home heading to Toronto. It would mean we play 23 games in 22 straight days coming out of the ASB though (DH at NYY right off the bat). Would rather them just play a DH tomorrow if possible. I'd really rather they get the game in tonight.
If they play it looks guaranteed that there would be at least a 1–2-hour rain delay with a severe storm line moving in and clearing out. If they are ok with playing through a long delay then go for it.
