Who said he has to be one of the 4 starters? If he has a few more stinkers and Brown looks good... Verlander Valdez McCullers Brown or maybe Javier If the ALCS or WS goes 7 without an off day then a decision needs to be made on a 5th starter.
Away from the TV...did Ohtani get removed due to injury as a pitcher but stay in as a DH? Rules seem a little fuzzy there.
I hope so, Astros need a good left handed reliever for playoffs. S. Martinez needs to make the playoff roster.
Well, he only gave up one more run. Maybe managing the starters and thereby managing the bullpen is worth letting a game like this slip away. It was probably gone after Trout's 3 run homer anyway. We are certainly capable of scoring six, but we aren't going to average six.
This series started a stretch of 13 games in a row without a day off. You were down 5-1 with Ohtani on the mound. Odds of a comeback are low. You don't burn your bullpen on game 2 of a 13 game in a row stretch in the 2nd inning... Especially with a double digit lead in the division.
Our bully is the least used in baseball. I'm all for resting guys. But Dusty constantly let's games get out of hand by letting starters get to 5 or 6 before the hook. It's absurd to not mitigate losses.
That's been the rule all season; it's the new Ohtani rule. A pitcher who is in the starting lineup can be taken out of the game as a pitcher but stay as the DH
The Astros get no benefit from winning meaningless games at this point - they've likely already locked in the #1 seed. The Astros' goal since midseason has not been trying to mitigate losses. And "constantly" seems to be a bit of an overstatement since the Astros hadn't even given up 6 runs in total in a game in about 3 weeks. In the last 2 months, they've only had a starting pitcher allow 6 runs twice in losses, and the other one was Odorizzi.
