I definitely do not want the Rangers having anything to put in their trophy case. But sure, my main concern is the Stros!
Keuchel went from dominant cy young winner to very mediocre. There were other reasons we regressed that year (Rasmus) but Keuchel’s drop off was really hard to overcome.
And we simply couldn’t beat the Rangers who were super mid but kept winning 1 run games and I nearly died
The way I see it is they are playing as well as they could possibly play and we have mostly under achieved and we are only one series sweep from catching them. They are a legit playoff team but I'm not conceding anything to them until they win the season series against us.
I knew the Ranger improved this offseason, but who the hell expected Eovaldi, Gray, and Heaney to be the reincarnation of Maddux, Smoltz, and Glavine? A lot of their success is coming from overachieving from their starting pitching. They practically signed everybody they could and just saw what could stick. I don't think it's so much organizational smarts as it is opening the wallet and signing guys. Need a manager? Bochy is on the couch let's throw money at him. We need pitching? Extend a crazy offer to DeGrom and pick up everybody else we possibly can. Oh Seager and Semien are both FA's?? Get them both! Most of the time this approach backfires in the long term, but often times in the short term too. They are just getting ridiculous performance from all of their acquisitions.