Hell of a night, it feels so good the next day when we win. 2 series wind against two great teams and great pitching, 4 out of the last 5, just friggin awesome. I love me some Jeremy Pena and reading what Nook said makes me feel even better about the kid. If we can stay consistent with the bats, and that's a big IF for any team then we can contend with the pitching we have.....................I am such a fickle fan, and the season is so long I will probably be back b****ing if we lose the next series LOL, but that's baseball baby Pena will get a gold glove if he keeps this up, the jump throws are a thing of beauty, and my boy can hit with the best of them
Agreed, some of the pitches he swings at I shake my head at and then takes one down the middle............WTF. Yordan seems to always be in a 0-2 situation...........his swing looks ok, but he looks out of sorts and that's being nice
Alvarez has looked loss. He is normally the predator making pitchers uncomfortable but this year, he seems to not know what pitches to swing at.
Hoping we can keep this going and get a solid 4 to 6 games over .500 at least - like this team a lot as they settle in.
I think in general it’s harder for LHP to be dominant, simply by considering the fact there are more RH bats.
I would agree but I will say lefties with great stuff are often dominant because hitters don’t see that often. If you’re a lefty throwing 97+ you’re probably going to be good. Can’t always say the same for right handed pitchers.
I didn't watch last night, but for most of the season, he's had a problem that his hard hit balls are right at defenders or elevated to deep center for outs more often than normal. I haven't paid attention too much to his plate discipline, but I guess two of those line drive outs turn into doubles and his 400-foot out to center clears the fence by 40 feet in right instead and his stats don't look hideous for the season. I'm much more concerned with Altuve striking out more, walking less, and hitting the ball weaker going forward than Alvarez hitting it right at them.
I think Paredes will get around 30 home runs this season. Tucker will have a great season, but I think the trade with the Cubs looks pretty good right now considering the circumstances. Smith, Paredes, and even Wesneski have all made positive contributions early on this season.
I don't think so either - basically Brown got everything he dreamed of getting for Tucker other than the minor league pitcher that he ended up getting in the Pressly deal anyway. People forget, the Astros wanted Paredes the year before and were talking to the Rays about getting him. He has filled the hole at third base, he is good enough defensively, takes lots of pitches to work the count and had pop. It is really too bad that the Astros were not able to get Yandy Diaz last season to fill the void at first and save money on Walker or not able to get Arenado this off season despite efforts several times. There are several players the Astros were possibly getting in that Cards deal that would really make the Astros stacked right now, but it would have cost Arrighetti.
That’s some of it. He’s also having shitty AB’s and missing pitches he shouldn’t. I think he’s inside his own head. it should be noted he’s not super streaky or anything as he’s pretty consistently really good with stretches of unpitchable but he has done this a couple other times in his career for a couple weeks/month.
Sort of - both were not high average guys that were still productive, I think that Paredes is more well rounded. Vinny Castilla is maybe (other than Bonds), the best fastball hitter I have ever seen. That was literally his entire hitting skill. Bonds was better because he only swung at fastballs in the strike zone. Vinny would purposely miss a fastball early in an at bat or game so that he would see another one, and it didn't matter how good the fastball was - he would absolutely crush it and the only thing keeping it from being a homer was if he was too far out in front of it and fouled it off. I saw him swing late on a Wagner fastball - then wait and absolutely club one around shoulder level into the upper deck.
We sure seem to like swinging at balls in the dirt. Seems like deciding to swing before the pitch thrown.
Both really took to the Crawford Boxes while manning 3rd for the local nine though. Talk about tailor made for this ballpark...
Maybe. I'd worry more that he thinks something is major wrong and he gets in head than continue with what he's doing.
Need a sweep to make up for that SF Series which was really our only terrible series. St Louis wasn't fun but Hunter bailed us out.
I think I remember the exact AB you're talking about...it was when Vinny was on the Braves after he had played here, and I'm pretty sure he was brought in to pinch hit when Wagner was trying to close it out. After Vinny homered the announcer said exactly what you brought up, "Well Castilla hits fastballs and that's why Cox brought him in to face Wagner."
