At least the Red Sox loss, but the Guardians look primed to take a Wild Card spot with how they are playing. Ideally we take the series against the Mariners and then coast the rest of the way against the A's and Angels. We should have a strong shot of getting a 1st round bye if we take 2 against the M's.
The Astros need to worry about winning their own god damn games and not what Seattle or anyone else does.
TRad3e hiM!!!….mOAr pRosPeCTs!!! (Certainly better than 2+ more seasons of elite gold glove/silver-slugger/all-star SS play).
Ugh, yeah that’s on me for forgetting about Greinke, especially considering I still b**** about Hinch pulling him. Urquidy was a rookie and had pitched minimal innings in his career at that time, point stands.
Idk about that. There’s a 116 win team that didn’t even win the pennant. Baseball has a long long history and tons of great teams that got bounced in the playoffs.
We all saw what happened when the team thought decent firstbasemen with defensive skills grow on money trees.
Compare those teams head to head. All metrics. the 2019 Astros possess/rank amongst the greatest teams in baseball history in many of the key performance indicators.
They do I just meant that I don’t think you can unequivocally call them the best MLB team to not win it all. Honestly the 2018 team was so good at preventing runs and still had a good offense they would be up there too.
I’d say the 2018 and 2019 teams were better than the two teams that ultimately won the WS. The 2018 had better pitching depth, but the 2019 team had a ridiculously good offense. In terms of overall WAR the 2019 team was better and the best of this recent run by a significant margin.
I get that, the WAR and metrics and all that. I still contend that the pitching was extremely top heavy in 2019. They still should have won. Idk though, I firmly believe that the 2022 Astros had possibly the best and deepest pitching staff we seen in modern baseball. Even the 2018 team, which had a 5 really good starters, didn’t have the absolute embarrassment of riches in the bullpen. And the 2022 staff was so deep, Luis Garcia could barely get on the field in the playoffs, and when he did, he went five scoreless in extra innings to help close out the Mariners. And the 2022 was just so resilient, machine like. Give up five homers and then back that up with an absolute **** you no hitter, then give up 2 runs and 1 run. It must have been absolute hell for opposing fans to watch helplessly as their team had almost no chance once the game got late. The 2022 Astros just didn’t lose games when they had a lead after 6 innings.
I agree 2019 was top heavy pitching but had the an insane position player mix and still very good pitching. The pitching bWAR of 2022 was 23.7. 2018 was 28.3 and 2019 was 23.0. 2019 and 2022 pitching staffs were similar and more top heavy. The 2019 team had 45.1 position player bWAR. 2018 was 29.4 and 2022 was 30.8. That’s 50% difference! The average WAR for a 1-9 lineup the 2019 team was rolling out was basically 5. The overall OPS+ was 120. There were 7 regulars with an OPs over .850.
Like the 2019 rotation would only be outclassed by the 90s Braves rotation... and the 4th and 5th starters outclassed theirs... not exactly "top heavy". Wade Miley faded (when the opioids faded) but was really, really good the first half. Urquidy and McHugh had great 2nd halfs... Aaron Sanchez randomly got a no hitter... Armenteros was solid in his cameo. The bullpen was solid all around with Harris, Smith, Rondon, Pressly, and Osuna... and Devenski could still show flashes... and Abreu was ultra dominant in his limited stints. That is what made that pitching staff 3 levels better than the Maddux/Smoltz/Glavine Braves and light years better than the 2005 Astros pitching staff.
Yeesh Morton only lasted 1.1 innings for the Tigers. They're down 0-6 in the 4th inning and are on their way to be tied with us in the loss column.
