In June (through yesterday) the Astros have a 100 wrc+ and are 16th in run scores. So basically average offense. The starting pitching has had one of its worst months. They have an 5.81 ERA and given up the second most runs. The bullpen has a 2.68 ERA which is fourth best. Basically starting pitching is as bad as it’s been and we haven’t been getting that many good starts. Some implosions are skewing the ERA a bit but the starting pitching has been really inconsistent still. The Astros are winning because the bullpen has turned it around and the offense has been middle of the pack.
Agree with most of this but it’s not “some implosions”…it’s been a lot of them. Luckily they have mixed in a lot of really good starts in between the implosions and we have won pretty much all of those games because of the bullpen and just enough offense.
i don't even remember what happened in 24 or 25 lol so many injuries. so many call ups and send downs. hell, they even tried to call up forrest whitley thinking he'll provide something but dude couldn't do jack
May happened also, and we had a winning record. On April 21st our team starting ERA was 6.19 and our starting ERA since is 4.64. There have been some isolated meltdowns, but all in all our starting pitching has been significantly better since the complete non competitive start. I got the vague idea of when the turnaround happened wrong, but the starting was an absolute disaster the first few weeks. It was also so terrible it forced us to use a bunch of AAA scrubs out of the pen who were equally terrible. As for OPS the team was 2nd in baseball on April 12th at .823 and has been 27th at .699 since. It certainly has been better in June though. As for why we're winning, well winning almost all close games and losing blowouts without scoring is not sustainable, but that's what we're doing the last 3 weeks. We're 10-5 despite being outscored 65-71.
Blanco is already on rehab so he will be back in July. Current expected return for all injured players: Allen: early July Javier: early July Shewmake: mid July Wade: mid July McCullers Jr: late July Blanco: late July Wesneski: mid August Correa: 2027 opening day Sousa: 2027 Walter: 2027
I’d say the astros are winning bc their starting pitching has basically been good but hiding behind bad numbers bc when these guys are uncompetitive they are really uncompetitive. i/d rather have a 6 era bc my guys gave up 0,2,1,3,9 in a 5 game set bc with a good bullpen you are probably 4-1 or 3-2, whereas if you go 4.1 innings and give up 3 runs every game you probably are 1-4 or 2-3.
So if the Astros pull into a tie for 1st in the division, when is it socially acceptable to start talking about getting the bye for the division winner with the 2nd best record?
I have very low expectations of all of the pitchers. I am bummed Wade got hurt and bummed he’s not coming back sooner; Astros needed to get a better look at him ahead of the deadline to get a clearer assessment of their OF situation.
We were all there last year when they were 20 games above .500 and 7 games up on 7/6, having just swept the Dodgers in LA. Maybe this season will commence in reverse?
I have never seen anyone sweat as much as him. It's offputting. But if he gets the job done i'm down. what scares me about him is he is 32 Dominican Years old. I suspect that translates to like 35 in American years.
I assume there will be fewer sellers at the deadline with the expanded playoffs and the weak AL, where anything near 500 gives you a shot at the playoffs.
It feels like every year the .450 win percentage teams have the advantage on selling. They can hold and see what happens or sell at a high price depending on the ask. Teams at the bottom most likely don't have much to sell off and teams at the top may elect not to pay the demand. Teams around .500 or above are the ones needing extra players and most likely will get burnt in the process (or hope they can buy low on an aging or injured player that another team wants off their books and he turns it around). It's difficult to buy at the deadline anymore without overpaying drastically and risking your future, but there's always a team willing to do so for that one year window.
CERA is far from a perfect stat, but Stros pitchers are over a run better with Vazquez behind the plate. I'm sure it's on the internet somewhere I can't find, but I'd love to see the breakdown of each guy by individual pitcher, just to see if something jumps out as skewing the stat.
There was one game I remember where he was absolutely drenched in the 1st inning, and it wasn't an especially long or stressful 1st inning. And it was an early season night game at MMP with the roof closed.
Agree with this. I will say this year some of the teams that currently look like sellers have several really good players that would be available though. Mets, Giants, Royals and Tigers all look like for sure sellers. Red Sox were looking that way but just swept the Yankees in a 4 game series so we’ll see with them.
Astros and Royals have been talking a lot recently. Astros reached out to Orioles but were told not now. Mets and Giants are wanting too much back right now for their players.
