http://www.baseballessential.com/ne...may-be-too-much-for-al-opponents-to-overcome/ Astros’ Starting Rotation May be Too Much for AL Opponents to Overcome
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/when-lance-mccullers-stops-mccullersing/ Thought this was interesting.
It is still weird having this great a pitching staff a season after having one of the greatest hitting seasons.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-continuing-evolution-of-justin-verlander/ Interesting article on Verlander Cliff Notes 1. Verlander is throwing from a higher arm slot that causes his fastball to rise more and breaking pitches to sink more. 2. As fastball rises more, he can throw it in the zone more often for strikes with no fear. 3. As he's throwing fastball in the zone more, he can throw breaking pitches in the dirt as they look like fastballs in the zone. 4. It sucks to face Verlander.
Speaking of best.... I was at Baseball Reference just combing the records over the years and got to 2000 and had totally forgot we only won 72 games that year, bookended by 93 and 97 win years. What happened? The pitching (lack of) is what happened. 1 guy, a relief pitcher had a ERA < 4.00. 1 Guy, and he wasn't ever a starter. That 2000 squad had a team ERA of 5.42 https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2000.shtml
They moved into Enron Field. The pitching staff, used to being in the Astrodome, couldn't adjust. Additionally, the fences were different when it first opened, with the yellow line in LCF being significantly lower than they are now. Scott Elarton was also overused by Dierker from the previous years as a bridge bullpen guy, and his arm started to fatigue. Mitch Melusky was a terrible person, let alone handler of a pitching staff. Jose Lima wasn't ever as good as his numbers suggested, but also fell apart mentally. Billy Wagner pitched hurt, didn't tell anybody, eventually needed surgery. The offense, on the other hand, was as good as its ever been. The team eventually adjusted to the ballpark, but you can definitely point to the lack of adjustment (along with the above factors) as a reason for a brief implosion.
Enron Field happened. Pitchers were completely mindf**ked by the Crawford Boxes. Pitchers were legit scared to throw strikes, and that mindf**king traveled with them on the road. The Coors field effect, when some pitchers join the Rockies their road numbers suffer greatly, for no good reason. Honestly I was legit worried we were the new Colorado despite the epic offense. Fortunately Oswalt brought his big nuts to Enron to show that you don't need to be scared to pitch your game, and we've pretty much been fine ever since.
As I said before, raising the LCF homerun line also helped. Re-acquiring Brad Ausmus to guide the staff also helped. Along with eventually stopping the practice of opening the roof mid-game. Oswalt's 2001 debut was electric... but Wade Miller actually beat him to the punch of showcasing elite Enron pitching early in the year.
Should also be mentioned, even though none of these guys were ever directly implicated, this was the absolute height of the PED era. Before anybody started to raise substantial concerns. The following year, where Bonds breaks the record, was also when people started speaking up. Then, it was all downhill from there.
Also, Biggio went on the DL for the first time in his career with a torn ACL sliding into 2nd...I believe it was against the Marlins.
But they could've moved Biggio to catcher, and Berkman back to 1B with Bagwell to 3rd (throwing left handed obviously).
