Down 2-1 and really honestly probably hopeless. This is on Crane/Click for doing nothing to reinforce the starting pitching this year (not counting Odorizii). It's a simple (and expensive) off season fix. Sign CC, who cares if we suck at the back end of the deal and go get some legit starters to augment these young guys. The lineup is too fvcking good to not do this and get one more title.
Crazy thing is, as bad as we have looked, win today and the series is 2-2. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Astro playoff team look this bad in the postseason for 2 games.
Cora gonna Cora? Spoiler But Strom was full of brave talk after Monday night’s debacle, and he even offered an interesting theory as to why the Astros’ pitching might be coming apart. Could it be that the Astros pitchers are unknowingly revealing the types of pitches they are about to throw, and the Boston hitters are figuring out what is coming? Strom, mind you, was not suggesting the Red Sox were doing anything illegal through electronic means, something both these teams have been guilty of in the past. Rather, he was pointing to the Red Sox’s acumen at detecting anything opponents might be doing to tip pitches — old-fashioned inside baseball, the perfectly legal kind. “This is a very good hitting team, and they’re very adept at picking up little things, much more so than most teams,” Strom said. “We need to be very cognizant of the little things, tipping-type things, things like that, that they’re very astute at. We’ve just gotten behind hitters. “We have to re-evaluate and see if they’re seeing things that are maybe tipping the scales a little bit in their favor. These are veteran (hitters). And of course, they have the ultimate guy (Alex Cora) as their manager, who … he’s just very good at it. We just have to do a better job of watching what our pitchers do and getting ahead in the count.” Cora was the Astros’ bench coach in 2017, working alongside Strom. Even in his playing days, he had the reputation of being a next-level baseball mind. And his legend is only growing now that his postseason record is 17-5, the most wins ever by a manager in his first 22 playoff games, according to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs. Strom said his belief the Astros might be tipping is based more on the pitches the Red Sox are laying off than the swings they are getting. On the other hand, it’s also possible the Astros are just pitching poorly, and that Cora and his players are inside Strom’s head. “If they have our pitches, we’ve got to do a better job. I don’t think they do,” Astros shortstop Carlos Correa said. “It’s fun to watch as a fan of the sport, see how everybody in the lineup has the same approach. They’re not chasing. They’re staying in the zone. They’re not swinging at borderline pitches. It’s beautiful what they’re doing. We’ve got to find a way to throw more strikes and keep the ball in the ballpark.” Strom is correct about the Astros’ pitchers falling behind in counts. According to STATS Perform, the first-pitch strike percentage of their starting pitchers in this series is 37.8 percent, well below their average of 58.4 percent during the regular season and the major-league average of 62.9 percent in the postseason. The ALCS sample obviously is small — the three Astros’ starters have combined to pitch just 5 1/3 innings, in part because Luis Garcia left Game 2 after one inning due to right-knee discomfort. But the starters likely would be lasting longer if they were doing a better job getting ahead.
Correa isn't resigning here. I do agree they need to go after at least one top end starting pitcher. Marcus Stroman would be interesting.
Yep. Unless run differential now is counted into the series outcome, this series is still right there for the taking. That being said, the Astros have not looked this bad in back to back games all season… and even though I’m sure its happened since 2017, these have been close to unprecedented explosions against them. Over a long season, easily recoverable. In a short series… anything can happen. The Red Sox were demoralized over getting swept over 6 games by the Yankees… and that was just a little over a months ago… and look at them now.
If that’s what is causing them to walk guys every inning… should be fairly straightforward to track as far as how many strikes the opposition is watching vs. swinging at, compared to their yearly numbers and those pitchers’ yearly numbers on swing/miss rates on balls in the zone. If only there were super computers with algorithms designed to basically alarm whenever outliers happened at a rate that suggests a true reason for the anomaly (ie - tipping pitches).
So Greinke is starting tonight and his career ERA at Fenway is over 10. Over under on 1.5 grand slams tonight?
Good thing professional athletes don’t get to professional athletes by quitting at any sign of adversity.
3 Grand Slams in two games is just flukey. Turn the page and move forward. Win today and we are even 2-2 and hold the homefield advantage. This series remains very winnable!
Schrodinger's cat The Astros are both 2-2 in this series with a lot of hope after winning a Greinke start and 1-3 with this board on suicide watch.
Hmm. Well, that's not ideal. I'll take the under. Only 1 grand slam tonight (And it'll be by the ASTROS!).
I know our pitching has been terrible, believe me I know… But I know I can’t be the only one thinking that something just seems a little off as to how Boston has basically become the 1927 Yankees. Kike has been putting up Ted Williams type numbers… JD Martinez.. I mean JD wasn’t even on the ALDS roster!! Now he’s back hitting homers and doubles effortlessly? I know JD is a vet but cmon. I know we have our demons from 2017 and that will always haunt us. So yeah you can say “oh come on suck it up we have no room to talk, the Astros are just getting smacked” But idk man something just feels off. Boston isn’t chasing at ANYTHING. I wish I could see their yearly swing/chase rates in the regular season vs now. I’m not crying, and like I said I know our pitching has been bad, but we’re not THIS BAD.
IF it's proven Boston is cheating, then the media will applaud them for "sticking it to the evil Astros"
Yeah I was salty yesterday, Cora doesn't have to be cheating and it could just be that they are capitalizing on our mistakes. When we had Beltran and Cora working for us we were very good at picking up little things pitchers did and now maybe that's just working against us now but that 37.8 percent is just shocking and for Strom to believe we might be tipping pitches kind of tells you right there that the Astros pitching staff feels we aren't this bad.
Every starter we have needed to step up and perform in Lance's absence has failed. Is it up to Grienke to break that streak, but man I can't say I feel good about it. We are in trouble.
I don't think this is that hard to explain. The Red Sox are a very good hitting team that also happens to be seeing the ball well right now. They also put up lots of runs against the Yankees and Rays. Astros pitchers are young and pitched a lot more innings than last season (even though no one pitched more than 160). They are getting behind in counts and walking people. That forces them to throw pitches in the strike zone in bad counts with men on base. You can't do that against good hitting. They've also been a little unfortunate with some bloop hits, fielding mistakes, etc. which hasn't helped (though that's not the major issue). The grand slams are a bit flukey, but they are going to give up a lot of runs pitching like this whether they are tipping pitches or not.
