All series talk goes in here. Non series talk goes somewhere else. No PBP, that can be found from other sources if you need it. All games are broadcast on AT&T Sports SW unless otherwise noted. 5-8 Hunter Brown (R) vs. Patrick Sandoval (L) 8:38 5-9 Framber Valdez (L) vs. Shohei Ohtani (R) 8:38 MLBN (out-of-market only) 5-10 Cristian Javier (R) vs. Griffin Canning (R) 3:07
Hopefully some offensive reinforcements should join soon...because boy do we need them. At the very least we need to drop Abreu down. We have to do something to change it up a little, we can't just keep running him out there cleanup. Dubon too needs to move down.
Meyers has been the hottest hitter on the team in this muggy month of May. Jake haters in shambles rn.
To move someone down, someone has to be worthy of moving up and most of the lineup is terrible right now. I guess you could move Pena up to #1 and Tucker to #4. But then you're basically giving pitchers 2 innings off out of every 3 innings with an awful 5-9.
Tucker is probably the best overall option at leadoff, all things considered, but he also has value with men on base. A Tucker, Pena, Yordan, Bregman order would probably be just as productive as any other configuration they've had this year... and would still break up the lefties (which should mean very little based on how these guys hit lefties). Tucker/Yordan should be getting the most AB's possible per game, regardless of how it comes about.
Was anyone not happy with the Abreu signing at the time; especially after the horrible 2022 regular season Yuli had? There was no place for Yuli on this year's team. We don't like it, but there was no way that Maldy was not going to be the starter this year and for the first time in a long time the Astros have legitimate catching prospects. Diaz and Lee will be the catchers next year on minimum contracts and I'm good with that.
It's not that complicated relative to Abreu's production Bregman (has been terrible but still getting on base better than the scrubs) Pena Yordan Tucker Put Pena in between them if Dusty insists on separating them, or even Tucker leadoff would be fine. Frankly Meyers has been easily our 3rd best hitter (technically better than Tucker too) since he's been starting, even he would be a better top 4 option than Dubon and Abreu. Mixing in trash hitters with the good ones just to "break up the badness" is the exact opposite of what you want. Get your best option as many looks as possible. Pena and Meyers have been fine, they're just getting grouped in with all of the other guys not doing s**t.
The Astros won the next 6 in 2021 after that 18-17 record. I'll feel much better if the Astros win the next 7 to match the 2021 season record of 24-17.
17-17 is pretty good considering we can't hit, can't save games and make errors. Abreu this and that, but Bregman on top of the lineup has failed miserably. Need to win series, or we could be climbing Mt. Mutombo to finish the season.
The good news is we play very winnable series the rest of this month. Do we take advantage of that? IIIIIIIIIIIIIII don't know.
I'm hoping for: McCormick LF Pena SS Alvarez DH Bregman 3B Tucker RF Abreu 1B Meyers CF Diaz C Dubon 2B Obviously Abreu even further down or off today would be better but I just don't see it unless Brantley is active too. I do see Abreu sitting in Brantley's first game back though.
