I see the other guys scored a couple touchdowns after I went to bed. The patchwork brigade had to fall apart eventually.
I never realized how much I miss seeing Altuve in this lineup. Watching the clip of him running the bases before the game brought back the feels.
Man 6,7,8,9,1 of the line up is TURRRIBLE. If I am a pitcher I am just not going to let 2,3 and 5 kill me.... the rest is easy. Verlander has given up 22 runs this season....... he has given up 14 home runs..... so outside of homers his era is like .80
Not getting the need to play Mayfield. I think he’s clearly shown what he is. Straw actually has far more upside. Also let’s hope this is Whites last game in an Astro uniform
I feel like Josh James' ERA belies his actual pitching ability, and that's boosting that "rest of bullpen" ERA. James actually looks pretty good; they just always leave him out there too long. Even I, as a fan, have a gut feeling when he's crossing over into "hittable James" territory, and the poor guy's ERA has been massively inflated by some unfortunate games where he should have been pulled a couple batters earlier. Yeah, he's got to work on his longevity in games, but it sure can't help his confidence when he has two excellent innings and then gives up a grand slam in a third inning where he shouldn't have been out there. McHugh, once healthy, will hopefully return to his bullpen form of last year and start edging down that "rest of bullpen" ERA. Devo's had six appearances in a row without an earned run. Rondon's been surprisingly solid. Really, the bullpen is still quite good. In fact, what, it's one of the best in the majors if not the best last time they put it up on screen. Guduan's been a problem since last year; I hope this little experiment is short lived. Rodgers I haven't seen much of. I saw a good inning two nights ago, and I saw his first inning last night. The bullpen is just taxed, but I think Framber will put up some decent innings as a starter and start to let it rest some more. The Corbin experiment really did take its toll but was necessary, and the bats are drying up, but hopefully, the Houston Injuros will start to be over soon.
Fisher and Kemp have an OPS north of .840 over the last 7 days. https://www.espn.com/mlb/team/stats/_/name/hou/split/61/table/batting/sort/OPS/dir/desc
I'm still hoping they try to add another high quality reliever at the deadline (if the price is right).
That or a starter. There is definitely this cyclical bump in the pitching road that's going to keep showing up if they lose innings pitched in the rotation or they don't have relievers that can put in a couple innings at a time. And the bats have got to do their job as well. It's all ties back to pitching I'm realizing as I get older. When you can rest your 7-8-9 guys because the bats made it not a save situation, that's a very nice thing for the entire team. The great thing is that the Astros have the bats in the wings just waiting to come back from the IL. We're not stuck with this situation inherently like a lot of teams.
Excluding starters who pitched after an opener, James is second among all relievers in pitches thrown (1st in last 30 days). If the Astros want longevity, they need to give him more rest between relief outings.
I think things were rough enough in the field for him that they just wanted to have an actual infielder back in there for now. His throws were generally to the left, and there are maybe a couple plays a better infielder could have made. Gotta give the guy mad props for even attempting it. Learning major league shortstop in situ, especially with all the shifts nowadays. That would make me barf, and I play shortstop.
