I think there's only one team that would have the slight advantage over us in the playoffs and that's Phillies. They are the only team that can match us in the starting rotation (quality of starters + playoff experience), the bullpen is probably an advantage to us, but their lineup is definitely an advantage for them.
I wouldn't characterize the lineup as "good", I would characterize it as "sufficient". Heaven forbid our pitching would start to wobble and it would expose our lineup as being meh.
hindsight is 2020. nobody expected jabreu to crash and burn that quickly. most if not all of astros fans were happy with the signing. little did we know it set the team back quite a bit. just like anything else in life, you win some you lose some. most if not all astros fans were fuming when the kikuchi trade went down. look at where we at now. kikuchi played a major part of cutting the al west division division and now help building the lead.
yea. idk what talkin' yankees is talking about the lineup being "good". they only think/see it's good because the astros are winning. we astros watchers/fans know outside of the top 5 and maybe top 4, it's pretty pedestrian and bunch of rookies. like you mentioned, the offense is doing just enough to win games with the spectacular pitching support. if the pitching derail or cool down, this team will be avg. at best.
The season so far says different. We are the last team to qualify for the playoffs for the most part. We haven't matched up. There have been issues. Half of the lineup is an obvious flaw. We also can be out-aced in any series. So we can hope for a utopia in the playoffs, but I can't pretend we don't have red flags popping up everywhere.
Is their lineup an advantage to them? I’ll take Altuve, Tucker, Yordan, Bregman and Diaz over any other teams best five.
I would completely disagree that there are "red flags popping up everywhere" The lineup is not deep but that's an issue with the majority of teams. They compare favorably with most teams in most areas. No team is perfect.
Phillies OPS for the season is only 7 points higher than Houston's with Tucker missing 3 months and Jabreu playing 2 months. Healthy Astros lineup is definitely better. Phillies have scored 31 more runs, but again, Tucker and Jabreu (Chas can be added too). The latter 2 won't be playing in the playoffs.
After that bat flip on the ball he hit to CF the other day, bat flips are coming regardless of the outcome lol
