If you look at it pitch by pitch it’s clear (similar to his previous 2 starts) his curve is money and almost nothing bad happens when he throws it, his slider and changeup have mixed results, and his fastball is trash and almost nothing good happens when he throws it. Unless something in that changes, his start today (getting a bunch of K’s but always at risk of running up pitch counts and leaving a fb in the zone or hanging a slider and getting clobbered) is his best case scenario in terms of results. It’s totally possible he improves his changeup and is able to get a lot more efficient. But as he stands he’s gonna get be at risk to get rocked against good hitters and he’s not gonna go more than 5 innings be the often.
Agreed. They are probably pretty similar. You want them to hold the runs to 3 and if that’s 3.2 innings or 4.1 innings so be it.
[narrator voice] It was not. Lance pitched a heck of a game for a guy making his 4th? start in 3? years
Arm injuries. I recall the guy several years ago that was throwing triple digits in AAA with a curveball that guys would miss by 6 inches plus. He was unhittable in the minors.
Yeah I can't roll with Esteves who is a career 4.09 era and an era and K/9 ratio worse than Hader this season.
not sure if Lance can stay healthy for long but damn it’s nice to see him rounding into form and getting comfortable again on the mound. Not easy coming back after all the missed time. He’s still got that nasty stuff and you can tell he really wants to contribute to the team. He doesn’t care about getting paid again, he wants to make good. That could be a dangerous weapon for the Astros.
Astros on pace for 88 wins but have the softest part of their schedule ahead of them in June and should get better at the deadline. Astros need to make some hay now. They should shoot to be 50-34 at the end of June, which means going 20-9 between now and 6/30. Big ask but that is where they’d ideally be if they are gonna cruise to the division.
I remember his first couple years he was sitting 97-98 with his fastball. When he was initially in with the Hooks, I also recall reading reports of him easily hitting 100 in the minors.
I spoke to someone I know that works on Crawford about what is going on with the team as far as the rest of this season. He said that they haven't ruled out a soft rebuild or a strong deadline push - that the circumstances will dictate it more than prior seasons. Said that if the Astros look like they can win in the post season that they will target a pitcher, but it will likely be more of an innings eater. They also are really interested in a left-handed bat. Other issue discussed is the farm system - that Brown and the farm director both are concerned about holes in the farm system, that at some spots there are just a lack of viable players for the Astros. That they would both like to add low level talent into the organization, and are spending a lot of time scouting low level prospects in other organizations to target as secondary pieces in larger deals.
You can just look at the AA roster and see how glaring the lack of talent is there. Half their everyday lineup is guys who were released by other teams who don’t even have great farms themselves. Injuries are responsible for some of that but overall it’s an unacceptable hole in the system. Troubling that they are that worried about it but pretty flippantly threw away 2 draft picks to overpay Walker in a year where a soft rebuild is on the table. Not great planning. That said, not much has changed in my eyes since the beginning of the season, and May was a good month for the development of some of their hitters. Overall they have very good pitching and OF prospects, and adequate catching prospects, but their infield is bottom of the barrel. I want the Astros to run away with the division because I think their lineup is deep enough to combine with their bullpen and top 2 SP to make a run.
