36-39 I wouldn't call very competitive. Not embarrassing to be sure. If the Rockets went 36-39 over 75 games, they would be considered a dismal failure. But context means a lot. And for this team, 36-39 over 75 games certainly trends in the right direction.
Define competitive. If you are talking about a playoff spot - you are definitely correct. If you are talking about playing good/better baseball and doing the things necessary to beat any team on any day - they have certainly been competitive over the past few months. Wouldn't you consider 36-39 over the past 75 games 'competitive'?
This article is the only one I could find pertaining to Fowler's return. Seems like it could be sooner rather than later.
Well, if you consider the fact that the Astros were 37-74 through 111 games last year and 36-75 at this exact same point in 2012.... yes, they've been more competitive, using bobrek's context.
I would certainly consider that stretch of play competitive. On the season however they're one of the worst teams in baseball even after this latest hot streak. One thing about this team is that it's been incredibly streaky. They will play like a legitimate .500 team for a while and then they'll look like the worst team you've ever seen. The lack of consistency I suppose is due to their youth and lack of depth as well as their reliance on home runs for offensive production.
It would have been fun to see how much better their record would have been had Albers been healthy all year and Crain come around in June as had been originally projected and their pitching results were similar to last year. Also, Fowler was playing well and while Springer has a ways to go, he has brought needed excitement and energy.
Competitive means winning games and series. To me they have been very competitive. We are 2 blown saves away from being 7-0 since the all-star break. And if we hadn't struggled so much out of the gate, near .500 baseball would have us potentially competing for a playoff spot.
This team's turnaround happened basically when Springer hit his first HR, If this team had called up Springer toward the end of last season and let him get his adjustment struggles out of the way, Springer would have hit the ground running this year and we wouldn't have started as poorly IMO. Plus we just gave 3 games away by starting Lucas Harrell. With the current roster, this team has very much been competitive, and the roster moving forward is all that matters.
Agreed. Part of the "anger", however, is for circumstances like the one you just mentioned above. Springer was purposely stashed for $$$ reasons, and they wasted 3 starts on Harrell for experimental reasons (which they are "allowed" to do because this team was expected to be bad).... both actions resulted in them putting a sub-par team on the field, a team that was not the "best possible team" given this organizations roster. Its not rocket-science... as they've improved the MLB talent via promotions and cutting dead-weight, they've gotten better. Fans aren't going to tolerate much more experimenting going forward... I think (hope) Luhnow and co. also see that and from here on out, will be trying to get the best possible roster out there based on the players in this system.
Yup! And obviously, that should completely cancel out the strides they've made as a team in the last three months.
That's just ol' cheap'ass Crane putting Castro/Carter/Springer/Dominguez/Singleton/Santana in the same lineup. Saves money on his air conditioning bill.
