Everyone knows believing in jinxes is the cause of 95% of the losses while Mercury is in retrograde, some of the time.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/event_hr.fcgi?id=verlaju01&t=p Entering last night, 14 HR allowed -- 12 were solo, 2 were 2-run jobs. Add in last night's 3 solo HRs and it gets you to 19 runs on 17 HR allowed. So far, he's at 28 earned runs -- assuming all 19 of the runs allowed on the homers were earned, that gets you to a bit under 70%. For comparison -- he gave up 35 runs on 28 HR last year -- relative to his 60 ERs, that accounted for 60% of his runs.
Only a Houston fan would clamor for an electronic strike zone in the midst of a discussion of a replay regarding a tag at 2nd base. FWIW, I was on the electronic strike zone bandwagon before the Astros were even good again... the technology is there. Just a matter of appeasing an entire union (umpires) who's jobs will lose a level of importance, thus they will be expected to make less $$$.
MLB is ditching their current vendor for tracking the ball. I suspect the electronic strike zone is the reason.
Should the electronic strike zone stick to the traditional square box or should it be more of a circle eliminating the corners? Just something to consider moving forward.
The traditional called strike zone is much more circle than square. My biggest fear is that the electronic zone starts calling pitches on the corners of the box a strike as well as nasty breaking balls that barely cross a piece of the front or back of the plate that aren't called strikes very often. I'd guess they would shrink it instead of making it a circle. I just don't want more Ks.
I think this is one of the games we really missed having our stars in the lineup. Our shiny new toys are starting to wear off. Air Yordan struck out in some big moments, and Straw was exposed playing the infield. Still love our young guns, but get back soon guys!!
Did anyone catch Berkman's story about Dotel and the relievers in an extra inning game? Berkman: Octavio Dotel who is one of my all time favorite teammates. He was the leader of, sort of the bullpen guys. Of course you know in these games the bullpen guys they come in throw their one inning or maybe two innings at the most and then their night is over with and its all and you know they are just in there kind of caddillacing it. So i came in to try to get something to eat we were, it was late in the night and in the old pro player when you go into the visitors clubhouse you kinda had to, the food room was right when you walked in, you kinda had to walk around the corner to get to the rest of the clubhouse. So i walked in there to go to the food room and i heard this commotion in the corner of the clubhouse i couldn't see and i walk around and Octavio Dotel and all the relievers that had been in the game, were sitting around watching a movie and smoking Cuban cigars. They weren't even watching the game and i was like "are you guys dead serious? i mean we are trying to win a baseball game out here and y'all are having a fiesta [emphasis Berkman's] in the corner of the clubhouse during the extra inning game." They weren't even watching the game, I think they were watching Scarface or something like that and cracking up.
Last night was the Astros first loss this season when leading after 6 innings (37-1). Conversely, they've won 7 when trailing after six (7-18).
I wholeheartedly agree; love those guys. And I'm not even salty about the game; it's almost like the Brewers are a pretty damn good team or something. But I've got to say something pointless and nonserious, anyway, because it's the internet. It's my duty.
Im in favor of a hybrid system of umps and automatic strike zone similar to tennis. Every player gets a one appeal to see if the ball catches any part of the zone and if the player is correct he keeps his appeal until he gets it wrong. It wouldnt take anytime to show it on the big screen since theres already existing tech to show it, maybe an additional 10 secs. Plus it would be exciting from a fans standpoint to watch it in replay with the automated strike zone vis a vis a line call in tennis.
I guess that's one way to describe the AAAA guys.. I never saw it that way.. the only player called up recently that can be considered a shiny new toy is Alvarez... the rest are just bodies trying to keep the team afloat.
Astros gotta be on pace for the largest GIDP discrepancy in MLB history. Our offense constantly gets them, while our pitchers constantly do not.
Part of it is our batters get on base more than what our pitchers allow in base runners. JV and Cole strike out a lot of batters and induce a lot of fly balls. Astros may very well be near last in the league in inducing groundball outs; just due to the type of pitchers we have.
