Philly has higher end hitters 1-4... after that, they can be pitched to. The Astros pitching should be able to do well. Framber being a lefty helps neutralize Schwarber/Harper. If the Astros end up getting into slug-fests (like the SD series ended up being), something would have gone pretty bad with our starting pitching.
As long as they don't have Max Scherzer and Steven Strassburgh ready to make 4 out of 7 starts... they should be taken very seriously as a "hot" team, but their biggest strength is direct opposite the Astros biggest strength.
the bottom of the lineup has tough outs like Segura and marsh. This team is easily better at the plate than the yankees and more dangerous than Seattle
Brandon Marsh? The one that the Astros know pretty well from the Angels? Not sure about "easily" better. They do have an elite 1-4. The Astros have elite pitching throughout. Will be entertaining but the Astros should be able to pitch to them and avoid the back/forth type games. In the end its hard to "hit" your way towards a World Series win... or any playoff series win.
yup. going to philly has given him a nice reset start. I'm not comparing them to the stros. Just in your response that seattle is the best team the stros are going to face. They aren't. you're also not including their #5 hitter Castellanos who is damn good
We shall see. Seattle is the only team that had the Astros virtually beat in game 1 and shut them down offensively for 17 innings. If JV was tipping his pitches, or they were just hitting the heck out of the ball (as they did vs. Toronto), who knows.. but they were formidable. As far as high end pitching, Castillo had the best stuff they're going to face... even better than Cole.... and the Astros also had the disadvantage of not having seen him. They've seen Nola most recently. Haven't faced Wheeler. They've seen Robertson. Rest of their bullpen is questionable.
Phillies great lineup scored many fewer runs than the Yankees. We have 4 starting pitchers with better ERAs than the Philly's aces.
well agree to disagree. Castillo gets overrated a ton for someone who has proven next to nothing especially in the postseason I think a lot of folks who haven't really seen Philly and underestimating them, are going to be surprised how good they are, especially now.
I'd beg to say that Altuve, Yordan, Bregman and Tucker are pretty elite themselves with Pena playing out of his mind and Yuli being our best average hitter so far in the playoffs. That's 1-5 for us that beats their 1-4 most days.
Hoskins in the top of the lineup with those other 4 are super dangerous. They also like playing small ball too and don't just swing for the fences
Phillies have the advantage at C, 1B, and LF. Astros have the advantage at 2B, SS, 3B, SP, and RP. RF, CF, and DH are about equal. SP and the bottom half of the lineup will determine the outcome. Astros should be favored but anything over -180 is a bad bet imho. Wheeler/JV Nola/Framber Suarez/Javier Thor/McCullers
Yankees were carried by Judge all year long, in a lot of ways it reminds me of the Rockets that Harden carried, but when you shut him down (or he shuts himself down in the postseason), the offense becomes very mediocre. Regular season stats don't matter. The Phillies offense that we are going to face is way better than the Yankees offense that we faced, runs scored be damned.
Taking nothing for granted, we are the better team on paper. However, even though this will be played on grass, the better team will win…
The Phillies offense is solid, but they were just white hot the last 2 weeks. Harper and Realmuto are great. Schwarber and Hoskins are solid, but they also strike out a metric ton just like the Yankee hitters we eviscerated. This isn't murderers row. The Astros are a far better team if we were playing an extended stretch, but we're not, it's 7 games. They can certainly be better than us for 7 games without a miracle.
Has anyone talked about how the Phillies are butchers in the field, it will probably cost them runs/a game, while the Astros are elite at that part of the game? There really isn't anything they do better than us, or even really as good as us. That doesn't mean we will beat them 4/7 b/c "baseball" (this is the same Astros team that went 1-5 against Oakland in a 6 game stretch), but we damn sure should be the favorites. I've always liked Philly, as the 93 team was fun, they never really won anything or hurt us, then we sent a lot of players to them on a team that won the WS so I kind of lived vicariously through that, and b/c **** the Braves and Mets who are in their division. So, good luck to them in the future but get off the tracks right now b/c the big orange freight train is headed your direction Phightin Phils
In terms of offense, I would take Judge/Stanton/Rizzo/Torres any day over Harper/Realmuto/Schwarber/Hoskins. Phillies only have three players total to put up at least 3 WAR this season. The Phillies are probably one of the 10 best teams in the league but they aren't the 2019 Nats or whatever were they've been on fire after a very slow start. You could replace the Phillies with the Baltimore Orioles or the Oakland As and the Astros still lose 2-4 times if the WS was played ten times between the teams. Does that prove anything about the abilities of the Orioles or As?
The Phillies offense of this week isn't necessarily the Phillies offense of last week either. Maybe the Phillies win. Maybe the Astros do. That's baseball. But if they played a 100 game series without injuries, the Astros would win a majority of those games. People just like to be scared of things for some reason.
The Astros OF is better than the Philles OF Chas > Marsh Alvarez > whatever Philly is playing the postion opposite him (likely LF). Tucker > Castellanos I'd give Harper a big edge at DH though over Mancini/Diaz (assuming ALvarez in LF).
