Top 10 reasons the Astros can repeat

It has been a long time, almost a quarter of a century, since the last time a team was a repeat champion in major league baseball. The Yankees (Spit!!) won the title in 1998 against the Padres, repeated in 1999 against the Braves, and felt so good about it – took the trifecta against the Mets in 2000. The Yanks (Spit!!) were only stopped by Luis Gonzalez, and his bloop single to center that helped the D’Backs beat Mariano Rivera and the Yanks in the 2001 seventh game.

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Astros 2023: Now what?

Rightly or wrongly, there were always two good arguments about why the Astros could survive after letting Justin Verlander go to the highest bidder.

1) The Astros had a lot of starting pitching depth with Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Lance McCullers Jr., Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, and Hunter Brown.

2) The Astros’ offense would pick up some of the slack with the addition of Jose Abreu’s big bat and the return of Michael Brantley, who only played 64 games in 2022. Hey, and Jeremy Pena, who excelled in the playoffs, would bring more juice in his second season in the majors.

So, how is that working for the Astros?

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Astros 2023: Crisis mode?

On the drive into work Tuesday morning, there was quite a bit of discussion on the Astros’ starting pitching situation based on Lance McCullers Jr.’s wonky elbow and Hunter Brown and his healthy elbow playing the role of the Pitching Stud Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Sean Pendergast on 610 AM had apparently tweeted something on this subject that it was a bit of a crisis situation for the Astros. Undoubtedly, it was a problem, but his broadcasting partner Seth Payne said maybe it was a hurdle rather than a crisis.

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