A look at prospective Astro trade targets
The elephants not in the room:The Yanks’ and Astros’ Lineups
The 5 biggest concerns for the 2019 Astros
Josh Fields — The gift that keeps giving — Yordan Alvarez makes his MLB debut
What they said, what they meant – 2019 Astros
Thank you, Dallas Keuchel!
A look at the Astros’ (temporary) logjam in the outfield
Astros 2019: The path forward from injuries
Repeats abound in ChipalattAwards for May 2019
Will Alex Bregman ever hit .300 and does it matter?
How the heck can Gerrit Cole be the Astros #4 starter?
Dan P’s on the road today with his wife and youngest son in Fredericksburg. A bit of irony being here at the start of the Memorial Day weekend as Fredericksburg is the home to the very fine Nimitz Museum of the War in the Pacific. Admiral Nimitz was from here and was Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet during WWII.
Staring at the great starts of so many Astros this season, ranking them would seem to be a daunting task. Well, we love to be daunted here, so this is an attempt to rank the 2019 Houston Astros through the first month and a half of the season.
Coming out of an off-season where some free agent contracts had lots of zeroes in them and we are talking TONS of them, lets take a look at the positional player who has been the best (So Far) for his new team. For the moment we will call him Player X and we will look at his numbers against a bunch of the other top free agents signed this season. (All stats through Tuesday 5-14-19).
It seems weird to look at a player as accomplished as George Springer and wonder when or if he would ever get it all together.
Astro fans entered the 2019 season with the thought that the best additions to the club would be the return of a healthy Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve. While Correa seems back to his 2017 self (.297 BA/ .355 OBP/ .941 OPS with 9 HRs and 21 RBIs), Altuve is in the depths of a slump that except for one short 6 HR in 5 RBI binge has been bad.
The first ChipalattAwards for 2019 cover the four games played at Tampa in March, plus the 26 games played in April. Thus the Mapril awards. The Astros fell into a 4 1/2 game hole in the division after the first week but ended the month at 18-12 and one game ahead of the Mariners for the AL West lead and two games behind the Rays for the best record in the AL.
Work has been a jumbled mess this week with your faithful servant having to be downtown at 5:30 AM for teleconferences around the world. So my thoughts are jumbled up as much as work, so it is time for a bit of a brain dump.
No one could blame Houston Astros’ fans if they felt a little off balance Tuesday. After Monday night’s 0-for-4, Jose Altuve is hitting .248 on the season. If that seems a bit unusual, it is. Working backwards from 2018 back to 2011, Jose’s BA after 29 games played has been .351, .297, .330, .336, .289, .322, .348, .322. The sun comes up and Jose Altuve hits and hits for a high average.
