Ranking the 2019 Astros 1-25
Looking at Player X the best positional free agent signed for 2019
Is This “THE” Year for George Springer?
Ranking those off-season Astros’ additions
Verlander, Springer lead ChipalattAwards for Mapril 2019
Musings, thoughts and questions about the 2019 Astros
Did home run madness screw up Jose Altuve?
Revisiting the top 3 teams in the American League
The week of April 15 through April 21 in review.
The Astros roared into this week on a 9 game winning streak that they immediately stretched to a 10 game win streak with a 9-1 bashing of the Oakland A’s, which pulled them into a 1/2 game lead in the division for the first time this season.
In 2018, two of the top five pitchers in the American League were the two best pitchers in the Astros’ rotation: Ace 1 Justin Verlander and Ace 2 Gerrit Cole. A half step behind these two lurked Charlie Morton, who would have been the ace on the 12 AL teams not named the Rays, the Indians and the Astros.
The week of April 8 through April 14 in review.
Starting last week, the Astros had just finished taking out the broom in their sweep of the A’s that brought them back to the .500 level. Well, the broom got plenty of work last week as the Astros swept both the Yankees at home and the M’s on the road.
The idea of a big series in early to mid-April just seems counterintuitive. Can a series this early tell you anything about how a season is going to turn out? The Seattle Mariners are the hottest and best team in baseball right now at 12-2. If they beat up on the Astros this weekend at home, the Astros may never recover, right?
The week of 4-1 through 4-7 in review.
The week before, the Astros stumbled out of the gate with a 1-3 road stop in Tampa. They then moved on to Arlington at the beginning of the week and further dug a hole by going 1-2 against the Rangers.
Today we return to a fabulous Chipalatta tradition of Free Blog Weekend. You can take the discussion anywhere you want as long as it is respectful and has some ties to the Astros or baseball.
At the beginning of any season, wins and especially losses are magnified just like batting averages (.000 for Aledmys Diaz and Max Stassi or .462 for Josh Reddick) might be slightly unsustainable. It is easy to micro-analyze every outing, every at bat, every failure and start looking for call-ups, releases, trades, Dallas Keuchel signings or divine intervention. Here are 10 reasons not to panic (yet) about the Astros 2-4 start to the season and the cliché “It’s early” will not be used.
The week of 3-25 through 3-31 in review
The Astros began the season with a very solid 5-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. Justin Verlander struggled early and then shut the door as did the two-headed end of the bullpen Ryan Pressly and Roberto Osuna. Home runs from George Springer, Michael Brantley and Jose Altuve accounted for all the offense and the Astros were off and running. The final three games of the series played out a little differently, but each resulted in an ugly low scoring loss, 4-2, 3-1 and 3-1.
