The Astros starting pitching has been insanely good. The offense has been like a giant suddenly awoken. The bullpen is a bit of a lightly tested question mark. But the Astros are a solid 14-7 heading into Saturday night and a lot is right with the baseball world.
So, it seemed like a good time to throw out some random Astro related thoughts on this early season weekend.
How are you doing Mad Dog?
It seems like ancient history, but it was a little more than 2 months ago that Mad Dog Russo called the Yankees the team to beat in the American League. Maybe he meant the team to beat on. OK, I am breaking my own rule about how meaningless the early season games are, but I do take some satisfaction with the Yankees being third in their division 7.5 games back of the soaring Red Sox.
Maybe spending money is the way to go….in one case
Speaking of the Red Sox……
http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/
Well at least this is working out for the Sox so far as they have the most money committed and a 17-2 record to show for it. The Giants, Cubs, Nats and Dodgers have spent a ton and have records at or below the .500 mark so far.
By the way raise your hand if you knew the Yanks were in the 7th spot in spending and only $10 million more than our Astros.
The curse
Ever since the Astros have moved to the AL, they have never had really good DH numbers and often they have had really crappy DH numbers.
2018 – .213 BA / .273 OBP / .573 OPS / 0 HR / 11 RBIs
2017 – .226 / .284 / .671 / 19 HR / 71 RBIs
2016 – .223 / .304 / .696 / 19 HR / 62 RBIs
2015 – .244 / .291 / .743 / 27 HR / 92 RBIs
2014 – .246 / .317 / .817 / 38 HR / 92 RBIs
2013 – .199 / .276 / .615 / 16 HR / 59 RBIs
Not exactly Big Papi stuff. 2014 was probably the only year that could be considered acceptable for someone whose sole purpose is to hit.
So, do we need some kind of curse remover? Burn Bud Selig at the stake? OK, maybe just hang his image in effigy. But we sure could use someone to grab that job and run with it.
Jake and Derek
Jake Marisnick‘s slash so far this season is .120 BA / .120 OBP / .360 OPS and striking out in 54% of his ABs. Derek Fisher has a slightly more robust .139 BA / .179 OBP / .457 OPS and is striking out 47% of the time. Basically, every game the Astros are like a NL team with the equivalent of a pitcher at the end of the lineup….except the AL opponents have a 9th real hitter there.
What to do? Well, they surely don’t have to do anything as they are piling up the runs lately and the wins without help from these two guys. But for these guys psyches’ sake maybe they need a little AAA vacation. They could bring J.D. Davis (.429 BA/.484 OBP / 1.198 OPS), who was just starting to hit when sent down, back up. Or Tony Kemp (.339 BA/.459 OBP/ .883 OPS). Or Tyler White (.317 / .417 / 1.033). Or hot OF Drew Ferguson ( .344 / .444 / .985). They would use Marwin Gonzalez to work around whoever they brought up. They would probably not bring Kyle Tucker up who is slumping a bit after a hot start at AAA.
So….
- Your feelings on Mad Dog?
- Spending big money?
- The curse?
- Jake and Derek?
- Anything else you’d like to talk about?
CHIPALATTA 
What a way to lose a game. 2 on nobody out, 2 K’s and a caught stealing. So much for optimism. Tough break for Cole.
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Just for the record, I researched all the archives today. Not one time was I wrong in any comment. And the jury is still out on the hitting of Brett Wallace.
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Note to self – do not hire ac45 to perform objective research for the blog…..
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45. that’s why I take your advice in all things.
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And has any team ever hired 6 pitchers for batting practice and they were all left-handed. If never, now is the time.
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So bizarre to have a right centric lineup that struggles against leftys
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Agree with that. What is it with us and lefty’s. And if no one else noticed, we’re seeing lots of sliders, curve balls, and change ups. A lot less fastballs. Didn’t we have at least 2 on 3 different times last night and got zilch out of it. And just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water. Hopefully, just a blip on the radar screen.
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Zero and thirty.
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Hey folks – the rumor is that the other team gets paid too. Your not going to win them all.
It seems that if we don’t jump on the first ball fastball we may not see too many in the zone after that.
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It’s odd, during my morning drive today I was thinking about how we’re on pace to win over 100 games, but right now it feels like more of a .500 pace…especially if you read certain comments out there on less sophisticated blogs. The problem is that from our eight losses we had a no-show against Fister, a no-show against the Padres, a no-show against the Angels, two losses in Minnesota of which one was a no-show and the other featured a disastrous inning, and a coulpe losses to that other team in the silver boot series in extra frames. I think those all feel more impactful than a simple loss.
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Right Dan , but frustrating that the hitting (lack there of) has lost us 4 games where we lost by 1 or 2 runs. And the wins that we won when scoring 3 or less (4). Glad we have great starting pitching or the outlook would be somewhat less favorable.
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Don’t expect to win them all but the bottom of the ninth last night looked a lot like 2013.
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