Astros Playoffs 2018: Mission difficult, not impossible

We’ve all seen those movies where Harrison Ford or Tom Cruise battle through an impossible labyrinth of obstacles to defuse the bomb with one second left. Or were they being taken up into heaven by an alien race? I’m getting my L Ron Hubbard books mixed up. But the point being is that the Astros’ job is much easier than those type heroics, but unfortunately non-fiction.

The plus side is that the Astros’ task after a disheartening 8-2 loss Tuesday is the same as it was Sunday. Win two at home and then win one of two in Boston.

That task is now more difficult (but not impossible) after a Gilesian meltdown by Roberto Osuna in a non-save situation during a 5 run Red Sox eighth inning. Luckily the failure did not include Osuna either punching himself in the face or calling his manager some kind of fire truck.

In their most critical game to date, they turn to a familiar playoff face, Charlie Morton. Yes, Good Time Charlie who won not one, but two game sevens during the 2018 World Series run. Wednesday, they will not expect Morton to last long enough to earn a win this time around considering he has only thrown four innings since mid-September, three of which came Sept. 30th almost three weeks ago. Will this be another Morton/McCullers tandem job?

The bottom line is that to have a reasonable shot to return to the World Series, the Astros need to win the next two at home and Game 4 may be a desperation all hands on deck kind of day.

It would not hurt anyone’s feelings if the Astros offense showed up against Rick Porcello and the Red Sox bullpen. It has been a rough go lately as the Red Sox mostly pitch around Alex Bregman and dare Yuli Gurriel to do something. Jose Altuve is gamely tromping on with one bum knee and Carlos Correa continues in power outage mode. The Astros’ catchers are bringing little to the table, Josh Reddick has slid back to his 2017 playoff self, Tyler White and Evan Gattis are not hitting and Marwin Gonzalez seems to be the most clutch hitter they have besides Bregman.

The Astros face two almost must-have games in Games 4 and 5 so that they don’t have to go home after Game 5 or go to Boston needing two wins. The plus side is they have Justin Verlander waiting in the wings for Game 5 and Gerrit Cole waiting to vindicate himself in Game 6. But that is way off in the future. Game 4 is the game they need and must have first.

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211 responses to “Astros Playoffs 2018: Mission difficult, not impossible”

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  5. You are tough Zanuda – too bad it was not closer to the stands where we could have called fan interference and given him the catch without him catching it.
    I think James hurt himself covering 1st base – they should have checked on him – he gave up three near home runs in a row after that

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    • With a 100mph fast ball, he continually throws a change up. I question the pitch selection. I am fastly becoming an anti-Maldonado fan.

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  6. 3 least favorite teams in baseball… the Rangers, the Phillies, and the Red Sox (I’m a Yankees fan). I could stand us getting eliminated by any other team.
    Come on guys, let’s DO THIS

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  15. Well, I woke up to the final score. A line out by Bregman with two outs and the bases juiced made it that much more frustrating.

    Several others have already noted reality. We’re losing this series because our pitchers are not getting their guys out.

    Winning three in a row now sure would be a dramatic way of doing business. There should be no pressure on our guys at this point. There are no expectations.

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  16. It’s do or die time now. Aside from the bad breaks we’ve received, we haven’t played good baseball. To be honest about it, Boston has outplayed us in about every way. In the three loses, they scored first in the first and put us behind the eight ball right off the bat. Maldonado save for a couple of plays has been a disaster. Production is off for everybody save about 3 or 4. I just don’t think the guys are playing with the same attitude they’ve shown all year. Bregman was pressing big time last night and it showed. Springer should lead off and then Bregman or Altuve. Tyler White is 5 for 7 (5 K’s in 7 PA’s). And as I said previously, Our bull pen has been worse that last year and our starting pitching not much better. Don’t get me wrong. I will always support our Astros but we pick a terrible time to play such bad baseball.
    Let’s hope we can get a win today and maybe we’ll get that magic going again. Sure would be on hell of a comeback. We need some of that “Field of Dreams” magic.

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  17. Let’s also note that the Red Sox won 108 games this year – you don’t do that with a bunch of wahoos. And even with that we came within a 5 star catch (by a guy who had been 0 for 22 this year on 5 star catches) of tying this game.

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  18. We’ve done everything we need to do in this series except out-score, out-pitch, out-defend, out-strategize, out-coach, run the bases better, and do a better job masking signs and blocking behind the plate than the Red Sox .

    Yes, I realize that all that leaves is to out-talk them. We have definitely done that.

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    • That’s how come I said what I said yesterday. sargeh, I tried to answer your question way back at the beginning. I know it wasn’t popular for me to question Bregman, but swagger can be dangerous. He’s fun, but last night he was left STARING — at the Red Sox celebration.

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    • Sandy, I think it’s the fact he knows his team so well and has trusted that they could do what he’s asked them to do. Also, Boston’s hungrier, like we were last year. It has been that way all season. They devour and we settle.

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      • I keep recalling something Cora said night before last. The TBS girl was talking to him during the game. He said he tells his guys to slow down at the plate and just make contact. Or something to that effect.
        That’s something our guys should do more often.

        By the way OP how’s the sciatica doing?

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      • To make a long story short, the damage is on my left side and that is the stroke side, so the pain is multiplied by previous nerve damage.
        I finally had to talk to the chiropractor about what he was doing to me and the pain he was inflicting as a result of the stroke damage and he looked at me with this OMG look that told me he had completely forgotten about the stroke.
        Let me say this. The forty five minute drive to get to him is followed by a three hour drive to get home, if you get what I mean.
        Three time a week I make that ride only to end up in the torture chamber from “The Princess Bride”. Or so it seems. I straightened him out yesterday and I think things will calm down quickly. Otherwise “My name is Inigo Montoya. You are killing me on this table. Prepare to die”.

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  20. Do note this. That if a home run was a home run and if Benitendi does not make what Statcast rated a 5 star catch (he was 0 for 22 on 5 star catches this season) this would be a tied series. The Red Sox have had their own struggles – their closer almost spit the bit last night saved by that catch – their starter last night did not last very long – they have been saved by an unworldly performance by the 9th guy in their lineup and in my view the luck that was definitely in our corner in 2017 is across the way this series. Oh and it would help if Maldonado was not doing his very best Gary Sanchez imitation behind the plate.
    I don’t think this team can win 3 straight against the Red Sox with two in Boston – but it is not a 0% chance. It is probably more like a 15% chance. But that number can get better if they climb on the Verlander train and win today and swing a little pressure the other way.

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  21. The three fans are in the first row and every replay shows them standing straight up and are looking up and their arms are close to their body and suddenly Betts’s glove dang near hits the chest of the guy in the middle wearing the grey shirt.
    Any person with any sense at all can look at that reply and realize that it was Betts’s glove that enter the space between the wall and that guy’s chest. So now, where is the camera shot from the side that shows his arm is way over the wall? Where is that camera shot? How can there be thirty thousand cameras in that stadium and we don’t have a picture of Betts’s arm?

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    • At one point last night they had a camera shot from the right field foul pole back towards the play. But…. there was a large Security guard (It said “Security” on his back) who was in the way – he was leaning over the fence to see the play and blocking out the view of Betts glove.
      I guess there are no camera views from the center field or left field side of the field.
      However there is this guy with an umbrella blocking out the puff of smoke from the fence behind the grassy knoll……

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    • I missed this live (bedtime for kids) last night. The first I saw of it was a still shot on ESPN. It was pretty clear from that shot that our fans did not stay in the stands. However, before you lynch or exile me to a Rangers fan blog, it was not the guy in the orange shirt who was in the field of play. Unless one of the other yokels touched Betts I disagree with the interference call completely.

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  22. Am I unfair to people who are “challenged” by age if I say that Joe West, who turns 66 on Halloween (insert your own joke here) should retire or at least be removed from the playoff rotation.

    Here’s the deal – right now we have the four best teams in the baseball world fighting for the title. So we assign the very best umpires available with the very highest ratings to these games….huh, no we don’t? We do it with seniority and to ward off Angel Hernandez lawsuits? Maybe we should remove the current final four teams and replace them with the oldest teams in the majors or some such rot.
    Umpires will always miss calls, but just like we have the teams who “earned” the right to play in the Championship series, we should have the umpires who are least likely to miss calls to be there too.

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    • People should know their limits and realize that being older and obviously overweight could compromise their ability to do their jobs correctly. Especially if the job requires physical ability.

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    • No nothing Diane. Here’s the deal. The replay did not confirm his call, there just was not enough evidence to over turn it. If he had called it a HR, that would have stood too I believe.
      I have problems on a couple levels:
      1) They should have their very best umps in the playoffs – I know that is what the NFL does. It might not have made a difference, but I would feel better if someone else had made the call on the field
      2) The positioning of the extra set of umps is stupid – they are not that far behind the 1st base and 3rd base umps respectively. If you want to cover more of the field they should be deeper.

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      • Dan, I posted a comment mid-summer complaining about a HR review where the commentators claimed they only had two camera angles and just didn’t have enough definitive proof. I don’t understand how this can be in 2018 after outfitting all the stadiums with additional cameras (some with obscene shutter rates) and radars to back the statcast data collecting. How do these not factor into the replay reviews in NYC? Is it a problem of time being the limiting factor? Let’s spend some of that advertising money and pay for a couple extra instant replay reviewers and try to get it right next year!

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  24. My wife just texted that the fan who interfered (NOT!) last night is getting death threats. He flew back to Atlanta where he lives this morning.
    Mattress Mac is flying the fan and his wife back for tonight’s game. I suppose he will be in club level seat or such and the players are going to sign a ball for him. The world is interesting….

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  25. I got awakened by a good friend of mine out on the West Coast, with a text, it was about midnight ( I had to get up by 4 to drive/take a boat) to my first flight and I guess Brantley had just his two run shot. My buddy, who never remembers the time zone difference, wanted to let me know that this loss was on Hinch. Getting awakened by my good friend would never piss me off, but now fully awake, I let him have it. We were down by a run and still had 12 outs. And Hinch does not throw the pitches.

    Our guys simply have to do what they’ve done most of the year. Execute. There is no shame in losing to a 108 win team. But damn, as Dan has noted, even with our far from perfect play, this series should be tied 2-2.

    MLB has to figure out a way to not let a season get changed by a single blown call of huge proportions.

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  26. I hate that I see things the way I do but the most important thing to MLB and the television networks is money.
    Dodgers vs Red Sox WS =more money.

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  27. Lets look at this game in all honesty:
    1st inning- Charlie Morton hits Betts and walks Martinez and they both score on a two-out bloop single. That is on Morton and the Astros.
    -Bottom of the first- A 2 run home run is overturned on a call that is the result of a bad umpire making a call he shouldn’t have had to make from far away and bad camera work.
    -Bottom of the first with two Astros on and Yuli, ahead in the count 3-0 takes two straight pitches down the middle and then flies out, stranding two runners. That is on the Astros.
    -In the bottom of the second with a run already in and Correa on 1B and nobody out we strand him right there at 1B. That is on the Astros.
    -In the third inning Benintendi doubles on a Fastball right down the middle of the plate and is wild pitched to 3B, where he is doubled in on a hanging curve ball right down the middle of the zone. That is on the Astros.
    -The Astros pull ahead in the bottom of the fourth and their pitcher immediately gives up the tying run in the fifth. That is on the Astros
    -The Astros score in the bottom of the fifth on a wild pitch gift and a two out single and immediately give up two runs in the top of the sixth to give away the lead. It is a home run on a changeup right in the middle of the strike zone by a pitcher who is throwing 100 mph all evening. That is on the Astros.
    Tony Kemp leads off the sixth with a walk and never gets to second.
    -In the top of the seventh, after two walks loads the bases, LMJ comes into the game and walks in a run.
    -In the bottom of the seventh, with runners on 2nd and 3rd, Tyler White looks at called strike 2 and called strike 3 for the third out. He is a pinch hitter who didn’t swing the bat. That is on the Astros.
    In the eighth inning, new catcher Brian McCann does nothing to try and stop a low pitch that advances the runner to second base. That runner scores on a two-out single. That run is on the Astros.
    -Tony Kemp leads off the 8th with a single that he tries to stretch into a double. Bregman gets HBP and Springer doubles, but Kemp has already screwed this whole inning up and the Astros get only 1 run on a groundout. Springer steals third but Marwin strikes out. And, of course, his strikeout comes on a curve in the dirt, which every pitcher in the league knows Marwin will swing at.
    -In the ninth, the Astros get three bases on balls and cannot get any hits. and strand all three.
    The Astros played a horrible baseball game.

    –

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    • I agree with you. The question is why.
      Are they just a group of bad players are is it coaching.
      I truly cannot decide what I believe the problem is.

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  29. That split tax form is what Randall was talking about. If you don’t sign that paper they will only hold the amount of tax based on undeveloped property and you will have to come with the difference next year. Almost 9,000 dollars.

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  31. Yes they have played badly (at times) during this 3 game streak, but they are not a bad ball team. They are playing a team that is healthier than they are and probably a bit better and probably hungrier and to my mind luckier. They were on the other side of this scale last season and things went their way. Were they a lot better than the Red Sox, Yanks and Dodgers last season. Nope. Were they any better a team when they won the last 2 games of the Yankee series than when they lost the three middle games of the series. Nope. The Red Sox may be a better team than the Astros, but not a superior team. They have made some great plays in the field (Betts) and at the bat (Bradley Jr.) and that sometimes is what happens in a short series. A few plays tilt things one way or another.

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  33. Couple of things from last night:
    1. The guys in New York are umpires. Joe West is the MOST senior umpire currently working in MLB…..the guys in New York were NOT going to over turn that call. PERIOD.
    2. That guy who “almost” caught the ball, has had death threats, and unfortunately he had to be interviewed by the Chronicle sports writers to defend himself…..AGAIN. I’m starting to despise my fellow Americans for the crap some are doing on a daily bases, to politicians, and to an innocent fan in the stands who had a ball hit to him.
    3. It’s sooo unfair to tell Verlander our WHOLE season rests on his shoulder and his arm. I’m guilty as the day is long pinning my hope on his arm, I can’t help it he put this team on his back last year the day we traded for him. I absolutely LOVE his bull dog attitude…..but asking him to go 9 innings with a one or two run lead, is asking a lot of the guy….but he will tell you he’s game to do just that.
    I hope Josh James can soak it all in tonight, and think how blessed he is to watch a true HOF pitcher who is a genius!
    3. As much as I love this team I may not watch tonight. Kind of like if I don’t see it, it didn’t happen. Having their backs to the wall is not new with this team, same thing happened last year….but Altuve was healthy, and Correa’s bat showed up. If it all ends tonight I’m just glad that I was alive to see these guys have another chance to make it to the *show*. Take care, Becky⚾

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  34. The one aspect of this tm I excepted to really shine was the pitching, but never would have thought the BP would give up 12 runs over a 13 inning stretch. Maldi’s def lapses have been painful as well. My main concern coming into the postseason was offensive consistency. Sandy quoted Cora telling his guys to slow down, make contact at the plate. My plea, from the onset of this series, echoed that same sentiment. OP cited mistakes costing runs & runs squandered by poor plate discipline, we had the opportunities to get back in every gm.
    Win, lose or draw I’m in with these guys for the long haul. And regardless of outside influences I just want this tm not to beat itself.

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  39. You knew you wouldn’t keep J.D. outta the Crawford boxes for very long. How long do you think they are going to ride Price? PLUS….their bullpen has been decimated. Sale?????

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  45. This is it Z, ain’t no tomorrow if they can’t come to the plate & give a good at bat. Price is piling up SO’s on swings out the zone, jeez

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  47. Tonight we decide to let Price exercise his postseason ghost by swinging him into the record books, blood boiling over here, don’t know why, don’t want to help it, lol

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