Normally teams report to Spring training around the third week of February so that by the time teams are two weeks in, they still have 3 to 4 weeks left in Florida or Arizona. But after the lockout, teams reported right before the Ides of March, and so two weeks in means they only have about ten more days to go before the season starts.
In previous seasons this was about when Spring Training would begin to seem to be too long. But not this season. This season we are wondering if the team will be ready when the season starts. And the answer is probably not entirely prepared, but everyone is in the same boat.
So why should we be OK with this second odd start to a season in the last three?
Because…
- Our team has been to the playoffs six of the last seven seasons
- Our team has been to the ALCS 5 seasons in a row
- Our team has been to the World Series three times in the last five seasons
- Our team has shown remarkable resilience in overcoming a slew of injuries every single season of the previous five
- Our team has overcome the losses of Dallas Keuchel, Charlie Morton, Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander (two years to injury), Wade Miley, Brad Peacock, Collin McHugh, Ken Giles, Roberto Osuna, Hector Rondon, Will Harris, Chris Devenski, Joe Smith, Lance McCullers Jr. (one year plus to injury), Brian McCann, Josh Reddick, George Springer, Marwin Gonzalez, Evan Gattis, Jake Marisnick, and others and still had great success. Yeah, you won’t see the names of Mike Fiers or Carlos Beltran on that list.
- Our team has overcome “IT”, the shame, harassment, booing, and doubts that come with the scandal that tainted their one championship.
- Our team is returning last year’s lineup, rotation and bullpen mostly intact. Yes, they have lost Carlos Correa and Zack Greinke, but they are getting Justin Verlander back and hopefully the pre-injury version of Alex Bregman.
- Our team has two of the best young hitters in the world in Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez, who should just be entering their prime.
- Our team has a set of hitters that could make almost any lineup in the baseball world in Tucker, Alvarez, Bregman, Jose Altuve, Yuli Gurriel, and Michael Brantley.
- Our team has young starting pitchers who have pitched at a high level in Luis Garcia, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, and Jose Urquidy. They have a pitcher who, when he last played a whole season, won the Cy Young Award in Verlander. They hopefully get back a pitcher in Lance McCullers, who was a top ten pitcher in the AL last year. And they have in their back pocket Jake Odorizzi, who was very good as recently as 2019.
- Our team has a closer in Ryan Pressly, the most reliable they have had in recent years. They have some other decent relievers in a bullpen that might still add a part or two along the way to Hector Neris, Ryne Stanek, Blake Taylor, Phil Maton and others.
- Our team has a couple young outfielders in Chas McCormick and Jake Meyers, who did a fine job in the Astros outfield in 2021.
- Our front office and owner have shown the ability and the monetary will to plug the holes in the dike that always occur during long seasons.
- Our team has done almost all anyone could ask of them the last few seasons, and there is no reason to think they won’t do it again in 2022.
CHIPALATTA 
Well so far today
– The guy (JV) who was not sure he was going to be ready for the regular season looks like he is the most ready – 4 shutout innings, 2 hits, 1 walk, 6 Ks
– Jeremy Pena knocked in the two runs to give the team a 2-0 lead
On the radio one of the guys in the afternoon was trying to give Jeremy a nickname to stick – calling him Jer-Bear.
As they said in the movie “Office Space” when one of the characters comes up with an idea for a Leap to Conclusions map – that is a horrible idea
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One of the meanings of the word pena in Spanish is “rock”. We could have La Pena and La Pina on the same team.
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When was the last time a World Series participant started a season with 9 on the road? I’ll be happy with a 5-4 road trip.
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And, 16 of our first 22 are away from home.
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I count on the 40 man, currently 35 not in listed as in the minors. So if they are allowed 28, that means 7 are to be either cut, to the minors or injured. Two I would image are LMJ and Meyers. So I wonder who are the other 5 (provided my math is working tonight)
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Math sounds right – here is a potential list
Pedro Baez to the injured (maybe I’ve missed seeing him pitch)
Taylor Jones – minors
Seth Marinez – minors
Bryan Abreu – minors
Enoli Paredes – minors
Along with Meyers and LMJ to the injured list
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I’ll join in a toast to optimism. There is a lot to like. Verlander is back and looks great. Pitching game 2 to start which should let him hit the home opener. I assume Framber will get the nod on opening day. Garcia and Urquidy could be even better this year with another year of work, hammering their routines under their belt. While the BP is probably a step back from August’s BP, it is better than the bullpen we had prior to the deadline moves and better than last years opening pen.
The offense boasts six guys that can be all stars in any given year. It’s got 2 batting champions in it, it’s got 4 guys that have 30 HR seasons to their names, it doesn’t strike out a lot 1-6, it boasts a former MVP and a runner up, if 7-9 can give us passable numbers this can be a very very good team.
Glass half empty guy is concerned the offense can’t consistently put 3 spots up in the playoffs against better pitching and matchup with playoff bullpens – and that will be a problem if either/or of Garcia or Valdez don’t pitch better. But we are a long way from October and we have deadline moves coming to address what doesn’t work out between now and then.
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Take that back, I don’t think he gets the home opener looking at the schedule. The only way that would have happened probably is he got opening day also. I know the opening day thing is done, planned, but I think he could have hit it, the 13th, and still possibly made the home opener. Now with their intent to make sure he gets 6 days between starts in April he may not even pitch in the first home series, if he does it will probably be the 20th.
It’s almost as if Dusty is intentionally lining up for him to actually have 7 between with the 8th, 15th, and 22nd all following off days. Unless the Astros plan to get Javier a start in the last week of April though he will have to get back on the 5 day schedule soon enough. That would force Garcia to pitch on 5 days on the 20th though, and given they don’t think any of the pitchers have really stretched out, maybe Javier makes a start on the 20th.
I would love to see Dusty’s dry erase board at this point.
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I think that one of the reasons why Javier is going to the bullpen is because the Astros are going to need long relievers in the pen to make up the fact that none of the starters will be stretched out.
Blummer said he thinks the Astros will go with a 15-man pitching staff for the first month.
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Until I hear otherwise, I’m going to assume that Norel Gonzalez’ failure to secure a non-roster invite to the major league camp and the subsequent trade to Miami for basically nothing means that the Astros weren’t happy with his conditioning after this offseason. He was too heavy last season and I’m sure the Astros wanted him to lose the weight.
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First he was no longer a youngster (28). Second, his only position that I saw was first base (DH is out for the near future). Third he was no Yuli. Fourth the Astros had younger and better options. Apparently he was more hungry for food than hungry to make the majors. I really hated to see that.
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Yes, I was hoping Norel would have up dropped 25. He should have spent the winter with Yuli.
The rotation is going to be a real work in progress, much dependent on how the first four guys do in their opening starts. Those three early days off will be helpful. I wouldn’t be surprised if Urquidy also comes out of the pen in his first appearance.
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I think we’re looking pretty good right now. Good to see McCormick finally add some “spice” to his hitting going 2 for 3 yesterday. Pena not disappointing at all so far. Maybe we’ll be saying “Carlos who?” pretty soon. Only thing about the start of the season I dislike is having to stay up till 1:00 AM to see those 1st games (at least 6 of them).
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I see one move was Josh James to Sugar Land today.
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Dusty says his first 3 starters will likely be Framber, Odorizzi & JV: https://twitter.com/brianmctaggart/status/1509286725994127369?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1509286725994127369%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fhouston-astros
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According to the folks on the radio – Dusty also has been dissing Chas McCormick while praising Jose Siri – is he trying to motivate Chas or tipping his hand on who will be the starter in CF.
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Astros won yesterday against the Mets, in a game which every run came in on a home run. Seven wins in a row since regulars started playing.
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And I would like to point out that I doubt that in any of the 7 that the Astros used more than about 5 or 6 likely starters in the lineup.
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St. Louis beat Washington, 29-8, yesterday.
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Who was playing quarterback?
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Kurt Warner, one of my favorites.
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One thing from this ST. When a batter gets one or two ABs every other game, then you don’t see “He is on a tear this Spring.”
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Just throwin’ it out there:
Astros have allowed the fewest home runs of any team this spring, five.
The Astros have the second lowest team ERA this spring.
The Astros are 28th in team OPS this spring.
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Luis (three step) Garcia pitches today – I think this is his first time in a major league game this spring.
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Garcia made one start, early in the spring, and went two innings. No runs, one hit, one BB and three K’s. He has also pitched in a couple of minor league games.
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Why is it that Dusty Baker picks on Chas McCormick for having a bad spring, while Martin Maldonado was horrible all last year, is hitting .100 this spring, and Baker says nothing about him?
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Maybe Chas didn’t come in with the right attitude or in the right shape – while Martin always has the right attitude and never is in the right shape?
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I’ve always had the impression that Dusty Baker is not very high on Chas.
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Taylor jones has a back injury and will probably go on the IL.
By the way, the major league IL will be 10 days, until May 1st, when it will revert to 15-days.
Any callups before May 1st will no count against the newly created 5 callup limit for a player, as called for in the new CBA.
Each team will have 28 players on the roster to start the season and they have to send two of them down by May 1st and be at 26 players by then.
A team can add one extra player for double headers throughout the season, so as not to put a strain on millionaire ballplayers by MLB, which crammed 162 games into a shortened time frame and then added extra games in the postseason. Go figure.
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The Astros beat Miami 2-1 today for their 8th straight win. You might remember that Miami tore them up last year in the preseason.
Luis Garcia went was awesome in 3.1 innings, giving up no runs, 1 hit, no walks and had 6 Ks. Seth Martinez made his fifth appearance of the spring and has now thrown 5.1 scoreless innings. He has given up 2 hits and no walks and has 4 Ks. He also has a high rate of grounders to flyouts.
Jeremy Pena drove in the winning run with a ground rule double to RF and had his first error of the spring. Chas Mac didn’t start, but went in for Siri in the seventh and had an outfield assist from CF to 3B.
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The Dodgers luxury tax payroll is sitting at an estimated $293 million for 2022.
It would drop considerably were Trevor Bauer to be suspended.
That figure would be a record payroll, I believe.
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If the MLB owners truly wanted some type of “parity” (which they don’t) they would issue all the TV rights through MLB and then divide the monies equally. Something similar to the NFL. Each NFL team gets around $320 Million each year by doing that way. As one sage once said, “I can’t make it complicated enough for you to understand it.”
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