About three months ago in the depths of the slowest part of the off-season, this blog visited what it had determined to be the top 3 teams in the AL (Red Sox, Yankees, Astros) heading into 2019…..

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…