Well, there’s a headline right out of the Mr. Obvious Playbook. Yes, you know that the Astros badly need a healthy Yordan Alvarez back. They are definitely missing that .278 BA/ .388 OBP/ .978 OPS slash. They are absolutely missing those 17 HRs and 55 RBIs in 57 games. (For those playing at home, 55…

This could be a vital time for the Astros as they shape their team for the pennant run (or maybe …walk). While there is potential help for the position players when Yordan Alvarez returns…..and possibly when/if Michael Brantley is a participant and not a viewer, and there could be starting pitching help when Jose Urquidy…

Anyone watching the Astros stumblebum along through their recent 3-10 stretch heading into Tuesday’s games would be: a) Surprised they still are in a decent playoff position as they sit in the last playoff spot but only a game and a half out of the first one. We will ignore their deficit in the AL…

It is a tradition as old as baseball. There always seems to be at least one pitcher on the staff, who just does not get the run support and/or bullpen support it takes to have a top notch winning percentage. One of the classic examples here in Houston was 1987 Nolan Ryan, who led the…

Baseball has always been an odd statistical sport. In basketball, a 20-point, eight-rebound kind of guy (if he is uninjured) is not going to be sitting at 10 pts/4 rebounds per game after a couple months of games. An uninjured QB in the NFL is not going to average 80 yds per game passing (not…

A friend of the blog, Steven, had quite a long comment in our last post and a piece of it was as follows: “The Astros have to be the luckiest franchise in baseball. An architect came to town in 2011. He drafted pretty well, he went after particular kinds of hitters, and he brought the…