Looking at the Astros’ first month of the season, your humble servant took a quick look at the summary for last April.
It does not seem possible, but the 2022 team was worse and with the crummy starts of folks like Jake Odorizzi, Jose Urquidy, Martin Maldonado, Bryan Abreu, and others eerily similar to this season with a few names changed here and there.
There apparently was an article in the Athletic written about Lance McCullers praising his teammate Kyle Tucker as being outrageously underrated. I would link to that article, but based on the bagels I make off of these posts, I won’t tie to one that demands payment.
Entering the 2023 season without Lance McCullers Jr., the Astros rotation rolled out like this…..Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia, and Hunter Brown, and that was the order they have pitched this season. Based on performance so far, the top three would be Framber Valdez (2-2, 2.25 ERA), Cristian Javier (2-0, 3.21 ERA), and young Hunter Brown (2-0, 3.09 ERA).
The fifth spot is a negative fight between Luis Garcia (1-2, 5.14 ERA) and Jose Urquidy (1-2, 5.64 ERA). To this point, Urquidy would have to be considered the bottom feeder here, trailing in most stats and, on top of it, averaging only 4.4 innings per start, whereas Garcia is averaging 5.25.
I probably need to throw apologies to the late Old Folkie Pete Seeger for the following, because watching Yordan Alvarez on Friday night face another left-handed pitcher in the late innings in a crucial spot and deliver another intracontinental missile to give the Astros the lead brought to mind a song. “Where have all the Flowers Gone” was a beautiful protest song written by Seeger and performed by many artists including the Kingston Trio and Peter Paul and Mary. Though it was not intended to be applied to baseball, I just can’t get certain lyrics out of my mind, when it comes to Yordan. “When will they ever learn. When will they ever learn.”
It is always the way these things go. Teams get off to great / bad/ meh starts to the season and people are too joyful/ too despairing/ too meh about it all.
Coming off a very disappointing weekend of two crushing losses offsetting a solid win against the Rangers, it would be quite easy to concentrate on only negative questions today.
It is often hard to keep a perspective on baseball when you are a fan(atic) about it. We live and die with every twist and turn, every series, every loss, every injury, and every slump. After a so-so 6-7 start, we are about two weeks into the 2023 season, and our emotions have washed us side to side and in and out like an old-fashioned washing machine. Note – I don’t believe enough water is used in the new washing machines to clean the clothes, much less throw us around – but I digress.
Sunday was the kind of game that in 2022, the Astros would have turned to two of their best players, Justin Verlander and Jose Altuve to rescue them.
CHIPALATTA 