2022 Houston Astros Thread

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

4 minutes ago, rvm96 said:

Suarez game 3 and Nola game 4

 

 

Then let's go LMJ, Javier, Framber and celebrate on their field.

[BrazilHorn 6,586]

1 hour ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Why am I getting Asian Porn comic book advertisements all over the place on Surly?  I have never visited graphic novel porn in my life, nor Asian porn either (NTTAWWT). 

[TonyTexas 10,510]

 

[Victor Lazlo 1,776]

8 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Fuck Manfred and Fuck MLB.  The only additional game I will be able to watch is tomorrow.  I will be able to watch some of the Wednesday night game in the Centurion club, but with a flight at 10:05 PM, there will still be a lot of ball to play when I go to catch my flight.  Sigh.

I watched game 6 in 2019 on an airplane. Watched it on my iPad using the plane’s WiFi and the Fox Sports app. Safe travels.

[ChickenSandwich 9,833]

17 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I didn’t think this was Asian but when I clicked on the link to see if this was what I thought it was it said Asian. I think it’s the first add I’ve ever clicked on. 
also- now I get to watch without the trick or treat, but son of a fucking bitch the fact that we’ve played 9 games in the last 28 days is absurd. 

 

[David Dennison 18,854]

8 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Yes, economic sense is why the Yankees didn't include it in their 2.3 billion dollar stadium. Financial constraints and all.

Oops too late. 

[Gut Wagon 8,065]

44 minutes ago, runthebone said:

I was pissed, but now, you know what, let's just space the games out so we face Nola and Wheeler for all 7 games.  Why not?  We aren't having problems with them, and it allows us to skip Verlander.

Keep up this sluggish schedule and the series MVP will be forever known as "Mr. December." 

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

37 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I didn’t think this was Asian but when I clicked on the link to see if this was what I thought it was it said Asian. I think it’s the first add I’ve ever clicked on. 
also- now I get to watch without the trick or treat, but son of a fucking bitch the fact that we’ve played 9 games in the last 28 days is absurd. 

I mean, why wouldn’t you click on that link?

[henrygandorf 29,189]

a perfect environment when everyone is rested and there's no weather issue favors the better team.  we are the better team.  rain delays and a wet field are not what we want.  five games in a row are not what we want.  anything that deviates from the ideal setting benefits the underdog.

we're better prepared for those situations because we're the better, deeper, and more complete baseball team.  doesn't mean it's what we want.

we're all pissed there's no baseball tonight.  now put your big boy pants on and go trick-or-treating like a man.

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

Well… at least I don’t have to watch this on the iPad while stationed on the front walk to keep the dogs from losing their shit with trick-or-treaters ringing the doorbell.  Cheers!

[Deej 76,759]

16 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

I mean, why wouldn’t you click on that link?

Things @NowThis said?

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

So “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is just a bunch of bullshit?

[Sleepygrad 1,029]

1 minute ago, Guadaloopy said:

So “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is just a bunch of bullshit?

[Mitch Hedberg 2,090]

Game 3 canceled haiku

Philly is a turd
Shit team with shit stadium 
One word for you: roof

[rvm96 1,643]

58 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

Then let's go LMJ, Javier, Framber and celebrate on their field.

Regarding skipping JV in the rotation

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

11 minutes ago, rvm96 said:

Regarding skipping JV in the rotation

I vacillate.   I would love to see JV’s rebound game, which I choose to believe is coming, but it’s hard to not send out the best available on full rest for the kill shot.  

[David Dennison 18,854]

1 hour ago, Guadaloopy said:

Then let's go LMJ, Javier, Framber and celebrate on their field.

[Hate 20,108]

Here was Wulaw earlier.

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

4 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I look forward to seeing that response in Astros and MLB threads for seasons to come.  

[Dnaguy 11,947]

No game?

No rainbow fentynol in my kids candy?!

this Halloween is a fucking bust

[The Dog 44,020]

 

[Hammerin Hank 1,227]

Disappointed that there’s no game to watch, but at least I didn’t miss anything while out trick or treating. Happy Halloween and go ‘Stros 

[Telegraph_it 3,357]

1 hour ago, Victor Lazlo said:

I watched game 6 in 2019 on an airplane. Watched it on my iPad using the plane’s WiFi and the Fox Sports app. Safe travels.

This. YoutubeTV works great on airplane wifi most of the time. 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,100]

1 hour ago, Victor Lazlo said:

I watched game 6 in 2019 on an airplane. Watched it on my iPad using the plane’s WiFi and the Fox Sports app. Safe travels.

Unfortunately, wifi on Swiss Airlines isn't the greatest and they charge you for data.  So, probably not an option.  Which is honestly bullshit.

[CycleTex87 2,967]

I’ve watched a few live sporting events on a flight now and then. It’s a great way to pass the time. If the Astros were playing I believe would pay whatever they wanted in order to watch it. Don’t know how it works over the Atlantic though. 

[Telegraph_it 3,357]

5 minutes ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

Unfortunately, wifi on Swiss Airlines isn't the greatest and they charge you for data.  So, probably not an option.  Which is honestly bullshit.

Oh damn. That is some bullshit. Normally though I like to be disconnected for six plus hours when crossing the pond. 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,100]

4 minutes ago, Telegraph_it said:

Oh damn. That is some bullshit. Normally though I like to be disconnected for six plus hours when crossing the pond. 

I plan on sleeping on the plane.  That is the nice thing about that later flight (10:05 PM).  

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,100]

24 minutes ago, CycleTex87 said:

I’ve watched a few live sporting events on a flight now and then. It’s a great way to pass the time. If the Astros were playing I believe would pay whatever they wanted in order to watch it. Don’t know how it works over the Atlantic though. 

They charge you 60 bucks for 220 MB of data.  So to live stream a game...yeah, no.

Also, 8 PM start times do not work with Zurich and Egypt time zones.  Sucks to be me. 

[CycleTex87 2,967]

Well that sucks. Get dinner and a glass of wine then crash.  When I used to fly back from Africa the flight left at 11:00 pm. I would take my ambien during boarding and be asleep before we pushed back. 

Edited November 1, 2022 by CycleTex87

[tx 3 putt 76,908]

per the gram, astro families and kids had a great halloween at the hotel earlier today. so many huge smiles.

it is, what it is. let's close it out in philly. 

[tx 3 putt 76,908]

Here are the pitchers for the games in Philadelphia. 

Game 3: McCullers vs. Suárez (Tuesday)
Game 4: Javier vs. Nola (Wednesday)
Game 5: Verlander vs. Syndergaard (Thursday)
 

[Scraps 13,561]

*potentially

[Fudge Nuggets 19,190]

Pitchers and catchers will report to spring training about two weeks after they get done dragging out this shit.

[Scraps 13,561]

Pitchers and catchers will report to spring training about two weeks after they get done dragging out this shit.

Yeah this 9 games in 26 days or whatever is a fucking boner killer

I mean at least we are still playing but jfc

[runthebone 7,976]

We can be the 2022-23 MLB champions before they even start the next season.

[UTexasFight 9,431]

 

Missed this from over the weekend

good stuff here. Completely didn’t realize we got Javier, Urquidy and Valdez all within 2.5 weeks 

 

The Pitching Secret That Helped the Astros Become World Series Regulars

Houston’s knack for finding Latin American pitchers who had been passed over as teens has been a key to the team’s ability to reach a fourth Series in six years.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/houston-astros-world-series-pitching-11666926165?page=1

 

Spoiler

BY TIM BROWN
Houston On a quiet recent after- noon in the Bronx, an important baseball game just hours away, Houston Astros right- hander Jose Urquidy was in the bullpen, taming a curveball that
has a tendency to go its own way. One after another, the pitch wasn’t quite right, this time too short, this time too loopy, this time unfamiliar off his fingers.
He said nothing and kept throw- ing curveballs. Snap. Snap. Snap. The perfect one was in there some- where, he knew, because he had thrown enough of those, too. Fram- ber Valdez, a left-hander for the Astros, watched from nearby. Fi- nally he said, “Jose.”
Slow down, he said in Spanish. Slower with your arm, he said. Slower with your body. Everything is too fast. Urquidy nodded. The curveball requires patience. The next was perfect.
“He knows me,” Urquidy said. “They all know me. And I know them.”
Seven-and-a-half years ago, Urquidy signed with the Astros for $100,000. He was 19 then and pitching in Mexico. Sixteen days later, Valdez, then a 21-year-old in the Dominican Republic, signed for $10,000. On the same day, Cristian Javier, a 17-year-old Dominican, signed for $10,000. Two years later, Luis Garcia, a 20-year-old Venezue- lan, signed for $20,000.
“I think the organization saw something in us and brought us in,” Garcia said Thursday after- noon. “And it was fantastic. We still have like a family.”
As the Astros attempt to estab- lish dominion over a game that doesn’t wholly trust them and also can’t quite beat them, decisions made more than a half-decade ago, under different management, launching journeys for older, for- eign-born prospects with no sure destination has fueled four Ameri- can League pennants in six sea- sons.
From a franchise that appeared in one World Series in its first 55 years (and lost that, in 2005, to the Chicago White Sox), the Astros have become World Series regulars, in part because of an organiza- tional shift in the way they identi- fied, projected, pursued, signed and developed relatively older Latin American pitchers.
In particular, those four pitch- ers—Urquidy, Valdez, Javier and Garcia, and the $140,000 required to sign all four of them—in the past five seasons have cost the As- tros $13.2 million in salaries. In re- turn, the four have posted 1,485 regular-season innings, a 111-65 re- cord and a 3.43 ERA. In postsea- sons, they are 13-8 with a 3.95 ERA across 139 innings. In the World Series, Valdez is scheduled to start Game 2 and Javier is likely to start Game 4.
“The quantity is the uniqueness of it,” an international scout from an American League team said. “There are low-dollar guys all over the major leagues. But, four at the same time in the same place? I can’t think of it ever happening.”

Beyond those four—adhering to a philosophy adopted by former general manager Jeff Luhnow, his director of international scouting Oz Ocampo, the then-major league pitching coach Brent Strom and a host of scouts, coaches, trainers and administrators—the Astros used prospects who were signed and developed under similar meth- ods to acquire ace Justin Ver- lander, closer Ryan Pressly and for- mer catcher Brian McCann.
When the question is asked about the Astros and how they maintain relevance through a cheating scandal, the free-agency losses of outfielder George Springer, shortstop Carlos Correa and pitcher Gerrit Cole and an in- jury to Michael Brantley, the an- swer is pitching. The better answer is inexpensive pitching.
Traditionally, the international pitching market seeks 16-year-olds who throw hard for their age from long bodies that one day might be longer and thicker. The rest—pitch- ing mechanics, pitching feel, types of pitches—could be taught. That’s what minor-league coaches are for. With a nudge from Strom, the As- tros began to think otherwise. They sought young men already comfort- able in sound mechanics, who might not be built like prototypical pitchers, who were a bit more ma- ture physically and mentally.
Maybe that pitcher was 18. Or 19. Or 20.
“From an international stand- point we were really focusing on attributes that defined starters,” Ocampo said. “And so starting pitching was the key for us. There’s a lot of things that we looked at— the physical attributes, the athleti- cism, the strength, the physical projection, the movement patterns, how the body moved, what the de- livery looked like, looking at the
The Astros looked beyond normal metrics to examine each pitcher’s delivery.
overall repertoire. So fastball, cur- veball, changeup, a lot of the reper- toire and then the pitchability and the command of the pitcher, as well as the overall mental makeup.”
He said the Astros looked be- yond normal metrics, such as ve- locity and body type, to examine each pitcher’s delivery, arm motion and other body movements.
“You look at Framber, Javier, Garcia and Urquidy, these are not the prototypical starter frames that you look at, right?” Ocampo said.

Hired from the St. Louis Cardi- nals to become the Astros general manager in December 2011, Luh- now incorporated high-speed video and TrackMan radar systems, which display three-dimensional images of the baseball in motion, into what would become a new era in scouting. Unable to lug all the equipment into tiny Dominican Re- public or Venezuelan villages, he and his staff used the broader guidelines gathered from Track- Man—what makes a good fastball, how often a good curveball spins and at what angle, etc.—to inform what they saw on the high-speed video. They X-rayed prospects’ hands to determine if a player had reached his full height. Age mat- tered less than what a pitcher could do with a baseball,or might one day do with proper instruction and years to develop.
“So, you could identify a 15- year-old pitcher in the Dominican Republic who had movement on his fastball that was very similar to Justin Verlander’s strikeout pitch,” Luhnow said Thursday, “and you could say, ‘OK, this guy’s throwing 90s right now. He’s got good physi- cal projection. We think he’s going to eventually get to the high 90s. And the shape of his pitches is very similar to elite shapes in the big leagues.’ ”
That went for the 20-year-olds
as well.
Suddenly, the Astros were flush
with minor-league pitchers the As- tros believed had potential, and soon after that they were arriving in the big leagues with the sort of abilities the Astros’ model once predicted.
Luhnow was suspended and then fired in January 2020 as a result of the electronic sign-stealing scan- dal, though he maintains he neither had knowledge nor a hand in the scheme. Still, the developmental system he engineered remains. The players he and others chased into dusty fields across Latin America continue to arrive, continue to per- form.
“Framber’s a perfect example of that,” Luhnow said. “Because really the culture of Latin American scouting is that all the good ones get signed at 16, and then maybe there’s some spillover into the 17, 18. But by the time you’re 19 or 20, everybody’s had five chances to sign you and they’ve passed. So ob- viously...you’re not really a poten- tial prospect. But once we started to look more at the variables in- volved with the pitches, it became very clear to us that the age, age didn’t really matter.”
The Astros are back in the World Series. Valdez will be pitch- ing. And Luhnow, who still lives in Houston, will be watching.

 

[utxmike05 1,828]

Sucks. We should be up 3-0 and ready to shut the door tomorrow. 

[Rimbo 25,921]

4 hours ago, The Dog said:

 

This is a win for the Cubs.

[runthebone 7,976]

McTaggart is an idiot.  They could have made this a day game after seeing the forecast. 

[LebongJames 1,805]

6 hours ago, runthebone said:

McTaggart is an idiot.  They could have made this a day game after seeing the forecast. 

Understand the theory but the MLB/ Fox is not going to play a WS game on Monday in the middle of the day.

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19,100]

9 hours ago, CycleTex87 said:

Well that sucks. Get dinner and a glass of wine then crash.  When I used to fly back from Africa the flight left at 11:00 pm. I would take my ambien during boarding and be asleep before we pushed back. 

There is definitely an advantage to business class.  I’ll need the wine to sleep.

[APMP 688]

I plan on sleeping on the plane.  That is the nice thing about that later flight (10:05 PM).  

Yup, flew to Switzerland earlier this month, 9pm departure outta Texas, woke up just before landing at Heathrow layover around lunch. Kicked any jet lag's ass on the plane itself.

[runthebone 7,976]

1 hour ago, LebongJames said:

Understand the theory but the MLB/ Fox is not going to play a WS game on Monday in the middle of the day.

My point is that no one is arguing that the game should have been played last night in a downpour

[royiv 9,290]

Luckily the series isn't set to be played in Houston today since it's raining here this morning. Oh, wait, it wouldn't make a difference since we have a roof.

[Saint Tacky 1,614]

I changed planes in O'Hare on the way to Seattle in 2003 and Cubs fans onboard had already convinced the pilot to put the Cubs playoff broadcast on one of the inflight entertainment channels. I wasn't listening, but when the Cubs' fans reached for the ball and deflected Moises Alou's potential catch the entire plane went into an uproar with arms flailing, people jumping up, and screaming obscenities. I plugged my headphones in but we lost the broadcast shortly after. Didn't really figure out what happened until we got to Seattle.

[Guadaloopy 10,960]

27 minutes ago, Saint Tacky said:

I changed planes in O'Hare on the way to Seattle in 2003 and Cubs fans onboard had already convinced the pilot to put the Cubs playoff broadcast on one of the inflight entertainment channels. I wasn't listening, but when the Cubs' fans reached for the ball and deflected Moises Alou's potential catch the entire plane went into an uproar with arms flailing, people jumping up, and screaming obscenities. I plugged my headphones in but we lost the broadcast shortly after. Didn't really figure out what happened until we got to Seattle.

As much as I hate to say it... Dusty wears that 8th inning for not having anyone near ready when Prior had obviously lost it for the night.  Bartman was an easy scapegoat when Dusty and Alex Gonzalez were the real culprits that night.

[runthebone 7,976]

3 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

As much as I hate to say it... Dusty wears that 8th inning for not having anyone near ready when Prior had obviously lost it for the night.  Bartman was an easy scapegoat when Dusty and Alex Gonzalez were the real culprits that night.

Well, the important thing is that Dusty learned his lesson...

 

...

 

 

...

 

 

Fuck

[TexArcher 37,774]

We're gonna WIN.

[cabowabo 4,484]

2 hours ago, runthebone said:

My point is that no one is arguing that the game should have been played last night in a downpour

The only thing we are arguing is that that piece of shit stadium, and all baseball stadiums that are located in the shithole that is the east coast of the Untied States, should have a god damn retractable roof on them.  

[David Dennison 18,854]

5 minutes ago, cabowabo said:

The only thing we are arguing is that that piece of shit stadium, and all baseball stadiums that are located in the shithole that is the east coast of the Untied States, should have a god damn retractable roof on them.  

No, they shouldn't.