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2022 Houston Astros Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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This postseason has become more sentimental for me and my wife's family.  My father in law is the biggest Astros fan I know.  He watches every game without fail, even DVRing them if he can't watch liv

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11 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I mean- you are talking about 3 HOFers, one of which is one of the top 5 pitchers in the history of baseball in the Atlanta trio vs a HOFer, 1 time all star and a guy who many on this thread argued should be a bullpen swingman as late as August because he’s “done it before” so forgive me if I don’t say that’s the top 3 greatest pitchers ever. That’s not a slight on our guys. That’s a nod to reality. 

Still, nope.

Look at the strike zones those dipsticks got. Look at what our guys get.

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tx 3 putt

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Good stuff guys. It’s been a great year with this thread. We all see things differently, and this has always been a great place to share, discuss, and make fun of one another. 

This championship era of Astros baseball is not over. I’m already looking forward to next season’s thread. 

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Pablo

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What a ride boys!  I'm a semi-frequent poster, but watched nearly every game this season and read every post in this thread this year!

Love this team, knew they were great, but the WS is so hard to win. 

Attended the World Series for the first time in my life this year, games 2 and 6 and am undefeated!

What a joy tonight was to see that in person!

2X Champs, Flags Fly Forever!

Let's do it again next year!

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15 minutes ago, Planet Houston said:

^^ Go to more WS games plz

I will try, it was amazing!  My job typically keeps me out of town in late Oct early Nov, which sucks, but I celebrated 2017 in the mountains of Colorado at a little bar where the entire bar hated the Dodgers and kept giving out free drinks.  That was a night I don't remember much of, not the drunkest I've ever been, but close!

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texashorne

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8 minutes ago, runthebone said:

OK, so here's an offseason topic:  do the  2022 Astros beat 2017 head to head?  Although the 2017 offense was unreal, I think 2022 wins because of the pitching, especially the bullpen's vast superiority.

Offense was better in 2017.. arms better in 2022.. tough call

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runthebone

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How they fixed Yordan's swing before Game 6:

Early on Saturday, before Game 6, Cintrón scoured video from June, when Álvarez hit .418 with a 1.346 OPS, and he realized that the player’s hands had dropped, making it harder for him to get to the fastball. He called in Díaz, whose eye he trusts on such things and who sometimes helps him communicate with other players.

“You know what?” Díaz said. “You’re right.”

Cintrón texted Álvarez: I found something. Come to the cage.

Initially, Álvarez was unsure. He believed the problem still resided in his lower half.

“Yordan, do you trust me?” Cintrón asked.

“Yes,” Álvarez said.

“Then give me five swings in the cage and see how you feel. If you don’t like it, then you change it.”

It didn’t take five swings. Álvarez felt the change immediately. Díaz and Cintrón saw it. They all knew what it meant: “Game over,” said Cintrón later, dripping with an unholy brew of Bud Heavy, Michelob Ultra and Korbel. “I was so pumped,” he said. “I told the front-office guys, the player of the game is going to be Yordan Álvarez.”

https://www.si.com/mlb/2022/11/06/yordan-alvarez-world-series-home-run-batting-cage-session

Spoiler

The Batting Cage Session That Won the Astros the World Series

Houston’s attention to the smallest of details paid off big time on Yordan Álvarez’s go-ahead home run in Saturday’s title-clinching Game 6.

HOUSTON — An hour and a half before Game 6 of the World Series, the Astros won the title. Hitting coach Alex Cintrón knew it. Utilityman Aledmys Díaz knew it. Most importantly, even before he hit the 450-foot, game-changing bomb he called the best moment of his career, left fielder Yordan Álvarez knew it.

They still had to play the game. Lefty Framber Valdez had to baffle the Phillies’ dangerous lineup for six one-run innings, just as he had in Game 2. The defense had to turn the few balls Philadelphia put in play into groundouts. The hitters had to grind through 20 plate appearances against Phillies ace Zack Wheeler, who reared back for 98 mph and found it. They had to wait until Nick Castellanos’s loopy fly ball nestled into right fielder Kyle Tucker’s glove, just shy of the wall down the line, to seal the 4–1 victory.

(It’s a good thing the Astros won the World Series in Game 6, because they would have been very hobbled if the series had made it to Game 7. Third baseman Alex Bregman told SI early Sunday morning that he believed he had broken his right index finger sliding into second base in the eighth inning, and that second baseman José Altuve had strained a hamstring going first to third in the sixth.)

This title caps a span of three World Series appearances in six years and six straight trips to the American League Championship Series. If you were not already using the word dynasty, it’s time to start. This team could have been destroyed by the revelation after the 2019 season that its players participated in an illegal sign-stealing scheme en route to the ’17 championship; instead it has merely played in two more World Series in the three years since then. But the Astros are not inevitable, as they sometimes seem as they streak through October after October. Sustained success such as this requires excellence in many areas: scouting, player development, clubhouse culture. And attention to detail.

Astros celebrate while holding the World Series trophy

These all converged in the bottom of the sixth inning, with Philadelphia up 1–0, after Wheeler hit Martín Maldonado with a pitch to lead off the frame. Altuve barely beat out a double-play ball, and shortstop Jeremy Peña singled him to third. Phillies manager Rob Thomson summoned lefty José Alvarado, as he had all series, to face the Astros’ most lethal hitter, Álvarez.

For the most part, that had gone pretty well. Álvarez, whom the Astros had swiped from the Dodgers in 2016 for reliever Josh Fields, showed up as a skinny 20-year-old with one career home run in two seasons in the Cuban National Series. The Astros stressed to him in the minor leagues, as they do with most prospects, that he should try to pull the ball for power, and he finished third in the AL this season with 37 homers. But since he almost singlehandedly swept the Mariners in the ALDS and stopped seeing pitches in the strike zone, he had been hitting .119 with two-extra base hits, both doubles. He’d had two hits in the World Series. In his three meetings with Alvarado to that point, he had popped out twice and been hit by a pitch.

But what Thomson did not know is Álvarez was not the same hitter he had been over the past three weeks. He was not even the same hitter he’d been four hours earlier. Before Game 4 of the World Series, the Astros’ other hitting coach, Troy Snitker, had noticed that Álvarez was shifting all his weight onto his front leg. Cintrón worked with Álvarez in the cage to keep him more balanced. They saw improvements—a single to center, a lineout to left, a flyout to center—but Cintrón still felt there was work to do. We need to get Yordan going, he thought.

Early on Saturday, before Game 6, Cintrón scoured video from June, when Álvarez hit .418 with a 1.346 OPS, and he realized that the player’s hands had dropped, making it harder for him to get to the fastball. He called in Díaz, whose eye he trusts on such things and who sometimes helps him communicate with other players.

“You know what?” Díaz said. “You’re right.”

Cintrón texted Álvarez: I found something. Come to the cage.

Initially, Álvarez was unsure. He believed the problem still resided in his lower half.

“Yordan, do you trust me?” Cintrón asked.

“Yes,” Álvarez said.

“Then give me five swings in the cage and see how you feel. If you don’t like it, then you change it.”

It didn’t take five swings. Álvarez felt the change immediately. Díaz and Cintrón saw it. They all knew what it meant: “Game over,” said Cintrón later, dripping with an unholy brew of Bud Heavy, Michelob Ultra and Korbel. “I was so pumped,” he said. “I told the front-office guys, the player of the game is going to be Yordan Álvarez.”

Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez reacts after hitting a three-run homer in Game 6 of the World Series

So when Álvarez strode to the plate in the sixth, he was not the man who had a few days earlier slammed his batting helmet in frustration. He was the man ready to slam something else.

He fouled a sinker down the first baseline. He took a cutter outside and a sinker up. Alvarado threw him another sinker, 99 mph, on the outside part of the plate. This time, Álvarez got to the fastball.

The center field wall in Houston stands 409 feet from home plate. The batter’s eye rises 40 feet. The Astros joke during batting practice that only Álvarez, who had the second-hardest average exit velocity in the game this year, after the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, has a chance of putting a ball there.

“I try to hit the warning track in center field [during BP],” said Bregman. “He tries to hit it over the batter’s eye.”

Even Álvarez had never made it up there before. But as he watched the ball rocket out there, he pounded his chest, because he knew exactly what he had done. The Astros spilled out of the dugout. Initially Bregman was not among them. “He hit it to dead center!” he said. “I was like, Does he think he got this?” He added, “Nobody hits the ball up there. Nobody hits the ball up there.”

“There are some places where only Yordan can go,” Snitker said.

“He’s a strong boy,” said Peña.

GM James Click, watching in his suite, unleashed a string of expletives. “I’ve heard a lot about lefty sinkers being the way to get Yordan out, and I think somebody needs to write a new scouting report,” he said.

Afterward, first base coach Omar López joked with Álvarez that if they had been in Venezuela, he would have had Álvarez’s bat checked for cork. (“In winter ball, a lot of crazy stuff happens,” López explained, laughing. “That was a bomb.”)

As he circled the bases, Álvarez said, he wondered if Minute Maid Park would cave in from the roar. “I felt like the ground was shaking,” he said through interpreter Jenloy Herrera.

Álvarez beamed as he circled the bases. He felt joy, excitement, relief. But he did not feel surprise.

 

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6 hours ago, Bevo&Pevo said:

Tough luck chuck for Correa and Springer.  The money might buy some therapy but not WS rings.

Springer's still my favorite Astro, even if he is up in El Norte now.

Correa will always be the guy who stood up for this franchise when the world wanted to stomp them down.

I don't have a problem with either guy.  They made business decisions, but they have done nothing to make me stop liking them.

Proud for this team and happy for the guys who are here.  I'm not hatin on former players though.  Now's not the time for that.

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5 hours ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I mean- you are talking about 3 HOFers, one of which is one of the top 5 pitchers in the history of baseball in the Atlanta trio vs a HOFer, 1 time all star and a guy who many on this thread argued should be a bullpen swingman as late as August because he’s “done it before” so forgive me if I don’t say that’s the top 3 greatest pitchers ever. That’s not a slight on our guys. That’s a nod to reality. 

That’s only because Framber and Javier are early in their careers. In 10 years, we may know those guys will be headed to Cooperstown. Framber did something historic this year and nobody will be taking Cristian Javier out of the rotation anymore.

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Macklemore

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Our sweet, sweet WS win has me thinking about our fair city and how it has grown up. I apologize in advance if I come off as a blowhard like Bob Costas with these thoughts that have been running through my head.

I think back to the Rockets 2 championships and how bent we were bent that the national media wasn’t giving us the love that the Knicks would have gotten if they won in 94, not being on the SI cover, cutting from the Finals to show the OJ chase, etc. I remember people clutching their pearls about what out of towners thought of our city when we hosted big events like the Economic Summit or RNC Convention in the 90s (no CR I promise) and they comments about our city. Houston’s flat, ugly, sprawling, blah, blah, blah.

Htown is a city that’s now comfortable in its own skin. No longer the awkward teenager. Yes we live in a flood prone area, have ugly parts to our city and sprawl for miles. You know what we don’t care: we are going to be the 3rd largest city in the country in a few years,  have an economy that is the envy of other cities, we’re the most diverse city in the country, we have one of the best food scenes in the country AND we have the best team in baseball.

I think the Htown rap scene should get credit for filling people with pride for their city. The reason why the Mattress Mack video was so viral because he embodied our grown up city: you don’t like us the rest of America — FUCK YOU. We are in Texas and there is always will be jealousy and hating about our pride. You think the Astros are cheaters EVEN THOUGH WE WON IT THIS YEAR GOING 11-2 — FUCK YOU WE DON’T CARE. The Astros have given this city a harder edge and brought it together in ways that would not be possible by any other means. The country hates the Astros winning another WS title and hates them for the sign stealing — FUCK YOU WE DON’T CARE, YOUR TEARS TASTE SO SWEET. The Htown of 30 to 40 years ago did not have this confidence. I will always rep my hometown and ride or die with the Astros. 

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Brisketexan

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Sitting in a deer blind, after having slept (a little) on this one. And it’s just damned sweet.
The Astros were my first sport love, going to games with my grandpa when he’d come up to visit. When he had a stroke and was bedridden in ass-nowhere Mexico, we’d go down to visit, and I’d bring a stack of newspaper articles and other materials about the stros of that era - Cruz, Ashby, Cabell - he’d listen, clutch my hand, and sometimes laugh, sometimes cry.
In high school, I went to dozens of games a year in the $3 bleacher seats, including that great season in 86. I was at a college fair, listening on the radio, when they lost to the Mets in game 6.
I married a Houston girl. She’d grown up a Stros fan too. So that’s how we raised our kids, including a boy who ended up being a pretty damn good high school CF. Fandom in his youth was hard; the Rangers were good, and popular among his peers. The Astros weren’t. But I explained that we were an Astros family, and he got it. He’d come up in the morning and look at the sports page, and even as a kid, mutter “dammit…the Astros lost.”
Then we got to watch the rise. We watched 2017’s game 5 together, a collection of anxiety, pacing the room. We watched the final out of game 7, tears in our eyes. Later, we got tickets for the ALCS, and watched his favorite player, Altuve, hit a walkoff HR. Drove back to Austin that night, listening to the radio replay over and over.
This year, he was moving away from home to start college. He wanted an Astros jersey before he left. They were hard to find, but he finally found one, with the name of an exciting rookie, Pena. He grabbed it. Now in school in Scotland, he figured out how to stream the games to the tv in the dorm rec room. He’s turned a bunch of Scots onto baseball, and made them Astros fans. They watch games that go till 4:00 am their time, wearing his extra Astros gear.
Last night, we got on a video call for the last inning. Oddly enough, his stream was a few seconds ahead of ours (out at a ranch, through Starlink). I knew we’d won before I saw it on our tv screen. I saw my son’s face, and I knew.
That’s a fantastic way to win a WS.

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TexArcher

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Remember how some of us were talking about our memories from 1986 and 1980?

I wish I could go back in time and tell my 10-year-old self, who had just had his heart broken by the Rockets and Astros in the same year, that he'd get to see them win a pair of championships each.

Cheer up, kid!

 

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APMP

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Frambler is going to have to adjust to losing the shift.  
I think the bigger adjustment for Framber will be no longer having the ability to really take time between pitches to mess with hitters. But he'll adjust. And the train will keep rolling.
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1 minute ago, TexArcher said:

Remember how some of us were talking about our memories from 1986 and 1980?

I wish I could go back in time and tell my 10-year-old self, who had just had his heart broken by the Rockets and Astros in the same year, that in the next 30 years he'd get to see them win a pair of championships each.

Cheer up, kid!

I was getting dressed this morning, and it occurred to me- last night might have been THAT sports moment in my life.

The moment Yordan's HR landed in the CF deck, my phone blew up with so many family, friends, and co-workers wishing congrats because they know how I live and die with the team. I was so amped up, it took a while to go to bed last night.  What a great moment.  The sweet taste of victory is knowing the haters can just freaking deal with it.

They gotta rename the CF area "Yordan's Crib" or something right?  It's the landing spot for the moonshot that crushed the Phillies' hopes and dreams, and told the shitheads like BobCostas, "Goodnight, you little bitch!"

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Harrison Stafford

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Lost Cole, lost Springer, lost Correa, lost the “respect” of the baseball world because of a media narrative. 

Yet it only brought Houston closer, stronger, with positivity and determination. This is the best team in Astros history and they deserve every bit of this title. Just as they did in 2017. What a team. 

 

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PenelopeWitherspoon

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Apologies for missing out on this.  I was watching the final outs while checking in for a flight to Luxor this AM (I woke up at 2 to repack and watched the game as we had to leave for the airport at 4).

I then spent the day in the Valley of the Kings.  All I have to say is, fuck yeah!  Lots of love to everyone here.

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Hank Chinaski

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You know, I generally try to ignore bullshit narratives that writers build around sports, especially baseball (baseball is a bit sacred for me). I love the numbers, the right ones actually do tell the story (the real story, not the editorial). Call me boring, call me robotic, call me “rain man”, whatever - you wouldn’t be wrong.

Because of this, I really haven’t historically had any hatred for other players/teams in baseball. Even when I was 9 in 1986 and was heartbroken by the Mets, I still though Strawberry and Gooden were cool as hell and fun to watch.

But then the sign-stealing story dropped, and we witnessed the most absurd, sensationalized, disingenuous media response I can recall (about sports). The writers clung to the story because it was easy material and got clicks. It gave them a heel, which baseball writers have sought throughout history. And of course the fans of all other teams ate it up. Even other players were clutching their pearls publicly when they knew goddamn well that they’d participated in something very similar. 

And it’s been going on for 3 years now. We’re talking about sign-stealing, but it’s continuously referred to as “scandal” like this was Baylor football or something. Not only is it just sign stealing, but the statistical evidence strongly suggests that it didn’t make any meaningful difference in production or outcomes at the team level. And anecdotal evidence suggests that it was widespread across baseball. The writers’ willful ignorance on this has been egregious. 

All this is to say that I have to admit to feeling a bit giddy that the Jeff Passans and Buster Olneys of the world have to come up with new material, have to admit that maybe sign stealing wasn’t the story of 2017, have to tell the actual story of a franchise that has been the best in baseball for almost a decade now and isn’t slowing down. They have to tell the story about how Jose Altuve is a goddamned baseball unicorn. They have to change the narrative.

So this is all to say - go fuck yourselves, you lazy, unimaginative hacks. And to all the moronic fans who have berated these guys for 3 years…I’m not offended because you’ve been “mean,” I’m offended by how fucking stupid and, again, willfully ignorant all of it is.

I told my brother after the sign-stealing story broke that the positive side of it all is that, when we win it again, it’ll kind of feel like the first time again because of everything above. And goddamn, it kind of does. So I guess that’s the gift we all get here.

Edited by Hank Chinaski
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