Jump to content

2018 Houston Astros Season Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
in Baseball

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 27.9k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • UTexasFight

    1691

  • Seasick Sailor

    1501

  • Mez2

    1467

  • Scraps

    1294

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Popular Posts

TexArcher
TexArcher

Bregs is going Crawford Boxes right here.

ERhine
ERhine

Prior to the footage being edited by Bender:

wesleywest
wesleywest

Two Diamond Club tickets available for the Sunday night game.  Free.  Need to pick them up from me in 77027. Rules: Poster must be a big contributor to this thread/last years shag thread.  No gue

Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8084

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Guadaloopy said:

 My wife and I will be out to dinner during game 1 celebrating our 17th anniversary.  Have had the reservation for a couple of months.   Poor foresight on my part.  She has already stated that I must leave my phone in the car.  Social media blackout and DVR for me.  

After 17 years she should know that playoff baseball makes you happy, and she should want that for you. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guadaloopy

Guadaloopy 10989

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 minutes ago, Gut Wagon said:

After 17 years she should know that playoff baseball makes you happy, and she should want that for you. 

She encouraged me to splurge and go to WS game 2 last year.  I’m angling for a repeat if things go as we hope.  

Edited by Guadaloopy
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9517

Posted
Posted
 My wife and I will be out to dinner during game 1 celebrating our 17th anniversary.  Have had the reservation for a couple of months.   Poor foresight on my part.  

Seriously, what were you thinking 17 years ago getting married during the MLB playoffs?
I bet it’s also interfered with Texas/ou more than once
You really botched the long game on this one.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
AtticusFinch

AtticusFinch 155

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Gut Wagon said:

He certainly belongs on the list. FWIW, I never liked Gooden or Hernandez or Orozco, either. 

 

As for the poster who said 1986 against the Mets was the first devastation in memory, that only tells me you weren’t around in ‘80. Even more of a playoff disaster, though that might seem impossible. 

I hated them all.  Dont leave off Carter and his punchable perm face.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gut Wagon

Gut Wagon 8084

Posted
Posted
12 minutes ago, AtticusFinch said:

I hated them all.  Dont leave off Carter and his punchable perm face.  

Certainly wouldn’t overlook Carter (included above). He was the first catcher I totally despised. I’d later come to loathe Tim McCarver nearly as much, but mainly because he was such an uber-doosh in the booth. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Planet Houston

Planet Houston 4930

Posted
  • Author
Posted
8 hours ago, WBT said:

It really is.  Then on top of that we still have guys that we hoped would be in the playoff mix that didn't perform or weren't ready yet like Fisher, Ted, and Whitley.  It's going to be fun for a long time.

This really is incredible. I have completely put Tucker and Whitley out of my mind post-ASB and routinely forget that we have such a stable of badasses ready in the wings when we inevitably lose starters from this immediate era. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

NSIAP

 

 

 

Stark: The Astros are back in October, and even better than you realize

GettyImages-1047746560-1024x683.jpg
By Jayson Stark  Oct 8, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 55 save-icon@2x.png

CLEVELAND – It probably hasn’t dawned on you yet what you’re watching. That might be because you haven’t been watching the 2018 Houston Astros at all.

They just played their Division Series games at lunchtime, so TV could get them out of the way so they wouldn’t upstage (ahem) The Main Event. Because they’re not the Yankees. They’re not the Red Sox. They’re not the Dodgers.

They’re just the defending World Series champions. That’s all. But really, it’s not. If that’s all you think the 2018 Astros are, Alex Bregman would like a word.

How good is this team? How potentially historically great is this team?

“To be honest with you?” the Astros’ effervescent third baseman said Monday, after his team had finished decimating the Indians, 11-3, to finish off an ALDS sweep. “Think about it, OK? [José] Altuve goes down. [George] Springer goes down. [Carlos] Correa goes down. And we won 103 games, OK?

“If those three don’t go down and [they] play a full season,” Bregman said, staring three members of the media right in the eyeballs, “we’re looking at the most wins in the history of the game.”

It’s hard to say what reaction Bregman expected. Maybe enthusiastic agreement. At the very least the sight of his audience’s heads nodding up and down.

Instead, however, he got laughter. Not acceptable.

“No. Honestly,” he said, emphatically. “I’m being honest here.”

More laughs. So he glanced around the room. He caught the eye of the Astros’ Special Assistant to the General Manager, Player Personnel, Kevin Goldstein, who had just wandered into the conversation.

“Am I wrong?” Bregman asked Goldstein, and everyone else within earshot, before he literally began shouting. “AM I WRONG?”

More laughs.

“You’re wrong,” Goldstein told him, finally. “But I love you.”

“Nobody says right,” Bregman muttered, then turned to Goldstein yet again. “Would we have the most wins in the history of the game if those three don’t go down?”

“Whatever you say is right,” Goldstein conceded, not totally seriously, with the knowledge he was dealing with a man it’s very hard to say no to.

“So it would be the most,” Bregman said, once he had that opening, “since when – the 1927 [freaking] Yankees?”

All right, let’s introduce some quick facts here. It would not have been the most wins since the 1927 [freaking] Yankees. They “only” won 110. The correct answer would have been the 2001 [freaking] Mariners and 1906 [freaking] Cubs. Who won 116 each.

But now that we have that out of the way, we’re not sure he’s wrong in concept. Because the 2018 Astros are special. And here’s where we point out how special they are, with the assistance of The Athletic’s stats-and-info guru, Katie Sharp.

—These Astros finished the regular season with a plus-263 run differential. Amazing. That’s the third-best differential in the 58-year era of 162-game schedules – behind only the 1998 [freaking] Yankees (plus-299) and 2001 [freaking] Mariners (plus-300).

—But wait. We mentioned the Astros are the defending World Series champions, right? So that run differential also happens to be the greatest by a defending champion in over seven decades – since Joe DiMaggio’s 1942 [freaking] Yankees put up a plus-294.

—Finally, speaking of defending champions, the Astros won 101 games last year on the way to the World Series parade, then came back and won more games this year (103). That, ladies and gentlemen, is incredibly rare and incredibly difficult. In fact, only two other teams have ever done that (i.e., win 100-plus, win the World Series and then win more games the following season). That would be those ’42 Yankees again and Connie Mack’s 1930 Philadelphia A’s.

Year Team W L Next Yr W Next Yr L Result
2017 HOU 101 61 103 59 ?
1941 NYY 101 53 103 81 Lost WS
1930 PHA 102 52 107 45 Lost WS

Pretty cool company, wouldn’t you say? But now let’s point out something important that separates the 2018 Astros from those 1930 A’s and 1942 Yankees. When those teams won the World Series, the entire postseason lasted a week. One best-of-seven series. Thanks for playing. Have a great winter.

Nowadays, it doesn’t work like that. As you may have noticed, in the wild-card era, the postseason is a grueling four-week marathon – compounded by night after night of late starts, later finishes, high-stress at-bats and multi-time-zone travel. It takes its toll.

Why has no team in the wild-card era, other than the 1998-2000 Yankees, repeated? We repeat: It takes its toll. And it has taken its toll on this Astros team.

“These guys are banged up, man,” Bregman said. “There’s no way around it. “You see guys taking swings and grimacing. You see Altuve hitting a double and limping into second base. I mean, you all see it. It’s not like everyone feels great.

“When you play into November,” he said, his voice rising again, “we understand why it’s so hard to repeat. When you play into November, your body is banged up.”

As much as Bregman would love for us all to play his what-if game and add, oh, 20 theoretical wins to the Astros’ total in our heads, that game is impossible to play. But he does have a point.

The lineup they ran out there Monday in Game 3 against the Indians was the lineup they would have expected to play more than any other this year (aside from the DH, Tony Kemp). This was the lineup you would have read about in March in all the season previews:

Springer CF
Altuve 2B
Bregman 3B
Gurriel 1B
González LF
Reddick RF
Correa SS
McCann C

But you know how many games the Astros ran those eight guys out there in those spots during the entire regular season? That would be eight. Eight!

They also went two full months (June 26 to Aug. 26) without ever being able to write out a lineup card that included Springer, Altuve and Correa at the same time – and often included none of the above.

And they still won 103 games – with the third-best run differential in the expansion era.

Wow.

All of which is a long, detailed way of saying: You know what? Alex Bregman might not be wrong. Or, if we’re not going to go that far, we think it at least says this:

This is a team that won the World Series last year – and there’s an easy argument that it’s even better now.

“Yeah,” said Justin Verlander. “I think there is. I mean, obviously, the postseason is a little bit of a coin flip. The best team doesn’t always win, especially in a five-game series….But in my opinion, this is the most complete team in baseball.”

Statistically, it’s not the same group offensively. But if it could weather this many injuries and still win 103 games, “it just speaks to how good this team is,” Verlander said. “How deep it is. How talented it is. Like I said, I think we’re the most complete team in baseball. And that’s where it really shows.”

Across the room, Bregman ticked off the names of the impact players who weren’t even here a year ago: Gerrit Cole … Ryan Pressly … Roberto Osuna … Martín Maldonado. They’re all upgrades on the men they replaced, with all due respect to those men they replaced, men who helped them win it all.

And this team, with those players, just obliterated a really good Indians team. Held them to 13 hits in three games. Held them to zero hits in three games with runners in scoring position. Spun off back-to-back games (Games 1 and 2) of three hits allowed and double-digit strikeouts – something nobody had done to the Indians in consecutive regular-season games in 31 years.

But that’s just the pitching staff. Meanwhile, the Astros rolled out a lineup that hit a ridiculous .327/.421/.614/1.036 as a team in this series. And you don’t see that much – by which we mean ever.

That’s the best OPS any offense has ever had in a postseason series of any length. And that .421 on-base percentage is tied with the 1932 Yankees for the best OBP any team has ever had in a postseason series. Yeah, we said ever.

So that’s what these Astros have accomplished so far. Now they await whatever AL monster shows up next. Red Sox? Yankees? They don’t much care.

“I’ll just say,” Bregman said, with a knowing grin, “that if you like the game of baseball, if you like two of the best playing each other, you’re going to tune into the ALCS.”

But until you do, it probably won’t dawn on you what you’re watching. On one side of the field will be a team that won over 100 games. And on the other will be the defending champs, highly motivated to prove that someone else should have been playing this week at 1 in the afternoon – and even more motivated to prove they’re still the best baseball team on planet earth.

But seriously, is it really possible that the 2018 edition of the Houston Astros could actually be better than the team that just threw itself a parade last November?

“Well,” said Alex Bregman, “there’s only one way to find out.”

(Top photo:  Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Boom! Glad you really enjoyed it.
rated-awesome@2x.png
jayson_stark.jpg
Jayson Stark has covered baseball for more than 30 years – first at the Philadelphia Inquirer, then at ESPN and ESPN.com, and now at MLB Network and WatchStadium. He is the author of three books on baseball, has won an Emmy for his work on Baseball Tonight and is a two-time winner of the Pennsylvania sportswriter-of-the-year award. In 2017, Topps issued an actual Jayson Starkbaseball card. Follow Jayson on Twitter @jaysonst.
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

Gammons: For some of the best players in the game, insecurity is a powerful tool

GettyImages-1044173668-1024x683.jpg
By Peter Gammons  Oct 8, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 22 save-icon@2x.png

One afternoon this week, some of his Red Sox teammates and coaches were making light of Mookie Betts, their likely MVP and most unassuming friend. “Mookie needs to be reminded that he’s as good as he is,” said one coach. “It’s refreshing. It’s motivating. But he doesn’t think of himself as a star. Just the opposite.”

“I don’t think he thinks he’s very good,” said Betts’ science-of-hitting companion J.D. Martinez.

So I asked Betts: “Do you realize what you’ve become?”

He laughed, put his head down, then shook it. “I’m not someone who talks about myself.” He laughed a little more. I told a couple of teammates that he has no idea that in 2016 and ‘18, Betts and Mike Trout will have finished 2-1 and 1-2 in the MVP voting and Wins Above Replacement science. The conversation turned to the insecurity that envelops most people that play major league baseball.

I offered Mookie a story: “A couple of the great Orioles pitchers who played with Cal Ripken when he came up, and were around when he became one of the most respected faces of the game in the nineties, used to say, ‘The most insecure person on earth is Cal Ripken.'”

The story continued: How the pitchers believed that insecurity motivated Ripken to show up, hurt, sick, whatever, to play every day for years, begin the post-strike rehabilitation of the game in 1995, sign autographs for hours after games. When he broke Lou Gehrig’s record on national television with Bill Clinton in the booth with Chris Berman, he was still was willing to get to Camden Yards at eight the next morning — a scheduled day off — to sit down and do a “Sunday Night Baseball” interview … and thanked us as he left the room. Before the Joe Torre Yankees, and before McGwire and Sosa, Cal Ripken’s insecurities helped baseball crawl from the wreckage of the winter of 1994-95.

Look, baseball is inherently insecure. Leading the league in hitting at .346 also means failure at a .654 rate. Slug .691 with a 1.139 OPS and 23 homers before the All-Star Break, and then go .571/995/9 in the same categories after the break (in 20 fewer games) and there are questions demanding answers.

Martinez, who has crafted two straight mind-boggling seasons, came up with the Astros and was once benched for swinging at a first pitch, knows all too well the role insecurities play with baseball players, and probably most athletes. Martinez, who as rookie encountered a veteran star in the clubhouse who refused to give him even a second of time or help, is considered by his peers as the model teammate. He, Betts and Mitch Moreland will take any player and include them in their long hours of video, batting cage and on-field preparation; ask Rafael Devers.

He and Betts have video guru Billy Broadbent take a small camera to the cage during batting practice and tape their swings. “Sometimes I get back inside, look at the video and tell myself, ‘those swings were terrible, this could be a tough night,’ then often go back in the cage indoors and try to fix it,” Martinez says.

“I’ll see something,” says Betts, “and try to fix it even if it’s right before the game.”

When infielders come out for early work with infield coach Carlos Febles, Betts will often come out and work at his original middle-infield position. “I think getting rid of the ball as an infielder helps in charging and quickly releasing throws from the outfield, especially from angles,” says Betts. “And you never know when we’re in an extra-inning game and they need me to come in to play the infield.” Indeed, it happened this season. Six innings, two chances, two assists at second base.

Red Sox coaches and teammates talk about the consistent daily preparation of Betts and Martinez, much like the Yankees would talk about how Derek Jeter used to say, “I take BP the same way every day,” and how the Angels marvel at Trout’s unswerving game and work ethic (“If his heartbeat could be charted, it would be a straight line, without any lines going up or down,” said one of his former coaches). Same for Joey Votto, of whom his former teammate and constant admirer Bronson Arroyo says, “He’s so devoted to concentrating on his preparation, he has something like 10 names on his phone’s contacts list so he can’t be interrupted.”

Asked if insecurity can result in daily preparation that, in turn, creates consistency, Red Sox hitting coach Tim Hyers replied, “No question. Maintaining consistency over the season, through the schedule, through slumps, through injuries, is a huge part of the game. Believing that you have to maintain that preparation. Going to the park thinking you can succeed on talent alone is dangerous. It happens to some players. It may be why some fail.”

“I’m not good enough to show up at the park and just go out there and play,” Betts says.

“I know what it’s like to not be very good,” says Martinez.

Betts is the best defensive right fielder in baseball, and he still keeps his defensive cards in his back pocket every inning of every game.

After Albert Pujols’ great rookie season, the next spring training he worked even harder. “If I can go from A ball to the big leagues, there’s someone else who believes he can do the same thing and take my job,” said the future Hall of Famer. Pujols still remembers the names of those who doubted him as a kid growing up in Kansas City, driving his incredible work ethic and preparation. Dustin Pedroia is the same way. And even though Justin Verlander walks to the mound like he’s on the red carpet, one of his former managers says, “He’s actually really insecure. There’s nothing he hates more than not being great, and the video and work he puts in is to get to the mound and prove he is great. He is driven.”

Alex Rodriguez was one of the most insecure players I ever met, but it fueled his commitment to the work and willingness to help young players. Self-doubts drove Dennis Eckersley to greatness, visible in his exuberance when he struck out opposing batters.

And on and on. One Monday this summer, after Betts had a huge weekend on the road, the opposing manager told me, “I can’t believe Red Sox coaches are telling me that Mookie Betts really doubts how good he is. He may be the greatest all-around player in the game.”

Mookie Betts had a 10.9 WAR this season; when Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941, his WAR was 10.6. While Williams may have been the greatest hitter who ever lived, he admitted he was so worried about slumps that when he had a couple of off days, he would take extra BP and keep hitting until he hit the screen in front of the pitcher 25 straight times. “If I got to 21 and hit a pop fly,” he said, “I started over again at zero.”

Mookie had 84 extra-base hits in 136 games. The last player to have as many as 84 extra-base hits in fewer than 140 games was Joe DiMaggio in 1941 (56-game hit streak, MVP).

Boston teammates say Betts gets more excited when a teammate does something dramatic or extraordinary than when he does it himself. “It’s part of the fun of the game,” Betts says. “It’s about winning as a bunch of friends.”

But, as clubhouse attendants and folks at The Commonwealth Hotel will tell you, the one thing outside of preparing and playing that occupies his time is the dedication to something bluesman Buddy Guy long ago preached.

“I was raised to believe that one thing that counts most in life,” says Betts, “is to treat everybody the way you want them to treat you.”

(Top photo of Betts: Alex Trautwig/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

Bowden: How Jeff Luhnow’s shrewd, lopsided trades got the Astros to this point

GettyImages-1046730690-1024x683.jpg
By Jim Bowden  Oct 8, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 64 save-icon@2x.png

The defending World Champion Astros did not rest on their laurels after winning the world championship last season. Instead of tweaking the roster, GM Jeff Luhnow decided to aggressively upgrade it, adding 10 new faces to the team since last year’s division series. Complacency can’t even be considered in Houston’s clubhouse.

The Astros’ offensive core was built from within thanks to years of strong drafts and an elite player development department that has produced such All-Stars as José Altuve, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa and George Springer. Their position players include solid free-agent signings like outfielder Josh Reddick and infielder Yuli Gurriel.

However, the key to this team’s legitimate chance at back-to-back championships is Luhnow’s shrewd, lopsided trading. One only has to look at their first two victories over the Indians in the division series, and the two aces who flat-out dominated Cleveland. In Game 1, Justin Verlander threw five no-hit innings before being relieved in the sixth; the next day, Gerrit Cole threw seven shutout innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks. Both starters were acquired in trades. The acquisition of Verlander in August 2017, right at the waiver deadline, is one of the main reasons the Astros won last year’s World Series. Cole, acquired this past offseason in a blockbuster deal with the Pirates, has put Houston in a strong position to repeat.

In both trades, Luhnow refused to give up any of his very top prospects, instead using Houston’s deep farm system to make moves based on quantity over quality. Not that the Tigers and Pirates didn’t get quality prospects back, but how in the world do you get Verlander and Cole and not give up your top-tier prospects? Luhnow kept grinding, he kept persisting, he stayed engaged, but he drew the line before trade negotiations began in both cases and never moved off of it.

By the way, he’d already been pursuing several elite starting pitchers via trade before he got Verlander and Cole, including former White Sox pitchers Chris Sale and José Quintana. But every time potential trade partners insisted on getting back third baseman Alex Bregman in the package, he just said no. He never wavered. It didn’t matter how many phone calls were made; he wasn’t afraid to walk away from the trade proposals.

Before Luhnow engages in trade talks, he polls his top evaluators, analytic experts and trusted confidantes about which prospects they would and wouldn’t include, then does his thing, dealing but keeping the Bregmans and Kyle Tuckers off-limits. Now, no other American League postseason team has a one-two punch as good as Verlander and Cole.

The back end of the Astros’ bullpen is another key. Luhnow traded for closer Roberto Osuna and set-up reliever Ryan Pressly midseason, which has put the Astros’ late relief in the strongest position it has been in during this era. Osuna was acquired from the Blue Jays after a domestic violence arrest, and served a 75-game suspension from Major League Baseball, but criminal charges were dropped when Osuna agreed to a one-year peace bond in a Toronto court in late September. However you feel about the circumstances of the trade, from a pure baseball perspective, the move has been effective; the Astros have the closer they didn’t have last year.

Pressly came over in an under-the-radar trade with the Twins that sent two Double-A prospects to Minnesota. Pressly has become the Astros’ best set-up man, throwing 95-97 mph with a knee-buckling curveball. All of a sudden, the Houston bullpen has been upgraded so dramatically that two relievers who got postseason saves for the Astros last year, Chris Devenski and Brad Peacock, were left off the division series roster, as was Héctor Rondón, who was actually their closer for most of the regular season.

There are a number of elite GMs and presidents in Major League Baseball, including three-time world champion Brian Sabean of the Giants, Theo Epstein of the Cubs, Brian Cashman of the Yankees, Dave Dombrowski of the Red Sox and Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers. They have a few key traits in common. They build teams from within first, and when trading, they are clear on what they’ll give up before negotiations start, rarely move off of their positions, and aren’t afraid to walk away, a trait that is necessary for success. But they’re not afraid to trade prospects, and they all have track records for trading for proven starting pitching and middle-of-the-order bats. The group is also special in its ability to acquire undervalued players and knows how to put the right mix of players and human beings in their clubhouses. They’ve all either won a World Series or taken their teams to multiple fall classics.

Over the last 15 months, Luhnow has put himself in this elite group of star GMs thanks to the deals for Verlander, Cole, Pressly, Osuna and Gold Glove catcher Martín Maldonado.

His influence in scouting and player development with the Cardinals was instrumental in the years of their postseason appearances. His overseeing the drafting of Bregman, Correa and Lance McCullers Jr. and his past free-agent signings of Charlie Morton, Gurriel and Reddick speak for themselves.

Luhnow is respected by his peers because of his honesty and straightforward approach. He doesn’t play games. If he says he won’t trade a prospect, he won’t. Other GMs know he’ll walk away if he has to. They also know, now, that he’s become one of the game’s best.

(Top photo of Cole: Bob Levey/Getty Images)

Boom! Glad you really enjoyed it.
rated-awesome@2x.png
Jim-Bowden.jpg
Jim Bowden, a staff writer for The Athletic MLB, is the former general manager of the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. He is also a regular co-host on the MLB Network channel on Sirius XM Radio, and the year-round analyst on the Fantasy Alarm show on Sirius XM. He previously wrote for ESPN.com. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimBowdenGM.
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted
 

 

In their sweep of the Indians, the Astros showed why their pitching staff is unrivaled

Astros-pitchers-1024x749.jpg
By Jake Kaplan  Oct 8, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 24 save-icon@2x.png

CLEVELAND — Records of the American League Division Series that ended late Monday afternoon at Progressive Field will show that the Astros held an Indians’ lineup that scored 5.05 runs in the regular season to merely six runs across three games.

But even that astoundingly low total doesn’t fully capture the pitching staff that has the defending World Series champions four wins from a second consecutive AL title. To better contextualize the dominance of Houstons’ arms, consider those who didn’t even make an appearance in the series against Cleveland.

Zero pitches were thrown by Charlie Morton, last year’s Astros’ postseason hero who had a career-best 3.13 ERA in 167 innings this season. Nor were any thrown by Josh James, the revelatory rookie who touched 101 mph in relief in September. Ditto for Tony Sipp, their lone left-handed reliever, who had a 1.86 ERA in 38 2/3 innings.

And that’s not even accounting for roster omissions like Héctor Rondón, Joe Smith and Brad Peacock. Still, Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole & Co. limited a lineup headlined by José Ramírez and Francisco Lindor to a .144/.196/.222 batting line in 90 at-bats.

“I have no idea. I’ve got to tell you,” Cole said when asked how exactly the Astros accomplished that feat. “I just thought from my perspective, from what we can control, we were aggressive in the zone. I thought we were convicted with what we were throwing. There were a couple times where maybe we weren’t, actually, and as a group we discussed it and moved forward from it. 

“They’re a great team. A lot of credit to them. They had a great season. They won the division for the third year in a row. They were as potent as ever. We just did a good job of doing, I guess, what we do.”

What the Astros did was shut down every Indians hitter save for Lindor. They held Ramirez hitless in 11 at-bats and limited Edwin Encarnación and Josh Donaldson to a combined 2-for-21. The only Indians home runs came off the bat of Lindor — against Cole in Game 2 and Keuchel in Game 3. A Yandy Diaz double in Game 3 represented their only other extra-base hit in the series. They didn’t muster a single hit with a runner in scoring position, the first in a playoff series to fail to do so since the 2010 Reds team that was no-hit by Roy Halladay.

This ALDS began, of course, with Verlander not allowing a hit until the sixth inning of Game 1. Cole one-upped up the AL Cy Young Award contender with his 12-strikeout, zero-walk performance in Game 2. Dallas Keuchel walked a tightrope at times in Game 3 but ultimately pitched five innings of two-run ball.

The Astros’ bullpen was just as effective. Ryan Pressly, Roberto Osuna and Lance McCullers Jr. each made two scoreless appearances. Collin McHugh struck out four in two perfect innings of middle relief on Monday before George Springer and the Astros bats broke open their series-clinching 11-3 win. The run that scored on Will Harris’s two-out wild pitch in the ninth inning marked the only run allowed by Houston’s bullpen in the series.

“We had a good game plan going in and our pitchers executed almost flawlessly,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “They had a couple big swings, but we really did a good job of executing. 

“I look at today’s game as a perfect example, where Collin McHugh comes in, largely overlooked when you start looking at how we won the first couple games, and has huge strikeout after huge strikeout. It’s a really deep team with a really good bullpen, and the execution was the difference maker.”

Their remarkable pitching performance came on the heels of a regular season in which the 534 runs they allowed set an AL record for fewest by an AL team in a non-strike year since the DH’s introduction in 1973. These Astros led the majors in rotation ERA (3.16) and bullpen ERA (3.03). Their 1,687 strikeouts was a major league record, surpassing last year’s Indians’ staff (1,614).

Then pare the staff down for October and factor in that game planning, communication and awareness are heightened in a postseason format.

“We really bore down and really went to the homework drawing board and tried to figure out what we could do, what we couldn’t do and in tough situations what pitches to make,” Keuchel said. “And more times than not, we made the pitch when we had to and then we got the big hit when we had to.”

The first postseason series sweep by the Astros in franchise history now affords Hinch and pitching coach Brent Strom the luxury of lining up their pitching staff for the ALCS. Because they didn’t have to battle it out with the Indians for four or five games, Verlander and Cole can start Games 1 and 2, respectively, on seven days’ rest. The bullpen will be as rested as possible for it being this time of year.

It’s a luxury their ALCS opponent won’t have, one last year’s Astros didn’t have after using Verlander out of the bullpen in their clinching Game 4 of the ALDS. The depth of their 2018 pitching staff is unmatched, a fact Keuchel summed up well Monday amid the champagne celebration in Cleveland’s visitors clubhouse.

“If we didn’t win today,” he said, “we had Charlie Morton going tomorrow.”

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

Why Ryan Pressly has become the Astros’ most important reliever

Pressly-1024x683.jpg
By Jake Kaplan  Oct 7, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 10 save-icon@2x.png

CLEVELAND — Before he threw his first career postseason pitch, Ryan Pressly peered into the Minute Maid Park stands. As a way of slowing down the moment, veteran Tony Sipp had suggested to Pressly he locate from the mound his family and friends in their seats.

The exercise proved futile when Pressly couldn’t find his personal cheering section through the sea of orange. “It’s a lot easier to find them in the minor leagues,” he would say later. “I can tell you that much.” The 29-year-old right-hander spiked his first pitch and a run scored easily from third. Welcome to October baseball.

By month’s end, Pressly should be vastly more experienced pitching in the games in which the stakes are highest. If the first two games of the Astros’ ALDS against the Indians prove to be any indication, manager A.J. Hinch will rely on Pressly in high-leverage, non-closing situations more than any other reliever.

It could be the sixth inning like in Game 1 on Friday or the eighth like in Game 2 on Saturday. If the opposition’s best hitters are due up in a tight game, Pressly has emerged as Hinch’s go-to weapon out of the bullpen.

Astros relievers have been tasked with 17 outs through their first two victories against the Indians. Pressly has gotten seven, the same amount as closer Roberto Osuna has. Collin McHugh, Will Harris, Josh James and Tony Sipp will enter Game 3 on Monday afternoon at Progressive Field yet to even appear in the series.

“I’d like to get some other guys some action, but that means we need to have some different circumstances, or [starter] Dallas [Keuchel] can throw the whole game,” Hinch said on Sunday at Progressive Field. “I don’t think I can go in set up with any preconceived notions. We’re trying to get 27 outs. How we use and who we use, the matchups we use, the game will dictate more so than me pre-planning it. We’ve not used some pretty good relievers. We’ve got some options in some areas that now we have some new looks, or maybe we go back to Press and Osuna and close out a win. That’s fine too.”

Having Lance McCullers Jr. as an option to set up Osuna this postseason makes it easier for Hinch to use Pressly earlier in games if the scenario warrants it. And Pressly’s arsenal makes him a good matchup for the Astros against both right-handed and left-handed hitters. Any hitter who has trouble with the ball up in the zone is vulnerable to his 96 mph riding four-seam fastball. Those who struggle with power breaking balls will see a heavy dosage of his 90 mph slider or his 83 mph curveball.

Hinch telegraphed Pressly’s increased October usage by how he managed the reliever’s workload late in the regular season. He didn’t use him for more than three outs in any of Pressly’s final 23 appearances and used him only once, for an inning, in the team’s final six games. Even so, Pressly led AL relievers in appearances with 77, 51 of which he made before the July 27 trade from the Twins to the Astros. His 71 innings ranked only 15th in the AL.

“I feel good,” Pressly said before Game 2. “It’s my job every day to get my body ready no matter what, no matter what the situation is. It’s postseason too, so your adrenaline’s kicking pretty hard.”

A few notes ahead of Game 3

— The next home run by George Springer or José Altuve will set an Astros’ record for career postseason homers by an individual player, with nine. Springer and Altuve are currently tied with Carlos Beltrán with eight. Carlos Correa has seven, and Alex Bregman (6) is quickly catching up.

— Brian McCann is expected to catch Dallas Keuchel in Game 3, a reflection of both Indians starter Mike Clevinger’s drastic righty-lefty splits and Keuchel’s ability to control the opponent’s running game. But even in this scenario, Martín Maldonado will all but certainly play a role in the game. Expect Hinch to treat Maldonado as the catcher version of Jake Marisnick, an elite defensive replacement he deploys in the sixth inning or later.

— Hinch used identical lineups in Game 1 and Game 2 but Clevinger’s vulnerability against left-handed hitters (.726 opponents’ OPS in the regular season as opposed to a .586 versus right-handed hitter) presents an opportunity to switch things up. In addition to playing McCann, Hinch could consider starting Tony Kemp over Tyler White at designated hitter to get an extra left-handed bat in the bottom third of the lineup.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

Stark: The José Altuve Effect is real

GettyImages-1046754468-1024x683.jpg
By Jayson Stark  Oct 6, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 24 save-icon@2x.png

HOUSTON – Five feet from home plate, the MVP was on his hands and knees, trying to avoid a face plant … trying to pretend his knee wasn’t throbbing … trying to pretend he’d just hit a rocket up the gap instead of a dribbler up the line.

Little did José Altuve know he’d accidentally started the craziest game-winning postseason rally of his life. Little did he know that, simply by picking himself up and staggering toward first base, he was going to cause an October baseball game to spin in a whole different direction.

And most important of all, little did he know that just the sight of him falling down in front of the batter’s box was threatening to send the entire roster of the Houston Astros to the coronary-care unit.

“Everyone’s heart stopped for a second,” said Carlos Correa.

“I panicked,” said George Springer.

We often grope for the words to describe what Altuve means to baseball’s defending champs. But on Saturday afternoon at Minute Maid Park, it was all summed up in just a few brief moments.

A swinging bunt, a messy tumble, a painful trip up the first-base line … and its powerful impact on, well, everything that happened next in Game 2 of the American League Division Series.

“Every time he’s on the field,” Correa would say of Altuve, after the 3-1 win that gave the Astros a 2-games-to-none lead, “he makes special things happen.”

This hasn’t been Altuve’s greatest season. He’d be the first to tell you that. And in a related development, it certainly hasn’t been his healthiest. So it was almost fitting that Saturday, on another magical October day in Houston, Altuve’s game-altering impact was eclipsed by the 12-strikeout brilliance of Gerrit Cole, the four hits of Marwin González and another Alex Bregman long ball.

But let’s take a step back from those headlines and remember something important. It’s now about seven weeks since Altuve returned from the disabled list after an extended battle with knee soreness. The Astros’ record since he got back on the field?

Only 30-9.

Yessir. That’s the best record in the whole sport since then. Of course it is.

Or how about this: In games Altuve has started this year, counting the postseason, the Astros are 50 games over .500 – yeah, 50. As in 94-44.

And in the games he hasn’t been in the lineup? They’re five games under .500. As in 9-14.

You think this is a coincidence? You think this is just fun with numbers? You think this is merely circumstantial evidence disguised as some sort of trend? Sorry, not buying it. And Altuve’s teammates aren’t buying it, either.

“He’s our leader. He’s our captain. And he’s our guy,” Springer said, without much prompting. “When he’s in our lineup, it makes everybody kind of slow down and relax, because he’s our mainstay.”

You don’t need to program any complicated algorithms to analyze why that is, either. It’s pretty frigging obvious, isn’t it? He’s one of the best hitters in the entire sport, right? Is that a basic enough analysis?

He became a regular player for the Astros seven seasons ago. He has the most hits in baseball and the highest batting average in baseball over the last three, four, five, six or seven seasons. Pick a time span. He’s still That Guy.

And this season was going to be no different until the last week of July, when he fired an RBI double to right center at Coors Field, tried to accelerate to beat the throw to second base and came up limping.

At the time, he was leading the league in hits, was second to Mookie Betts in batting average and was hovering around the league-leader board in on-base percentage, stolen bases and doubles. He then missed the next 21 games. The Astros had a losing record without him (10-11). And their lead over Oakland shrunk from six games to 1 ½.

Then back he came in late August, at around the same time as Correa and Springer. The Astros got the band back together. They’ve been a behemoth ever since. So you do that José Altuve math. It’s not a difficult equation.

“He’s a superstar,” said veteran catcher Brian McCann. “He’s the MVP. He’s one of the best players in this game. And when he’s in there, there’s a difference – a huge difference. It’s what he brings in the clubhouse, what he brings on the field. He gets a lot of rallies going. He’s a big piece that we were missing.”

But what happened Saturday was a reminder that he’s still not the healthiest player in baseball, even now. Asked to describe his current state of health on a scale of one to 100 percent, Altuve grinned. That wasn’t happening. Not now.

“You don’t know,” he said. “I could tell you that after the season. But in the playoffs, there is so much adrenaline or something that right now I feel 100 percent, because of the adrenaline in my body.”

Well, whatever it is that’s keeping him going, it allowed him to leave his mark on a pivotal postseason baseball game. The Indians held a 1-0 lead as Altuve stepped in to lead off the bottom of the sixth against Carlos Carrasco. Until that moment, no team that scored first had lost a game in this postseason. In fact, there hadn’t been a lead change – in eight games.

But not for long. Altuve topped a 1-and-2 changeup down the third-base line. The exit velocity of this mighty blast was a whopping 56 miles per hour. It was the softest ball hit off Carrasco all day. It had a hit probability, according to Statcast, of 22 percent. And even that seemed high.

But whatever that hit probability it was, it plummeted precipitously when Altuve got one step out of the box and then found himself on his hands and knees. His cleats must have gotten “a little wet,” he theorized. But this was no time to analyze why he was slip-sliding in the dirt. This was a time to struggle to his feet and start running.

If he hadn’t fallen, Indians third baseman Josh Donaldson wouldn’t have done what he did next, either. He would have just let this ball roll foul. But merely by making the effort to pick himself up and keep running, Altuve caused Donaldson to make a game-changing decision his team could wind up regretting all winter.

Under “normal circumstances,” Donaldson told the Athletic’s Zack Meisel, “I let it go [foul] every time.” But under these circumstances, he thought he had “an easy out.” So he grabbed the baseball, fired it to first base and wound up heaving it halfway to Galveston. It was scored a single. But that’s a debate for another time.

What seemed to matter most at that moment, though, was that Altuve had seemed to pull up as he approached the bag, then limped around uncomfortably as his manager and athletic trainer sprinted out for a visit, their blood pressure skyrocketing.

“I was a little sore after that play,” Altuve admitted. “I was a little scared … I mean, you don’t want to be hurt during the playoffs.”

But what were the odds of him coming out of that game in that moment? About the same as Nolan Ryan popping out of the box seats to pitch the last three innings. And by that we mean: zero.

“For him to leave a game like that, he’d have to die,” Springer quipped. “Die. That man’s a warrior. He’s not coming out. He’s like all of us. If I can walk, I can play.”

So because Altuve somehow found himself standing on first, a comatose ballpark suddenly rocked back to life. Alex Bregman worked a walk. Carrasco was exiting. Andrew Miller was entering. Gonzalez sliced a two-run double into the right-field corner. And guess who suddenly felt so much better, he was able to sprint home from second to score? Yep. The MVP.

So think about this. Think about what just happened here. Jose Altuve has started many rallies in his day. But it’s safe to say none were as crazy as the way he started this one.

“Yeah. Crazy,” he said. “But for me, it feels the same as getting a line drive or homer, because I just wanted to get on base – and I did.”

It was almost as if he willed himself to reach that base. Whereupon his team willed itself to turn this game and this series upside down. And that, friends, is the José Altuve Effect. When he’s on the field, stuff just happens.

On Saturday afternoon, somehow or other, it happened to the Houston Astros and Cleveland Indians. And now this ALDS might never be the same.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

Stark: The Lessons of Justin Verlander

GettyImages-1046267624-1024x683.jpg
By Jayson Stark  Oct 5, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 50 save-icon@2x.png

HOUSTON – He could have been a Dodger. He could have been a Cub. He could have been a Yankee. But that isn’t how life turned out for Justin Verlander.

There are trades that work and trades that don’t, trades that fizzle and trades that sizzle. But you know what the trade that sent Justin Verlander to Houston did? It changed the baseball world. That’s all.

We know that now, 13 months and one week after the midnight deal that made Verlander an Astro on Aug. 31, 2017. We know it altered the fate of his franchise. It’s fascinating to ponder how it also might have altered the fate of the franchises that said, “No, thanks,” and watched him lead the Astros to the parade floats.

And on a Friday afternoon in October, on the kind of afternoon he lives for, Verlander did more than merely pitch the Astros to a 7-2 thumping of the Indians in Game 1 of their American League Division Series. He taught us two valuable lessons:

1. He reminded us again that The Big Deal matters. It matters to the team that makes it. It matters to the teams that don’t.

2. He reminded us, too, that, in an age when bullpenning and Openers are the trendiest topic in all the land, great starting pitchers still matter. And if he has anything to do with it, they always will.

“I’m a believer in starting pitching,” Verlander said Friday, on the day he won the 12th postseason game of his Hall of Fame career, tying him with Roger Clemens for fourth-most of all time. “I think you need it. I think the more relievers get used every single day, it has an effect, in my opinion.

“Whether you can sustain that for a year, two years, three years, throughout October, I don’t know,” he went on. “I don’t have the answers. But I do believe in innings. I believe in protecting the bullpen. And I believe in [the] starting pitcher.”

His manager, A.J. Hinch, called his ace “one of the most dominant postseason pitchers of all time.” And it’s getting hard to argue. The numbers paint this picture. And at this point, that picture should be hanging in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

  • Only Andy Pettitte (19), John Smoltz (15) and Tom Glavine (14) have won more postseason baseball games than Justin Verlander has.
  • Among active pitchers, just CC Sabathia (10) and Jon Lester (six) have even won half as many games as Verlander has.
  • And among all the pitchers in history who have started as many October games as he has, only Jon Lester (2.51), John Smoltz (2.67) and Whitey Ford (2.71) have a better postseason ERA than Verlander (3.07).

But Verlander also reminds us every time he takes the mound that it’s not just about talent, not just about his elite, still-evolving stuff. It’s also about mindset.

“I’ve always enjoyed the moment,” he said. “I think it’s something that you don’t take for granted.”

But his seven trips to this tournament have helped him understand there is even more to it than that, he said. There is a method to handling that moment and channeling the energy that wells up. And now that he has completely processed all that goes into that, he has owned nearly all his October moments over the past five years.

Since he got hammered in The Pablo Sandoval Game, in the opener of the 2012 World Series, Verlander has pitched in 11 postseason games. He is 6-2 in those games, with a 2.04 ERA and 70 strikeouts (but just 40 hits allowed) in 66 1/3 innings. His team has lost four of his starts in that time. But even in those losses, his ERA was 2.08, and he averaged nearly 6 2/3 innings a start.

There is a responsibility that comes with acehood. And those numbers, in the biggest games of his life, are a statement on how much Justin Verlander has always embraced that responsibility. It allows him to put his own inimitable stamp on games like this. And on Friday, once again, he did exactly that.

“He’s a big-time, big-adrenaline pitcher that never ceases to surprise you or amaze you,” Hinch said.

Look, we understand that there is more than one way to win in baseball and more than one way to win in October. So more power to the teams that try to bullpen their way through the postseason minefield. If it fits for them and works for them, hey, that’s cool.

But if you polled 30 general managers, we guarantee all 30 would rather hand the ball to one of the great starting pitchers of his generation and watch him do what Verlander did Friday – kick off his team’s postseason by spinning off five hitless innings.

“That’s just what we expect him to do,” quipped his grateful teammate, Josh Reddick. “I actually expected him to go nine and pitch a no-hitter.”

OK, not this time. Instead, the Indians were able to wear Verlander down and get him out of this fray in the sixth. But he’d already left his mark – in a way that only aces can.

“Justin always seems to show up when we really need him,” said fellow pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., “whether it’s during the season, we’re on a little bit of a losing streak, or when the bullpen is kind of banged up and he goes deep that day. But you saw it last year when he came over here. We needed a little bit of a spark, and he supplied that spark.”

Ah, but this was no spark. This was a five-alarm inferno. And it’s still blazing.

Verlander now has been to the mound 46 times as an Astro, counting the postseason. He is 26-10 with a 2.32 ERA. And as the stage gets more humongous in September and October, he’s the ultimate big-game monster. In two seasons of September and October baseball in Houston, he has gone an incredible 14-1, 1.80.

Feel free to swirl that around your brain one more time – 14-1, 1.80.

That big-game brilliance has already put World Series rings on his teammates’ fingers once. And a year later, his immense presence, as the centerpiece of one of baseball’s most dominating rotations of modern times, has the Astros in good position to win again.

So take a step back and play the what-if game. What if he had become a Dodger 13 months ago? What if he had become a Cub? What if he had become a Yankee?

All those teams inquired. All those teams kicked his tires. All those teams pondered whether they really wanted to pay the steep price the Tigers had placed on the then-34-year-old. Every one of those teams took a pass – once in July, then again in August when they allowed Verlander to clear waivers and make that deal to Houston possible.

So think about this: How different would life be, would baseball be, would the Astros be, if he’d landed in one of those destinations instead of Houston?

“Oh, we’d have figured him out and raked him anyway,” Reddick deadpanned. “That’s the obvious answer from me. But I’m just happy he didn’t [go somewhere else]. I’m just happy this front office went out and got a guy like that – not just for what he does on the mound but what he does in this clubhouse.

“He brings a lot of respect,” Reddick said. “And a lot of guys look up to a guy like that. Even myself, and I’m an outfielder. But he’s a guy you can talk to about anything – whether it be hitting, baseball or other stuff. He’s just been a great guy to have around.”

He sometimes feels like an ace who rode in on a time machine from the 1970s. But when you watch him on these electric October afternoons, he’s a reminder that aces never go out of style. And the Houston Astros, a team built around a rotation that would have felt totally at home in the ‘70s, are grateful for all the aces they’ve collected – but especially this one.

“He’s been the cornerstone for us,” McCullers said of the great Justin Verlander. “He’s the guy we rely on to pitch the big game – and you saw it again today.”

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

He describes pressure as a privilege’: Bregman’s blast takes down another ace and adds to his postseason legacy

USATSI_11378142-1024x683.jpg
By Jake Kaplan  Oct 5, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 3 save-icon@2x.png

Alex Bregman’s postseason book reads like a who’s-who of the game’s best pitchers. It includes two seven-time All-Stars, one of whom is a former MVP and three-time Cy Young Award winner, and a closer perennially considered among the elite.

So it was true to form that the Houston Astros third baseman’s fifth career postseason home run — a solo blast that opened the scoring in Game 1 of the ALDS — came against a man who’s won two of the past four AL Cy Youngs. Corey Kluber, the ace of the Indians, joined an ever-growing list that already featured Chris Sale (twice), Clayton Kershaw and Kenley Jansen.

“I love how he describes pressure,” Astros manager AJ Hinch said of the 24-year-old Bregman just minutes after his team’s 7-2 victory. “He describes pressure as a privilege.”

Be it with a long ball off one of the sport’s greats, a pinpoint throw home in a tight game or a walk-off single, Bregman has put his stamp on each of the four playoff series he’s played. This time, he needed only two at-bats to make his dent. A sinker over the plate that he smoked into Minute Maid Park’s Crawford Boxes broke a scoreless tie and ignited Houston’s four-run barrage against Kluber over the fourth and fifth innings.

The next time Bregman goes deep in October off a pitcher who has never been an All-Star will be a first. He is participating in only his second postseason, and the only players who’ve accounted for more playoff homers in Astros history are Carlos Beltran (eight), José Altuve (eight), George Springer (eight), Carlos Correa (seven) and Lance Berkman (six).

It’s reached the point where Bregman’s teammates expect clutch swings like Friday’s as much as they count on a dominant performance from ace Justin Verlander. After a regular season in which Bregman should finish fourth or fifth in AL MVP voting, he has cemented his place as the best player on a team of stars.

“He’s one of the best players in baseball,” Brian McCann said. “He is as good as they come, as prepared as anybody around. He’s just going to keep getting better and better, too. I think what we’re watching on a day in and day out basis is special. He’s going to be doing this for a long, long time.”

Bregman’s tireless work ethic and his passion for baseball are go-to plaudits when an Astros coach or player is asked about him. Friday was no exception.

“People that are around him every day, they see how put together he is as a professional,” Charlie Morton said. “He goes about his business like you would hope an experienced ballplayer would, like a veteran would. Some of the things that he does that are different, things that he picks up on, the ways that he picks up on things, he’s just different. He’s just a different young player than most guys.”

“I think today he was jersey’d up at about 11:30 ready to go,” Josh Reddick said. “He just loves baseball, and we love him for that.”

But sometimes the best perspective can come from someone who, up until recently, was an outsider. Enter Ryan Pressly, the reliever who knew Bregman only as the opposition before he was traded from the Twins to the Astros on July 27.

“He’s the heartbeat to this team,” Pressly said after Game 1. “He keeps it light. He keeps it fun. It’s just a kid playing ball.”

Bregman lives for moments like those October baseball affords. He started off his fourth-inning at-bat Friday by taking a sinker for a called strike. Two subsequent pitches he laid off for balls put Bregman ahead in the count, 2-1. Then came the mistake pitch.

“He lives on the edges of the plate,” Bregman said of Kluber. “When he does that, you really just have to go into battle mode, and we did that. Then we’re able to hit some pitches over the middle of the plate, hit some of the mistakes, which, with guys like him and (Carlos) Carrasco and their team, you don’t get a lot of mistakes.”

Kluber needed 31 more pitches to escape that fourth inning. Three innings later, Bregman tacked on a single off Trevor Bauer that plated Springer from second base to put the Astros ahead 6-2. Bauer started him with three consecutive sliders before firing a fastball that Bregman lifted into left field.

“It’s amazing to watch him do it time after time after time,” Hinch said. “We’re getting spoiled. Guys aren’t supposed to do it at this level at that rate he’s been doing.”

(Top photo of Alex Bregman celebrating with Marwin Gonzalez: Troy Taormina / 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
4th and 5

4th and 5 4915

Posted
Posted

 

Cole’s hungry’: How the Astros and Gerrit Cole proved to be the perfect marriage

GettyImages-1037474680-1024x757.jpg
By Rustin Dodd  Oct 5, 2018comment-icon@2x.png 6 save-icon@2x.png

HOUSTON — Last fall, as the Houston Astros sprayed Champagne after the first World Series championship in club history, Gerrit Cole watched at home. He knew all about postseason heartache after five seasons in Pittsburgh. He understood the pain of wild-card game losses and the thrill of a short series. He knew that opportunities could be fleeting.

After a franchise renaissance earlier this decade, the Pirates had completed their second straight season without a playoff berth. Franchise pillar Andrew McCutchen was the subject of trade rumors. The window was closing on a once-promising core.

To complicate matters, Cole was coming off a perplexing year. He had thrown 200 innings and tied for the league lead with 33 starts, yet his 4.26 ERA did not quite match his pedigree. He was a staff ace and former No. 1 overall pick, the son of a Southern California doctor who attained golden-boy status in high school and at UCLA through talent and temperament. He was so self-assured and likable as a teenager that he once turned down an offer from the New York Yankees out of high school, told his college teammates he’d go No. 1, anyway, then fulfilled the mission three years later.

In the months after his 2017 season, Cole was proud of his durability and innings. He also knew he could be better. The sentiment was shared by a forward-thinking baseball front office still drying its clothes from the Champagne celebration.

“You got to give players the benefit of the doubt when they have a body of work,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said.

In 2017, the Astros pushed their chips to the center of the table in late August, acquiring Justin Verlander from the Tigers and paving the way to a world championship. In 2018, Luhnow didn’t wait until spring training.

On a Saturday in January, 265 days before the start of an American League Division Series, the Astros sent a package of four players to the Pirates in exchange for Cole. The price included third baseman Colin Moran, outfielder Jason Martin and pitchers Joe Musgrove and Michael Feliz. The move invigorated an organization and officially christened a title defense.

“He was a perfect fit for us,” said A.J. Hinch, “and certainly one of the best additions imaginable for our team.”

The marriage made sense for both sides. In six seasons in Houston, Luhnow had built a champion on a foundation of young stars, organizational depth and a front office geared toward analytical superiority. Yet the club has also engineered a player development machine that turns good players into great ones and great ones into MVP candidates. So when the club acquired Cole, 28, in January, Hinch wasn’t so much curious about why he labored in Pittsburgh but rather focused on a simple question: How quickly would he buy in?

“My curiosity around Gerrit was just how open he was going to be to some subtle things that could make him a little bit better,” Hinch said. “What I learned quickly from him is he’s all in on trying to find a little edge.”

Armed with a cerebral approach and desire to dominate, C0le arrived at spring training ready to work. The combination of world-class talent, analytical ingenuity and old-school coaching proved to be a potent combination.

In 32 starts, Cole finished with 2.88 ERA, a 2.70 FIP and career-high 276 strikeouts, second in the AL behind Verlander. Three seasons after his first All-Star appearance in 2015, he returned to the midsummer classic and finished with the second highest ERA-plus (140) of his career. Cole’s resurgence helped the Astros weather a rash of injuries and finish with a franchise-record 103 wins on their way to a third postseason appearance in four seasons. On Saturday, he will start Game 2 of the ALDS and try to give his team a 2-0 series lead against the Cleveland Indians after a 7-2 victory Friday at Minute Maid Park.

“Cole’s hungry,” said Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who homered in Game 1.

Cole and the Astros view his return to form in uncomplicated terms: His teammates speak of a pitching intellectual with a gift for mechanics and executing pitches. Cole speaks of an organization and coaching staff that aligned with his sensibilities.

“You’re not asked to conform to a system,” Cole said. “You’re asked to use the system to make yourself better. So, from an analytic standpoint, from a scouting report standpoint, from teammates and instructors, there’s just a high level of quality here that’s ahead of quite a bit of other teams.”

When Cole arrived, pitching coach Brent Strom, 69, asked him to pare back his two-seam fastball and throw more four-seamers — specifically up in the zone. The simple change resulted in a career high in strikeout rate and turned Cole back into an archetypical power pitcher.

“They’re really forward thinking,” Cole said. “They think that they have great personnel that surrounds the players.

Hinch also points to other, subtle factors. When Cole was in Pittsburgh, Hinch could see the arm and the talent. Yet he could not see the day-to-day approach. He could not hear the conversations in the clubhouse or the obsession with perfecting a breaking ball.

“He has the mind of someone who wants to be perfect with his pitches,” Hinch said. “And I love that about someone who doesn’t just throw brain-dead pitches. He throws a pitch for a reason, and he holds himself to a high standard on execution.”

The traits are not unusual in a clubhouse that features Verlander, former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and one of the best starting rotations in baseball. Yet even Verlander, a future Hall of Famer, was impressed with Cole’s breath of knowledge. All clubhouses include detailed conversations among pitchers. But Cole, Verlander said, can take those conversations to a different level.

“Gerrit knows his body really well,” Verlander said, “and (he) thinks about things differently than I did.”

For now, of course, the Astros are hopeful that the marriage will result in another Champagne-fueled party this fall. Verlander has one season remaining on his contract, while Cole will reach free agency for the first time after next season. The Astros, Luhnow said, saw an opportunity to maximize their window when they acquired another potential ace last winter.

For Cole, the sentiment was similar. On the day that his phone blew up last winter, he thought of October. The Pirates lost two wild-card games and a division series to the Cardinals during his five seasons in Pittsburgh. The agony included a losing start against Jake Arrieta and the Cubs in 2015 and a loss in Game 5 against St. Louis in 2013.

“The wild card definitely takes some years off your life,” Cole said.

This time, Cole will pitch in a different uniform, in a different stadium, for a different organization. He will have a tailored game plan and a lineup full of All-Star teammates and a support system that has maximized his talents. The Astros are positioned for another long run.

In some ways, it’s been the perfect situation. Now, he’d like to pay Houston back and collect a ring.

“Just as a player coming into a situation like this,” Cole said, “you just want to try to take advantage of it to the fullest and just be grateful.”

Link to comment
Share on other sites
AtticusFinch

AtticusFinch 155

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Guadaloopy said:

 My wife and I will be out to dinner during game 1 celebrating our 17th anniversary.  Have had the reservation for a couple of months.   Poor foresight on my part.  She has already stated that I must leave my phone in the car.  Social media blackout and DVR for me.  

Tip the waiter.  Have them bring courses out quickly

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing


Football ... Basketball ... Baseball ... Other Sports ... Futbol ... 🤫995🤫 ... Gambling ... Movies & TV ... Music ... Hobbies ... Lulz ... Food & Travel ... Daily Texan ... Business and Markets ... Cloak Room ... Help ... For Sale ... Board Discussion ... Subscribe!... Donate!... Advertise... COOKIE MONSTER!

×
×
  • Create New...