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2019 Houston Astros Thread

Planet Houston

By Planet Houston
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UTexasFight

UTexasFight 9515

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Hmnngggggg!

Stark: Astros lock in on a mission that has proved elusive for others

They’re not the team that won the last World Series. Not anymore. They’re not the team that rode the parade floats. They’re not the team that showed up everywhere from Saturday Night Live to Mickey Mouse’s castle. Not anymore.

But 16 months after the tickertape floated through the Texas sky, the 2019 edition of the Houston Astros still have those World Series memories. Still have those made-for-October arms, still have one of baseball’s most magnetic lineups. And now these men have something else.

They play baseball in a city that has long been the home of Mission Control. Now it’s the baseball team from Houston that is on a mission:

To remind the world of what they were, and what they’re built to be again.

It may have been the Red Sox that won the last World Series, and sent the Astros home last October. But who is really the best team in baseball — right here, right now? The 2019 Astros sure have That Look.

“There was a different feeling around our clubhouse in spring training,” outfielder George Springer said Thursday, after the Astros had unleashed a 5-1, three-homer Opening Day thumping on the reigning AL Cy Young winner, Blake Snell, and the Rays. “I know this was only the first day (of the season). But I like the fight that our team showed.”

To define that different feeling isn’t easy. But let’s start with this. Life is different when you lose than it is when you win. So what you see when the 2019 Astros take the field is a team trying to recapture what it lost. And by that, they are not just talking about a trophy.


George Springer, center, has hit home runs in three consecutive Opening Day games. (Kim Klement / USA Today)
“This is a game where everything can go right at any given time and everything can go wrong at the same time,” Springer said, on the day he joined Jeff Bagwell as the only Astros in history to hit Opening Day homers three years in a row. “You’ve got to learn that it’s really hard to do what we did in 2017 and win the World Series. A lot has to go right. So for us to get beat by the eventual World Series champion, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

“You know what you did before,” Springer said. “And you know the feeling that comes with it. And you’re always chasing that feeling.”

Chasing That Feeling. It sounds like a 1970s Austin country tune. But it’s actually the theme song of the 2019 Astros. We should probably break it to them, though, that many teams just like them have chased all of the above.

In the division-play era, now half a century old, they are the ninth team to win a World Series one year, then lose the next year in either the LCS or World Series. You know how many of those teams came back the following season to win it all again?

That would be none.

The most recent was the 2009-10 Yankees. Lost in the first round the next year. Before them came the 2008-2009 Phillies. Lost in the NLCS the following season. Before them? The 2007-2008 Red Sox. They didn’t make it out of the first round the next year, either.

Here is the rest of the group:

Year Team 3rd year
1970-71 Orioles missed playoffs
1974-75 Athletics missed playoffs
1989-90 Athletics missed playoffs
1995-96 Braves lost NLCS
2000-01 Yankees lost ALDS
But what happened before doesn’t feel relevant to this group. Their memory banks aren’t short enough to dismiss the pain of losing last October. But what fuels them is the season ahead, not the season in the rear-view mirror.

“We don’t like losing,” said the manager, A.J. Hinch. “That’s the bottom line. We lost the last game of the season, and that resonates with this team. But it’s how we prepare. It’s not about today, or not even about tomorrow. It’s about how we prepared to get ready for this season. Our guys know exactly what we have in front of us.”

Well, maybe they don’t like losing because, over the last few years, they’ve done less of it than any team in this sport. Take a step back and consider the monster the Astros have become:

Since Opening Day 2017, they’re now an incredible 85 games over .500 (205-120). That’s the best record in baseball. Their run differential in that period: Plus-463!
They haven’t spent a single day below .500 since June 20, 2016. That’s 416 regular-season games ago. They’re 92 games over .500 in that span, with a plus-489 run differential.
They won 101 games and a World Series in 2017, then won 103 games last year, with a plus-263 run differential. They’re the only team to win a World Series one year, while winning 100-plus games, and then go out and win more games the next season since Joe DiMaggio’s 1942 Yankees.

Justin Verlander: “This team has fire. This team has the gumption. Whatever adjectives you want to give, we have it in spades.” (Kim Klement / USA Today)
So when their ace, Justin Verlander, was asked Thursday if his team had learned anything from not winning the World Series again last year, the answer he gave might come as a surprise to anyone who hasn’t spent much time watching these Astros.

“No,” Verlander said, with zero hesitation. “I don’t think losing to the Red Sox helped us learn anything.

“We don’t need the extra grit from losing to give us the fire to want to win,” he went on. “That’s a great quote, but that’s not what this team needs, man. This team has fire. This team has the gumption. Whatever adjectives you want to give, we have it in spades.”

Verlander is one of many players in his locker room who don’t look back at 2018 as a year of “losing.” He looks at 2018 simply as a year of challenges that just had the wrong ending.

“I don’t think people realize how injured we were (during the postseason),” he said. “Nobody knows what everybody’s dealing with behind the scenes. Nobody is healthy that time of year. José (Altuve) could hardly walk. (Carlos) Correa had trouble swinging the bat. All our major pieces were really grinding, and I appreciate that. But all I’ll say now is this: I like our chances if we’re healthy.”

And that, for the most part, is what they are. Correa, after a tremendous spring, missed Opening Day with a neck issue, but he’s expected back in a few days. But Altuve mashed one of the Astros’ three homers off Snell, later added a double off reliever Jalen Beeks and looked like a different guy than the one who limped through October on a gimpy knee.

And Verlander, coming off a spectacular final start in the spring, was dazzling in his first start since signing a two-year, $66 million extension. He allowed an Austin Meadows home run and a Tommy Pham single to the first two hitters he faced. And he was so fazed by that, he gave up exactly one more hit over the seven innings that followed, punching out nine and generating an eye-opening 23 swings and misses.

Five of those whiffs came on his revived changeup, which Hinch described as Verlander’s “new toy.” But Verlander had a different description.

“It’s not a new toy,” he said. “It’s a re-found toy. It’s like it was lost in the sofa cushions and all of a sudden I found it.”

It was a once-great pitch he’d lost over the years as his delivery evolved. But he made it a point of emphasis this spring. And now it looms as a potentially lethal weapon again — one that produced a swing-and-miss Thursday almost half the times he threw it. Asked if he was excited to discover it in those seat cushions, he laughed.

“Yeah, I am,” Verlander said. “You know, I was pretty good when I had that pitch.”

He was the ace of a great team in Detroit back then, in the early years of this decade. Now he’s fronting the rotation of another great team in another town. And this is an important year for them all.

Gone from last year are Dallas Keuchel, Charlie Morton, Marwin González, Brian McCann and Evan Gattis. But their biggest addition of the winter, Michael Brantley, homered off Snell in his first game as an Astro and ground out four straight excellent at-bats. So who knows? As the pieces fit themselves into the Astros’ 2019 puzzle, how do we know that this team won’t actually turn out to be their best of all?

“You know what?” said George Springer. “We’re about to find out.”

 

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UTexasFight

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Yikes. I believe only Altuve and Castro are still in the bigs.


Put the Stark article behind a spoiler but wanted to quote this specifically to provide a contrast:

Since Opening Day 2017, they’re now an incredible 85 games over .500 (205-120). That’s the best record in baseball. Their run differential in that period: Plus-463!
They haven’t spent a single day below .500 since June 20, 2016. That’s 416 regular-season games ago. They’re 92 games over .500 in that span, with a plus-489 run differential.
They won 101 games and a World Series in 2017, then won 103 games last year, with a plus-263 run differential. They’re the only team to win a World Series one year, while winning 100-plus games, and then go out and win more games the next season since Joe DiMaggio’s 1942 Yankees
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henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29194

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1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

On that note, I wasn’t expecting to LMJ in the dugout 

they said something yesterday on the broadcast about wanting him (and someone else i can't remember) to be there with the guys on opening day.  i don't think it'll be a normal thing.  also i think he was training/rehabbing in florida, so it was easy travel.

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Pablo

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53 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

they said something yesterday on the broadcast about wanting him (and someone else i can't remember) to be there with the guys on opening day.  i don't think it'll be a normal thing.  also i think he was training/rehabbing in florida, so it was easy travel.

yep, on the broadcast mentioned it was close to Spring Training and close to LMJs home, and AJ wanted him to feel part of the team.

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elfenix

elfenix 34330

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6 hours ago, Smax said:

Im out of state and will be on the road most of the day, whats my best online streaming option for listening 

https://slickdeals.net/f/12942202-t-mobile-customers-03-26-free-season-of-mlb-tv-fanxchange-20-off?v=1&page=49

if you have tmobile just use the tmobile tuesday app, otherwise pay one of these guys their $5 amazon GC.  bonus: you can watch the astros too

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Rimbo

Rimbo 26015

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1 minute ago, Wishbone said:

Going to miss Morton this year. Wish we’d been able to hold on to him.

It's clear from that interview with Julia that the feeling is mutual. Business is business... but love that guy and he loves the Astros.

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