2017 Houston Astros Season

[eagle eye]

Marwin led off the 6th and he flew out to fairly deep right field for the first out. Yuli Gurriel flew out to right center that was caught on the warning track for the 2nd out. Alex Bregman followed with a huge shot into the upper deck in left center. He hit the first pitch he saw and it left the field like a rocket. Astros lead 6-2 now. Aoki came up next and singled up the middle. Jake Marisnick popped out into shallow right field. It was a high pop out if you need consolation for Marisnick's 0h-fer day so far.

 

After 5-1/2 Houston now leads 6-2.

[eagle eye]

James Hoyt is pitching his 2nd inning.

Robbie Grossman led off with a swinging K for out #1.

Eddie Rosario homered (5) to right center. It was a hanging split finger that Rosario crushed. Astros lead is now 6-3.

Eduardo Escobar grounded out to 2B. 2 outs.

Chris Gimenez singled to left. That's all AJ Hinch wants to see of Hoyt.

Hoyt leaves with 1.2 innings pitched. He gave up 3 hits with no walks and 2 K's.

Tony (oh shit) Sipp came in for Hoyt.

Jason Castro came up next and Sipp offered up a meatball that Castro drove over the straight away center field wall for a 2 run blast. The score is now Houston 6 and Minnesota 5. (Oh Shit Sipp is not my favorite Astro pitcher)

Lead off man Byron Buxton followed Castro grounding into an inning ending out to Alex Bregman. Yuli Gurriel did catch the ball.

[eagle eye]

Houston leads the Twins 6-5 after six complete innings.

Hector Santiago leaves after 6 innings. He is replaced by Ryan Pressly. Santiago's line is 6 innings pitched allowing 6 runs on 8 hits with 2 BB's and 3 K's. He also gave up 3 HR's to Astros hitters.

George Springer hit his 2nd HR of the game into the upper deck in left center. Statcast said he hit the ball 473 feet. The ball hit just shy of being in the 3rd deck. Huge blast that makes the score 7-5.

Ryan Pressly was done for the day. He pitched to two batters giving up a home run and a walk.

Tyler Duffy in for Pressly.

Carlos Correa was up next and he singled up the middle. Altuve goes from 1st to 3rd on the hit.

Evan Gattis comes up with runners on the corners and nobody out. Gattis tagged a ground rule double to right field right down the line. Altuve scores, Correa to 3B. Astros lead 8-5.

Marwin Gonzalez was intentionally walked to load the bases. Still nobody out.

Yuli Gurriel up next and he hit an RBI single against a drawn in infield. Correa Scores. Evan Gattis Scores and a throwing error advanced Gonzalez to 3B and Gurriel to 2B. Astros up 10-5.

Alex Bregman singles up the middle. Gonzalez scores and Gurriel to 3B. Astros now lead 11-5. Runners on 1st and 3rd.

New pitcher for Minnesota is Craig Breslow.

Nori Aoki up next still nobody out in the inning. Aoki hits a sac fly to left-center. Gurriel scores. Astros lead now 12-5.

Jake Marisnick continues his futility by hitting a lazy fly ball to center for out #2.

George Springer base hit to right. Alex Bregman to 2B.

Jose Altuve walked on 5 pitches to load the bases.

Carlos Correa up next and he hit a high pop fly out to right to end the inning.

12 men went to the plate and 6 runs scored.

 

Houston 12 Minnesota 5

Edited May 31, 2017 by eagle eye

[eagle eye]

Tony (Oh Shit) Sipp is done and Reymin Guduan will make his MLB debut after 7 years in the minors.

Brian Dozier strikes out swinging at a 96 mph fastball. 1 out.

Jorge Polanco singles just out of the reach of Correa up the middle.

Max Kepler struck out on a 98 mph fastball looking. 2 out.

Robbie Grossman sharp ground ball to Correa who throws to Altuve to get Polanco out at 2B. 3 out.

 

Reymin Guduan was dominating. As billed, he has an upper nineties fastball with a hard curve (87 mph). First ever appearance in the bigs Guduan showed a lot of promise. I can see this kid pitching in the 8th.

 

Astros still lead 12-5.

[eagle eye]

Top of the 8th.

Jason Wheeler in to pitch for Minnesota.

Evan Gattis takes Wheeler's first pitch on a line drive ride into the left field seats. Astros lead is now 13-5.

Marwin Gonzalez hits a Texas leaguer into right field for his first hit on the day.

Yuli Gurriel walks on 6 pitches. Men on 1st and 2nd with no outs.

Alex Bregman flied out to right. 1 out.

Nori Aoki hits into a fielder's choice. Gonzalez out at 2B, Gurriel to 3B. Men on 1st and 3rd with 2 out.

Jake Marisnick doubles down the left field line. Gurriel scored, Aoki scores from 1B. Astros lead 15-5.

George Springer walks on 5 pitches. Springer is 4-4 with 2 walks so far. 6-6 OBP.

Jose Altuve ground into a fielder's choice. Springer out at 2B for the 3rd out.

 

Houston now leads 15-5. I'm kind of feeling sorry for the Twins bullpen. They have given up 10 runs in 2 innings. Another case of how dangerous Houston is after the 5th inning.

 

George Springer and Alex Bregman are both seeing their batting averages go up after rather slow starts for them. Springer is now hitting .265 while Bregman has upped his average to .265 as well. Bregman will get one more AB at least.

[eagle eye]

Bottom of the 8th.

Guduan still in the game.

Eddie Rosario leads off the 8th with a double off the right field wall.

Eduardo Escobar hits a sharp ground ball right to Correa who threw him out. Rosario still on 2B. 1 out.

Chris Gimenez got Guduan down 3-0 but the rookie came back to get the count full. Unfortunately Guduan let Gimenez off the hook with ball four. Men on 1st and 2nd with one out.

Jason Castro up next grounding up the middle fielded by Correa who threw him out at 1B. 2 out. Rosario advanced to 3B and Gimenez advanced to 2B.

Byron Buxton was down 0-2 but he was patient and worked a walk. On ball 4 Guduan threw a wild pitch that allowed Rosario to score and Gimenez advanced to 3B.

Brian Dozier up next. First by Guduan Buxton goes to 2B (fielder's indifference). 2nd batter in a row with 2 strikes but the bench coach keeps calling for breaking balls. Dozier grounds out to Correa to end the inning.

 

Astros lead now 15-6.

[eagle eye]

Top of 9th

Position player Chris Gimenez is now pitching for Minnesota. The Twins have used 4 relievers in this game.

Carlos Correa grounds out to SS. 1 out.

Evan Gattis gets a base hit to left.

Marwin Gonzalez hits a 2 run home run to right field. Houston now leads 17-6.

Yuli Gurriel flies out to center field. 2 out.

Alex Bregman popped out to 2B. 3 out.

 

Houston leads Minnesota 17-6.

[eagle eye]

Bottom of the 9th

Michael Feliz in for Reymin Guduan. Guduan went 2 innings giving up 1 run on 2 hits with 2 walks and 2 K's. Nice beginning for Guduan.

Jorge Polanco up first in the 9th. Polanco struck out swinging. 1 out.

Max Kepler popped out to Correa in shallow right field. 2 out.

Ehire Adrianza pinch hitting for Robbie Grossman. Adrianza doubled off the right field wall.

Eddie Rosario comes up with a chance to hit for the cycle. He is 3-4 on the day and all he needs is a triple to complete the cycle. Rosario did not hit for the cycle. He struck out to mercifully end the game.

 

Houston wins 17-6!

 

In the 3 games against the Twins they scored a total of 40 runs. The question begs to be answered: Is Houston this good or is the Twins bullpen that bad? I think it's a combination of the two. Regardless, Houston sweeps the Twins which is significant because they led the AL Central when the series began.

Houston concludes a really good month of May with a 22-7 record and leading, as of right now, the AL West by 11.5 games over the Angels and Rangers. In May Houston played 9 series winning 8. 4 of the series they swept. One of the sweeps was a 2 game series against Atlanta but the other 3 were 3 game series against Miami and back to back sweeps of Baltimore and Minnesota. The one series they lost was to Cleveland which was a sweep for them.

With exactly 1/3 of the season in the books Houston is 38-16, 22 games over .500. Project these numbers to the end of the season Houston is on pace to end up with a record of 114-48. That would tie Houston for the 3rd best season ever with the 1998 New York Yankees. The only teams better were the 1906 Chicago Cubs who went 116-38 (Teams only played 154 games in a season.) and the 2001 Seattle Mariners who went 116-46. The Yankees ended up winning the World series while Seattle lost in the ALCS to the Yankees who ended up losing to the Arizona Diamondbacks in seven games in the World Series.

Pretty epic numbers by the Astros. Nobody ever won a championship in May though. There are only 2 months in the books with 4 to go so it will be fun to see if the Astros can keep up this torrid pace.

They have tomorrow off and they begin a weekend series against the Texas Rangers. (Did I mention I don't like the Rangers? I don't) Houston is just beginning their longest road trip of the season. They will have 3 in Arlington and 4 in Kansas City before they get to come home. The last time Houston was in Kansas City it was way back in April in the second series of the season. Houston lost 2 games to 1 then. A lot of time has passed since then as they will be trying to extend their current 7 game winning streak in the series against Texas. They probably aren't even thinking of the Royals right now. The Astros will undoubtedly enjoy their flight back to Texas even though they will touch down in Arlington and not Houston.

[eagle eye]

The Astros continued their hot road streak running their record to 8 in row and 8 in a row on the road. The Astros, despite a two hour rain delay, beat Texas in Game 1 of their 3 game weekend series last night 7-1. The big blasts came from Carlos Correa who belted a 3-run HR in the top of the 5th and it was followed by a 3-run shot by George Springer to straight away center field in the 8th inning that ran the score up to 7-0 at the time. Houston's other run also came in the 8th on an RBI double by Yuli Gurriel just 4 batters prior to Springer's big shot. Dallas Keuchel pitched 6 shutout innings to earn his 9th win on the season and 4th win in a row. Keuchel continues to pace MLB in wins as he is the first pitcher in either league to reach 9 wins on the season. Chris Devenski and Will Harris each pitched an inning of shutout ball to get the Astros to the 9th. Ken Giles came in and he blew the shutout by allowing a leadoff HR to Adrian Beltre. After that Giles settled down and retired the side in order.

The Astros beat the Texans ace Yu Darvish in a rare win against him but last night Houston had him on the ropes in 4 of the first 5 innings. Houston had a man in scoring position in the 2nd thru the 4th innings before they finally solved the mystery of Darvish. With 2 outs in the 5th Josh Reddick singled followed by a Jose Altuve double. Carlos Correa, who was struck out in the 1st inning on a slider low in the zone and in the first on a high fastball, wasn't having it in the 5th. With a 1-1 count Correa got a hanging slider that he jerked just over the wall in left field for the first runs of the game. It turned out they were the only runs that Houston needed.

Houston is 23 games over .500 (can you believe that???!!!) for the first time since the 2001 season sporting a 39-16 record.

Game 2 of the series is tonight on Root Sports Southwest if you have Directv. If you don't have Directv I hope you have a friend to who does or maybe you can go to Buffalo Wild Wings and watch it. Houston will have Lance McCullers going against the Rangers Andrew Cashmer. First pitch is at 6:10 PM.

 

When you are winning accolades just seem to come in bunches and that is what has happened for Houston. Carlos Correa was named AL Player of the Month of May and Lance McCullers was named AL Pitcher of the Month of May.

 

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/233946020/carlos-correa-lance-mccullers-honored-for-may/

 

Check out the Astros.com homepage and scroll down until you find a video of C Brian McCann stealing 2B on Yu Darvish in the 2nd inning. To have a thirty-something catcher steal a base against one of the top pitchers in the AL was a shock and pleasant surprise to all. McCann got a great jump on the play and Darvish threw a breaking ball and he made it into 2nd base with no problem. Notice the reaction in the Astros dugout. Priceless!

 

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/233946020/carlos-correa-lance-mccullers-honored-for-may/

[eagle eye]

The Astros kept their winning streak going with a 6-5 win over the Texas Rangers last night in Arlington. It wasn't without a struggle. It looked early on that it would be another Houston blowout as the Astros took a 5-1 lead after 3 innings of play. Things got dicey for the Astros in the 5th inning as Lance McCuller's seemed to lose his mojo a little bit and he was victimized by a little league error by Carlos Correa when he failed to catch a throw from Jose Altuve on the front end of a potential double play ball. A really silly mistake that Correa could make no excuse for cost the Astros an out and gave some momentum to a 3 run rally that tightened up the score to 5-4 by the time the 5th inning ended. That's the way the score remained until the 9th inning when Jose Altuve hit a solo home run to make the score 6-4 which triggered a Ken Giles gift of a run for the Rangers in the bottom of the inning to get to the final 6-5 score.

Lance McCullers failed to make it through the 5th so he didn't qualify for the win but the Astros got the win which is the most important thing. The current win streak is 9 games with the Astros going for the series sweep this afternoon, weather permitting. Brad Peacock will look to improve on his last outing against the Twins last week. He was fortunate in that the game became a blowout in the late innings that featured an 11 run 8th inning. Peacock had an outing similar to Lance McCullers' last night in that he gave up 4 runs in less than 5 innings of work. In his previous two starts Peacock has struck out 8 batters which he had never done before. Hopefully, Peacock can shut down a potent albeit unlucky Rangers lineup.

[eagle eye]

The Astros finished a perfect week by completing the sweep of the Rangers with a 7-2 victory. Brad Peacock finally pitched enough innings to qualify for the win and he set a new high in K’s (9) in the process. The Astros got base hits and walks but the real damage was done by the 4 home runs they hit in the game. George Springer led off the game with his 9th leadoff HR of the season and the team leading 16 dingers overall. He hit another solo shot in the 4th inning. Carlos Correa hit a moonshot HR in the 3rd inning and Yuli Gurriel added his own round tripper in the 5th. Houston scored at least one run in the first five innings building a 7-1 lead after 5 and the final 7-2 margin after six innings. Both Rangers runs were charged to Peacock but he was certainly grateful for the run support. By posting 6 complete innings and allowing just the 2 runs qualified him for his first win as a starter and the first time he’s pitched long enough to qualify for the win in 2017. Peacock is now 3-0 on the season but his first two wins were in relief.

Tony (Oh Shit) Sipp came on in the 7th and he recorded two outs but a double by Delino DeShields and he hit Shin Soo Choo with a pitch that gave Texas men on 1st and 2nd with two out. After Sipp hit Choo that was all Hinch could stand and he brought on Michael Feliz to bail Sipp out and he was able to strike out Elvis Andrus for the 3rd out. Feliz also pitched a scoreless 8th.

Houston had two scares of a sort when rain threatened to call the game to a halt before Peacock could finish off the 5th inning but he got through it and made the game official if rain had caused the game to be called. In the 9th Luke Gregerson came on and it started raining again. This time the bottom fell out of the clouds and it was raining hard but Gregerson got through the squall closing out the win for Houston. It was dicey when he walked Pete Kozma with two out but he got Choo to dribble a ground ball back to Gregerson who threw to Gurriel at first to end the game.

The Astros completed a perfect week of baseball going 6-0 on back to back sweeps of Minnesota and Texas. Tack on the sweep of Baltimore last weekend and you have back to back to back sweeps that has pushed the Astros win streak to 10 games counting the series finale against Detroit 11 days ago. This is also a 10-game road winning streak dating back to Sunday May 14. May 14 was also the last time Houston lost a game on the road. They played the Yankees in a double header necessitated by a rainout the day before. Houston lost the early game 11-6 but came back to take the nightcap 10-7 to begin their current road success.

Houston is 41-16, 25 games over .500. The Astros still sport the best record in baseball by 5.5 games. They lead the AL West by a whopping 13.5 games. The sweep of the Rangers knocked them from 2nd place in the division to 4th. LA and Seattle are tied for 2nd place 13.5 games back and Oakland is bringing up the rear 16.5 games back. Only the Washington National are even close to the dominance in their division that the Astros enjoy. The Nats are leading 2nd place Atlanta in the NL East by 10.5 games.

Here’s the stat that stands out to me the most. Last year, as in years in recent past, the Astros have had several players in their everyday lineup that were hitting .225 or less. In yesterday’s lineup the lowest, LOWEST, BA was Alex Bregman’s .250. Houston also had 3 players hitting over .300, Jose Altuve (.323), Carlos Correa (.315) and Marwin Gonzalez (.312). The amount of contact is way up and the number of K’s are way down. This lineup is a nightmare because anyone from top to bottom can hurt you.

Houston begins a 4-game series against Kansas City this week beginning this evening. Mike Fiers tries to build off his last start in which he was the good Mike Fiers who had his curveball working the way it needs to for him to be successful. The last time Houston was in KC was the second series of the season and the Royals beat Houston 2 games to 1 to hand the Astros their first series loss of the season. At the time, nobody knew this Astros team was going to be as good as they have been. These four games with KC will be the last of the current 10 game road trip, the Astros longest road trip of the season, and if they can manage to win the series this will have been a very successful road trip.

[eagle eye]

The Astros had their first truly disappointing week of the 2017 season this past week. First, their 11-game winning streak came to an end on Tuesday night when Ken Giles took suckiness to a new level. To start with, he came on in the 8th inning and with a 1-2 count and the bases loaded he gave up a 2 out bases clearing double to a weak hitting KC 2nd baseman Whit Merrifield erased the Houston lead. Then, in the 9th he gave up a 2-run homer to Mike Moustakas that gave the Royals a 9-7 lead which is what ended up being the final score.

The next day with Dallas Keuchel slated to make his regular start he was a last second scratch due what was called an illness at the time. It turns out he reaggravated the pinched nerve in his neck that caused him to miss a start a few weeks ago. The pinched nerve was bad enough to land Keuchel on the 10-day DL retroactive to June 5th. He even returned to Houston on Thursday to go see the local doctors about his neck. It turns out, according to the MRI done, he still has inflammation in the nerve and it’s been decided to shut him down until the inflammation completely goes away. He is not throwing at all and won’t until his neck is healed. It could be 1 or 2 starts or he might be out until after the All-Star Game. He will definitely need to go on a rehab assignment to work back into shape when he’s cleared to throw. It’s depressing to think Houston might have to wait until early July before he can pitch again. Keuchel rightly observed that it’s better to get well now and not have to worry about it in September or, hopefully, October.

The other crappy thing was how much Houston is missing the 4 guys who are on the DL from the starting rotation. The Astros had prospect Dayan Diaz pitch for Keuchel on Wednesday and he pitched like a prospect as the Royals slapped him around for 2.2 innings. After Diaz left the Royals continued punishing Houston pitchers as they smacked around Tony (Oh Shit!) Sipp for an inning followed by Michael Feliz who couldn’t manage much success either. When this forgettable three finished their combined 5 innings of work Houston was down 7-2. Houston rallied for 3 runs in the 8th but it was far too little far too late as Houston lost 2 in a row to KC.

Lance McCullers pitched like the staff ace on Thursday actually taking a no-hitter into the 7th inning. The Astros offense could only manage 1 run while McCullers was in the game. Houston’s offense finally broke out and scored 5 runs in the top of the 9th to give the Astros the win but a no-decision for McCullers. The win did earn the Astros a split of the 4 game series and gave them a nice 8-2 record for the 10 game road trip that concluded Thursday.

Then came a home series against the LA Angels. Brad Peacock has been really good in his 3 starts prior to Friday night but on Friday he flat sucked. He gave up 4 runs on 7 hits and 4 walks with just 1 K. James Hoyt gave up a run in his inning of relief of Peacock. Francis Martes made his big league debut in relief of Hoyt with the score a manageable 5-2 lead. AJ Hinch needed Martes to eat up some innings because the bullpen had been used a lot lately and needed a rest. I’m sure Hinch would have preferred that Martes eat up those innings without giving up the 4 runs he allowed in his 3.2 innings of work. Houston ended up losing 9-4 to the Angels. In Game 2 on Saturday Mike Fiers pitched his best game of the season lasting for the most innings he’s pitched in a game as well. He pitched 7.1 innings giving up just 1 unearned run on 2 hits and 2 BB’s with 8 K’s. Chris Devenski and Ken Giles took the Astros the rest of the way with 1.2 innings of scoreless work. The rubber game of the series say David Paulino making his 3rd start for Joe Musgrove and he made it his worst start to date. He lasted four innings giving up 5 runs on 6 hits with two walks and 4 K’s. Michael Feliz, James Hoyt and Dayan Diaz all were bad as they combined to give up 7 runs in 4 innings of work. The Astros offense scored 6 runs for the game but it wasn’t nearly enough to offset the 12 the pitching staff allowed in the game. Houston lost the finale of the series by a score of 12-6 and it was the first series loss since they were swept by Cleveland back in May. This is the first series loss by Houston in the month of June.

Houston ended up the week with 3-4 record which might be the only losing week of the season. I can’t swear to that but I can’t remember a week when they lost more games than they won. Norichika Aoki passed a career milestone yesterday. With his 3 hits in 4 AB’s he surpassed the 2,000 hit mark for his career combined with the Japan Leagues and his MLB time.

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/235847728/norichika-aoki-reaches-2000-professional-hits/

It has sort of snuck up on us hasn’t it. The 2017 MLB first year player draft begins tonight and Houston will have 4 picks in the top 75 picks plus they have another pick in the 90’s giving them 5 picks in the top 100.

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/235304584/astros-aim-to-reload-in-2017-mlb-draft/

[eagle eye]

Okay people, WTF is going on around here? Today Houston gets one of the four starting pitchers back off the DL. That would be Joe Musgrove and he will pitch the opening game of the current 3 game set with the Texas Rangers. Good news, right? It would be until you find out Lance McCullers has been placed on the DL with a low back strain. His DL is retroactive to last Friday which is the day after he 2-hit the Royals in the last game of 4 with KC with Houston won. If this crap is going to happen let it be now and not in October but for crying out loud, WTF is going on here????

[eagle eye]

I can already tell that June is not the Astros month. As many as 5 starting pitchers on the DL, 4 at any given time. Your starting right fielder, Josh Reddick, has been on the 7-day DL after crashing into the outfield wall making a play last week. He is scheduled to come off the DL tomorrow night in Oakland. For this past week Mike Fiers has been the staff ace with Brad Peacock the only other veteran in the starting rotation right now. Houston has been getting decent work from AAA guys, in fact, they haven’t been all that bad in general. Think about it for a minute, here’s the starting rotation over the last two weeks beginning with Monday June 5; Fiers (W), Paulino (ND), Dayan Diaz (L), McCullers (ND) – DL, Peacock (L), Fiers (W), Feliz (L), Musgrove (L) – 1st game off DL, Peacock (ND) – Coming off just 3 days’ rest, Martes (W) – First ever MLB start, Fiers (ND) – 7 innings of one run ball but Will Harris gave up winning run in 2-1 loss, Paulino (W) – first MLB win, and Musgrove (L) who pitched one inning too long. Brad Peacock has been underwhelming but mainly the rookies and Fiers have been pretty good. A combination of a limp bizkit bats and shoddy relief pitching. Except for a 13-run explosion in the finale against Texas this past week and 7 runs scored against Boston on Saturday accounting for the only wins in a week where Houston went 2-4 were the highlights. Two weeks ago, Houston swept the Rangers in a weekend series that knocked the boys from Arlington down to 4th place in the division. Texas rebounded to sweep the Washington Nationals and beat Houston two of 3 games to beat the team with the best record in the National League and backed that up with 2 of 3 wins against the team with the best record in the American League. Houston began the week with a 14-game lead over the Angels and now they have an 11-game lead over the Rangers and the Angels. Houston’s offense has been on vacation this past week. They have stranded a small army of base runners this week making a bunch of so-so pitchers for the Rangers and Red Sox look Cy Young-ish. David Paulino, Francis Martes and to some extent Joe Musgrove have done a good job with little to show for it.

Two weeks ago, Tuesday night was the real downfall for the Astros. Leading 7-3 going into the 8th inning Ken Giles did his best Brad Lidge impression by giving up 6 runs in the final two innings, 4 in the 8th to tie the game and a walk-off 2 run home run to give the win the freakishly lucky Kansas City Royals. Giles successfully snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory and brought back nightmares about a similar meltdown by Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshak against the Royals in the 2015 ALDC which would have given Houston the series win. Instead the Royal defeated Houston in 5 games and they eventually won the World Series. 11 game winning streak kaput and the offense seemed to go into a real funk not showing up at the most inopportune times. Give plenty of credit to the bullpen who has been overworked and underperformed. That old April-May magic seems to be fading as the Summer heats up. Over the last two weeks Houston has gone 4-10 and they have lost 3 straight series and tied one at 2-2. For the month of June Houston has won only one series when they swept Texas to begin the month. Since that opening weekend in June it has been all bad news. Houston still owns the best record in baseball but they are tied in total wins with the Rockies with 46. The Rox have 26 losses to 24 for Houston so there is still a bright spot in all this but if this keeps up Houston will have squandered their massive lead by the All Star break.

 

Houston won the opening game their series with Oakland by a score of 4-1. Houston did it with 3 HRs by Jake Marisnick, George Springer and Derek Fisher. Marisnick's HR was a two run blast in the 5th inning and they weee the first runs of the game. Those runs also enabled Brad Peacock to get the win as he pitched pretty well into the 6th. A really nice relay play from Springer to Carlos Correa to Evan Gattis prevented the tying run from scoring which kept Peeacock in line for the win.

 

Francis Martes makes his second big league career start tonight. He won his first ever start last week against the Rangers as he benefited from a 13 run explosion by the Astros offense.

[eagle eye]

The Astros swept the A's but just so they don't get too big for their britches their 4 game winning streak came to a screeching halt in Seattle last night when the Mariners abused Joe Musgrove to the tune of 9 runs scored in just 3.2 innings of work highlighted by a 6 run 3rd inning. The Mariners Felix Hernandez kept the Astros offense down to just 3 runs. The final score was 12-3 and it was yet another start where Musgrove has struggled since coming off the DL two weeks ago. I am not sure he doesn't need a trip to Fresno to regain his confidence or maybe he's not fully recovered from the reason he was on the DL, shoulder discomfort. Either way his is 0-3 in his last 3 starts and he's never lasted past the 5th inning. He has only pitched 14 innings in those 3 starts which averages to be 4.7 innings per start. Musgrove may be the guy who is optioned to Fresno today when Lance McCullers returns from the DL to make his first start tonight in Seattle.

 

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/238469796/astros-joe-musgrove-hit-hard-in-loss/?topicId=27118380

 

Houston made a move this week as they optioned relief pitcher Dayan Diaz to Fresno and they called up Reymin Guduan. Here's more from Astros.com. Guduan made it to Seattle in time to pitch in last night's loss to Seattle. He went 2 scoreless which is a damn site better than Diaz in his time with the Astros.

 

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/238354406/astros-call-up-reymin-guduan-to-join-bullpen/

 

Houston became the first team to 50 wins as they continue to sport the best record in MLB. Even with last night's loss they are still the class of the entire league. The return of McCullers is good news for the team and it seems like the starters on the DL, Dallas Keuchel, Collin McHugh are far off from coming back. There isn't much word on Charlie Morton but if they all return after the All Star break it may very well be the thing that kick starts another huge run to the playoffs and beyond.

[eagle eye]

Last week was a good week for the Astros. They went 6-1 at a time when every other team in the division seems to have gotten on a hot streak. I don't know why but it didn't seem all that great but I guess it was all the difficulty Houston had with Seattle over the weekend. First they got pounded 13-2 on Fridday night then, it took some late inning scoring to get a 5-2 win in Lance McCullers' first start off the DL on Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon it again took a 4 run 9th inning to ice an 8-2 win in the series finale. None of the scores were all that close but the games were tighter than the score would tend to make you believe.

I was right about Joe Musgrove being optioned to AAA after his 3rd consecutive bad start since coming off the DL earlier this month. Reymin Guduan was recalled to fill his spot. Musgrove is either still feeling after effects of the shoulder problem that sent him to the DL or he's just lost some confidence. Either way, giving up 9 runs in less than 3 innings of work earned him a ticket to Fresno.

The Astros offense took a bit of a hit on their recent west coast swing with Jose Altuve being the most affected. His batting average has dropped from nearly 330 prior to heading west to a current BA of .319. Carlos Beltran and Jake Marisnick have both struggled and their averages have dipped to .239. The saving grace for them is when they do get a hit lately it is either a home run or involves some RBI's so there is a silver lining to their slumps. I guess you could say Alex Bregman is in a bit of a sophomore slump as he can't get away from .250. He's been plus or minus .02 from .250 for a long time now and right now it's in the minus side with a .248 average.

With Houston coming back home for 6 games this week against the A's and the Yankees. The A's will be looking for some payback after being swept by Houston in a 4 game series last week. The A's would be a crackerjack time to get some of their sticks healthy. The good news is the Astros still sport the best record in baseball by one game over the surging LA Dodgers with the Diamondbacks and Rockies not far behind. The Yankees series will be no picnic but winning the series against Oakland would be a good start to the week.

Houston's hottest pitcher, Mike Fiers goes for Houston tonight as the Astros will face a very tough Sean Manaea who will be on the hill for Oakland. Let's hope Fiers curve ball is still alive and well in his arsenal.

[eagle eye]

Forget what I said yesterday. It's much better to score runs than get a lot of hits. Houston banged out 14 hits in last night's game and all they had to show for those hits was 4 measly runs and a ton of frustration. Going into the 9th inning Houston had one solitary run. The most frustrating inning may have come in the fifth inning with the bases loaded and nobody out and Houston only managed one stupid run. Evan Gattis hit into a double play on what would have been ball four but he got the green light with a 3-0 count and he made a really bad decision. Brian McCann followed Gattis with a weak ground out to short and that was all she wrote. Houston only managed to tie the game instead of having bases loaded with no out AND a run home. Bad Evan Gattis, bad dog! To add insult to injury Mike Fiers got himself into a jam loading the bases but instead of letting Fiers get out of the jam, there were already two outs in the inning, AJ Hinch pulled the plug on Fiers and he brought in James Hoyt. Hoyt has been okay but he has struggled lately and struggled went to full blown ucked-fay upped-a when he grooved a fastball to Ryan Healy on a 3-2 count and Healy took it yard for a grand slam. Instead of a 1-1 tie the A's took a 5-1 lead. Reymin Guduan came into the game in the 8th and allowed an insurance run to give Oakland a 6-1 lead heading into the 9th. Houston valiantly tried to come back as Alex Bregman led off the inning with a single followed by a single by Jake Marisnick. George Springer came up next and hit a 3 run homer to right field, his 23rd on the year. All of a sudden it's getting a little interesting with the score now 6-4. Jose Altuve followed that up with a single and Carlos Correa singled as well. The first five batters in the inning get on base and they had already pushed across 3 runs. The tying runs were on base and all this with nobody out. Then the frustration ogre came out of the dugout. Josh Reddick pinch hit for Gattis and he proceeded to pop out in foul ground near 3rd base on the very first pitch he saw. Brian McCann then grounded into one of the hardest double plays to turn, the old 3-6-1 twin killing to end the game. Of all the good hitting nights the Astros had they got bupkiss out of the 4 and 5 spots in the lineup. Evan Gatttis, Josh Reddick and Brian McCann ended up going a combined 1-10 and they either accounted for a double play or they outright stranded a small army of base runners last night. Every single hitter in the lineup got at least one hit with Springer, Altuve, Bregman and Marisnick each having a multi-hit game. You want to award the anti-hero of the game it would have to be shared by James-Not Pitching Worth a Crap-Hoyt and the I can't hit may ass with both hands-4 and 5 spots in the batting order. Kids, thank Mr Hoyt, Mr Gattis, Mr Reddick and Mr McCann for sucking balls last night. Thank you guys! Okay, kids now go play mumbly peg with your ninja swords.

 

Last night ended Mike Fiers run of good fortune that dated all the way back to mid May. I still think it's unfair to charge runs to a guy when the guy relieving him doesn't do his job. For 5-2/3 innings Fiers pitched one run ball just like he's done for a month and a half. He would even have been in the conversation for AL Pitcher of the Month for June which would have been a terrific feat considering Dallas Keuchel was POTM for April followed by Lance McCullers in May. To have Fiers win it in June would have been pretty awesome. But noooooooooo. James Hoyt has to come in a mess it all up by allowing a grand slam. Now instead of pitching a one run game Fiers is tagged for 4 runs AND the loss. That is so not fair. Hoyt ought to wash Fiers car for the next 2 months for that piece of crap performance. Hoyt retired the next batter for the 3rd out of the inning, what if Hoyt had just walked Healy then got the final out. Then it's 2-1 A's which would have been 3-1 after 8. Then Springer's homer in the 9th would have been a walk-off 3 run homer that would have given Houston a 4-3 win. If nothing had changed in the game except for a walk to Ryan Healy instead of the grand salami Hoyt would have been the hero. I changed my mind. Hoyt is clearly the goat of last night's game and some punishment is in line for his stupidity. I think the team should line up and kick Mr Hoyt in the nether region with Fiers getting two shots.

 

Tonight the A's send Jesse Hahn to the mound and his opposite number will be David Paulino for the Astros. Lets hope for a better outcome tonight. One question, why is Houston so much better on the road than they are at home? Hmmmm.

[eagle eye]

The Astros took the rubber game of the series with Oakland beating the A's 6-1 due in no small part to Carlos Correa's 2 2-run homers in the game. The first came in the 4th inning that erased an early Oakland 1-0 lead and the other came in as part of a 3 run 6th inning. It is the 3rd game in a row the Astros banged out at least 10 hits in a game. Oakland pitchers have got to be feeling a little shell shocked and grateful that they at least won one stinking game against the Astros. Brad Peacock muddled through 5 innings while only allowing 1 run to earn his 5th win of the season. Chris Devenski (2 innings), Reymin Guduan (1 inning) and James Hoyt (1 innings) closed the door on Oakland's offense allowing no runs and just two hits in a combined 4 innings of work. I think AJ Hinch put Hoyt in to close the game because Houston had a comfortable lead and he was trying to help Hoyt get some confidence back. Lord knows he needs something to help him get himself out of the ditch.

 

Good news, Charlie Morton has looked good in 2 rehab starts at AAA Fresno and he just might be back in the rotation in his regular spot in the rotation on Sunday! More good news! Dallas Keuchel hopes to get clearance soon to start pitching off a mound as he continues to rehab the pinched nerve in his neck.

 

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/239489396/dallas-keuchel-aims-to-throw-off-mound-soon/

 

Even more good news! Collin McHugh is scheduled to make a rehab start in AA Corpus Christi tomorrow. McHugh has missed the entire season so far with a nerve impingement in his throwing elbow. He has been rehabbing at a slow, team mandated pace to make sure he is completely healthy when he returns. So far there have been no setbacks. He and Dallas Keuchel will likely returns after the All Star break and as long as Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers stay healthy it will be the first time all five guys who were the projected starters before the season began will finally be in the starting rotation.

 

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/239092456/collin-mchugh-to-make-rehab-start-on-friday/

 

So here's AJ Hinch's dilemma, When McHugh and Keuchel rejoin the team who will be the 5th man in the rotation? Clearly it will be between Mike Fiers and Brad Peacock. Since the drama began between these two way back in May that was punctuated by the demotion of Fiers to the bullpen Peacock, for the most part has been less than impressive while Fiers, who was rescued from the bullpen because of Joe Musgrove went on the DL, has been the clear ace of the staff. He had another great start that was screwed up by James Hoyt in the series opener with the A's when he allowed a grand slam to the A's Ryan Healy to cost Fiers the win and stuck a big needle in Fiers ERA. Prior to that unfortunate turn of events Fiers was in the conversation for AL Pitcher of the Month for June. The game against the A's was Fiers final start in June. Thank you very much James Hoyt for screwing your teammate up.

 

I was right when I predicted Joe Musgrove was going back to AAA when Lance McCullers returned off the DL so I'll take another shot. Hoyt is a prime candidate to go back to AAA because he has really struggled in the month of June. Reymin Guduan has been up and down a few times already and he's a candidate as well. Then there is Francis Martes. He's a starter and that room is about to become more crowded if Morton returns Sunday. But my vote is David Paulino. Martes has been better than Paulino and he struggled to get 4 innings in against Oakland last night. Yep, that's my prediction. David Paulino back to AAA when Morton returns (hopefully Sunday afternoon).

 

Voting for the All Star Game is about to close and Houston has 3 legit players who deserve to go. George Springer, who is 2nd in MLB in home runs (24) and he leads the lead in leadoff HR's with 9, Jose Altuve who is becoming a shoe-in for AS consideration and Carlos Correa who plays some brilliant shortstop and is batting like an All Star sporting a .309 BA as of today. If Dallas Keuchel has stayed healthy he might have started his 2nd ASG in 3 years as he is sporting a 9-0 record in 11 starts with a 1.67 ERA. He no longer leads the league in ERA because he hasn't pitched enough innings to qualify but there is not denying he was en fuego before going on the DL. One other guy could get to go is the man with the pitch named "The Circle of Death". That would be Chris Devenski. The guy has been phenomenal this year in much the same way Will Harris was the Lord of the Pen two years ago. Start stuffing that ASG ballot box ASAP before the voting closes. Maybe put in a good vote for super utility man Marwin Gonzalez.

 

Did you know that Houston had 4 guys hitting over .300 in the lineup today. No lie, Jose Altuve (.327) and Carlos Correa (.309) lead the charge but Josh Reddick (.309) has had a terrific June and Marwin Gonzalez (.314) has been a rock and a roll coming off the bench all season. The only slacker in the Astros lineup is Carlos Beltran (.235) who has had a lousy June seems to be looking like a 40 year old baseball player. George Springer has had a nice 2nd half of June as he pushed his batting average all the way up to .289 until an 0-3 day today knocked it back to .286. Given his power numbers and OBP the only thing Springer hasn't done is steal a base. Literally. Springer has not stolen one base this season as yet. He's tried but he's 0-3 in SB attempts this season. The .289 prior to today's game is an MLB career high but if he ends up the season with a .286 BA that will be a career high by 10 points over his previous high of .276 in 2015, by George!

[eagle eye]

The Astros got 5.1 innings of work from Lance McCullers on Friday night but after recording an out he walked a batter on four pitches and AJ Hinch had seen enough and gave him the hook. James Hoyt came in and allowed both runners score that McCullers was responsible for plus more that cost the Astros their 3-1 lead and the game went downhill from there. Of all the relievers the Astros used on Friday night the only one who didn't give up a run was Luke Gregerson. It got so bad Hinch didn't want to use another regular reliever so Norichika Aoki pitched the 9th inning. He did well enough to get out of the inning and he even retired Yankees star Aaron Judge. It wasn't all roses for Aoki as he gave up one hit and 2 walks and allowed 3 runs in what turned out to be a 13-4 thumping by the Yanks.

Tonight's game looked like a carbon copy (you still remember those, right?) as Francis Martes pitched 5 shutout innings but after he allowed the first two batters in the 6th on base Hinch again pulled the plug on his starter. Then, all hell broke loose. Michael Feliz came in and allowed both runs Martes was responsible for plus two of his own when he allowed a grand slam to Didi Gregorius on a 1-2 pitch he left up in the zone. Luke Gregerson was brought in and he got the Astros through the 6th inning without allowing any more runs. It was short lived because Hinch brought in Tony (Oh, Shit!) Sipp who promptly allowed a solo home run to LF Clint Frazier, the Yankees #9 hitter to extend the Yankees lead to 6-3. It didn't look like Houston was going to be able to come back but you just don't give up on these 2017 Astros. They came surging back with 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th bolstered by 3 stolen bases in the inning. Two were by Jose Altuve who drew a 1 out walk and he promptly stolen 2nd and 3rd base and eventually scored on a ground out by Carlos Correa. Evan Gattis then homered to get the score to 6-5. Carlos Beltran walked and Josh Reddick who was sitting out the game up to this point was brought in as a pinch runner. While pitching to Marwin Gonzalez Yankees pitcher Dellin Betances missed a pickoff attempt that got away from 1st baseman Chris Carter (yep, THAT Chris Carter) allowing Reddick to advance to 2B. With Gonzalez still batting Reddick stole 3rd base. All this going on with two out in the inning. Gonzalez finally worked a walk off Betances giving Houston the tying and go ahead runs on base. Up next was Yuli Gurriel who doubled down the left field line scoring both Reddick and Gonzalez to take the lead. Gurriel was the hero for the Astros offense going 3-4 on the night with 4 RBI's and no walks and no K's with a 2 run homer and the 2 run double to his credit. Ken Giles came on in the 9th and locked down his 19th save in 21 attempts. You just have to shake your head in amazement at this team sometimes.

 

Not everything is going great, the Astros have decided to have Charlie Morton pitch one more rehab game in the minors this week instead of pitching with the team on Sunday. He is slated to return next weekend in the final series before the All Star break against Toronto assuming he doesn't suffer any setbacks in Fresno Sunday.

 

The Astros 3rd ranked prospect and 44th overall MLB prospect David Paulino will miss the rest of the season, or one game shy of it, because he is being suspended for 80 games for violating the league performance enhancing drug policy. He took a substance called Boldenone which is an anabolic steroid. Paulino is contrite about his suspension and he doesn't plan to appeal. He will not be available for the post season either. The Astros are eyeing 2018 for him. I almost think this management group might consider trading him. If they do they need to get something good in the deal.

 

It could be the Astros are going to have a better 3B coach for a while. Regular 3B coach Gary Pettis is having knee surgery and will be out for a while. AAA manager Tony DeFrancesco will assume Pettis' duties while he is out. Pettis tore the Meniscus in his right knee when he slipped and fell during a rain delay during the Memorial Day weekend series in Minnesota. DeFrancesco will be with Houston at least until the All Star break.

[eagle eye]

The Astros completed the final week before the ASG with a 19 run explosion that blew up right in the Toronto Blue Jays faces. Were it not for Francis Martes allowing a solo home run in the bottom of the 9th inning it would have been a 19 run shutout. The Astros just went 4-2 for the week, losing 2 of the 4 games with Toronto, but when they won, holy cow, did they win! In sweeping the Braves in a two game series Houston scored 26 runs and in the two wins in Toronto the Astros scored 31 runs. By contrast, the two losses in Toronto saw Houston only scoring 6 runs. In those two losses Houston’s pitching was not what you have hoped. On Thursday Lance McCullers was chugging right along until he completely lost his mojo and allowed 4 runs while only recording one out in the 5th inning. Michael Feliz came in for McCullers and allowed a run credited to McCullers to score and by the time the inning was over the Astros 2-1 lead had disappeared and Toronto now led 6-2. The final score was 7-4. On Saturday Mike Fiers battled his ass off going 6 innings after it looked early on that he might only make it through 3 and he held the Blue Jays to just 3 runs. Chris Devenski, who was named to the ASG the day before, went out and sucked the big one. He allowed 4 runs on 3 hits and walk with the big blow coming on a 3 run home run by Troy Tulowitzki. You just don’t expect that sort of outing from Devenski but it happened and the Astros lost 7-2. The first full week in July wasn’t terrible but I’ll bet Lance McCullers and Mike Fiers are jealous as hell of the run support Charlie Morton and Brad Peacock got.

June was a decent month even though the middle 10 days looked like the wheels were going to fall off the Astros train. Houston went 16-11. From June 9 to June 18 Houston lost 3 straight series to the Angels, Rangers and Red Sox. They rebounded though winning the last 3 series of the month. All this with four projected starting pitchers from the beginning of the season on the DL. The pitching staff has been doing it with smoke and mirrors and some decent performances from Mike Fiers and Brad Peacock. Peacock earned a spot in the rotation because of his stellar relief pitching work from day one of the season. Originally, it was going to be at the expense of Mike Fiers who had been struggling all season and was going to be moved to the bullpen to make room for Peacock. Joe Musgrove went on the DL about the same time which meant Fiers got a second chance and he didn’t waste it. He went 3-1 in June and a little run support and better relief pitching he could easily have been 5-0. Fiers was under consideration for AL Pitcher of the Month until the final start of the month for Fiers ended with him allowing 4 runs but it was really on James Hoyt who allowed a grand slam to Oakland’s Ron Healy with 2 out in the 6th inning on the game with the A’s on June 27th. Three of the runs in that slam were runners that Fiers had left on base when he came out of the game. That slam broke a 1-1 tie, saddled Fiers with the loss and cost his shot at POTM. Kids, tell Mr Hoyt thank you for screwing over Mr Fiers. Thank you Mr Hoyt. Great, now kids go play at the neighbor’s house with your matching flame throwers. Houston finished June with a 54-27 W/L record, good enough for 1st place in the AL West by 13.5 games. They still owned the best record in baseball leading the LA Dodgers by ½ game as the Dodgers, who had a scorching hot June, had a 54-28 record. The Dodgers went 21-7 for June and they have continued that hot streak into July going 7-1 through yesterday’s win over Kansas City. The Dodgers went 6-0 for the week last week sweeping the Diamondbacks and the Royals as they closed out their pre-ASG schedule with a flourish. The Dodgers now own the best record in baseball with a 61-29 record, ½ game ahead of Houston.

Jose Altuve did something that hasn’t been done since George Brett of the KC Royals did it in 1976. That was to go 5 consecutive games with 3 or more hits. Just another milestone for the Astros in this surreal season.

We are at the All Star break and regardless of how that game goes the Astros, particularly their bullpen, will get four days of much needed rest. The hope is that after the break Dallas Keuchel will be back on the mound for Houston and Collin McHugh won’t be far behind. That would give Houston their first full rotation of the season featuring Keuchel, McCullers, Morton, McHugh and Fiers. Brad Peacock would be able to go back to the bullpen along with either Joe Musgrove, Michael Feliz or Francis Martes. My feeling is that Musgrove and Martes would head back to AAA Fresno. But, given the troubles that Feliz has had lately the Astros could opt to keep Martes up and send Feliz to Fresno.

The All Star break is here! The symbolic end of the first half of the season. Nobody could have envisioned a first half like this. There is no reason why the second half won’t be just a good. The ‘Stros have a 16.5 game lead in the division and they are 31 games over .500. Priceless. With the return of Keuchel and McHugh Houston really needs to find a couple of good relief pitchers. A lefty and a righty or even two lefty’s. I don’t trust Tony (Oh Shit) Sipp or 25 year old rookie Reymin Guduan you need guys you can really depend on in September and October. My only other hope would be that Alex Bregman busts out of his sophomore slump and starts hitting with more consistency. Okay, I have one more hope and that’s Carlos Beltran will quit sucking at the plate. He’s hitting just .227 and he really looks like a 40 year old player. BTW, that is not a good thing.

Gosh, the Astros have been on some kind of roll. George Springer is hitting .310, Altuve is hitting .347 (leading MLB in hitting) after a phenomenal last 10 days of the first half pushing his BA up from .327 to .347 in that time frame. Carlos Correa is hitting .325 after going 4-5 with a walk and driving in 5 runs and scoring 3 runs. Josh Reddick is on fire after returning from the concussion DL raising his BA to .313. The only guys who you would consider disappointing batting average wise is Bregman, Beltran and Brian McCann. Maybe the most pleasant surprise is Evan Gattis. “Caveman” is hitting .284 and he’s got more than half as many RBI’s as he got last season. He’s getting fewer AB’s this season as the backup to Brian McCann so his power numbers are down but it not like last year when he was an all-or-nothing type of hitter. He’s making contact and putting the ball in play. Gattis is also becoming a really good catcher.

Home Run Derby tonight. Should be fun.

[eagle eye]

The Astros final signing day for their 2017 draft picks was July 3rd and you would have to say the organization can be pretty proud of themselves. They signed all ten of their first ten picks and they signed 22 of their top 25 draft picks. They have 33 of the 40 picks they made from the draft under contract. Not bad, not bad at all. Not only that but 5 of their top 6 picks are ranked in the top 100 of prospects in the draft. They got numbers; 7, 92, 32, 62 and 86 in the order they were picked. Some might say their first 2nd round pick, Joe Perez a 3B from Archbishop McCarthy HS may be a bit of a reach but he is a kid the Astros really loved. He is listed as a 3B but he also pitches with a fastball clocked from the mid to upper 90’s. When he was signed he said he didn’t care whether he played the field or pitched because there were upsides to both. The downside to Perez is he just recently had to have Tommy John surgery so he won’t be available in the minors until next year and he won’t be 100% until 2019. His greatest value is likely as a relief pitcher. According to MLB.com he is really a 5th or 6th round talent as a hitter his explosive arm on the mound seems to be his greatest value. His elbow problems likely stem from the fact that he both pitched AND played 3B so his arm never got any rest. Just a day before the signing deadline the Astros finally came to terms with their 1st round pick, JB Bukauskas from the University of North Carolina. Houston has added some nice talent to an already strong minor league system. The expectation is that Bukauskas will move quickly up the ladder in the minors and could be with the big club in a year or two. My personal hope is that the Astros 7th round draft pick, Parker Mushinski from Texas Tech, is the real deal. Why? Because he is a left-handed pitcher and he’s the first lefty the Astros selected in the draft. The Astros next LHP is the 18th round pick Tim Hardy from Div-II Tusculum (Tennessee) College. It’s hard to find a quality lefty. You look at the current Astros roster and there are 3 lefties, Dallas Keuchel, Tony (Oh Shit) Sipp and Reymin Guduan. That’s it. A plus starter who has been on the DL since June 5th, a veteran reliever who is very inconsistent and a 25-year-old rookie with a total of 7 appearances in the majors. I believe Houston needs to find a quality lefty to add to the bullpen or the starting rotation or, ideally, both.

Aaron Judge was a man amongst boys in the Home Run Derby last night. 3 of the plethora of HR’s he hit last night went over 500 feet. The guy is just a stone-cold beast. I was hoping for a Judge-Giancarlo Stanton final but Stanton was defeated in the first round 17-16 by the Twins Gary Sanchez. Judge’s closest competition was between Miami’s Justin Bour and Miguel Sano. Judge defeated Bour 23 HR’s to 22 in the first round. It was an amazing power display by both players. Sanchez was defeated in the 2nd round by his teammate Sano and he faced Judge in the finals. Instead of recording outs all the rounds were timed which, BTW, I like much better. Since this is a college website I am linking what I consider the best recap of the HRD that I found on SECcountry.com.

https://www.seccountry.com/sec/results-2017-home-run-derby

Two of the participants in the HRD were rookies. One is the Yankees Aaron Judge and the other is the Dodgers Cody Bellinger. Both players are favorites to win their respective league’s Rookie of the Year Award. The future of baseball is indeed bright.

So, this year is Jose Altuve’s 5 consecutive ASG and it is Dallas Keuchel’s second. They are the only multi-All-Star game participants. Lance McCullers, Chris Devenski, George Springer and Carlos Correa are all making their first appearance in the Summer Classic.

[eagle eye]

The All Star Game was pretty good. It was an affirmation that good pitching more often than not beats good hitting as most of the hitters on both sides failed to do much against the best pitching in MLB. Both sides had base runners through the game but the pitchers were able to hold them down. The first run of the game did not come until the 5th with Miguel Sano singled home Jonathan Shoop for the American League giving them the lead in the game. Yadier Molina answered for the NL in the 6th with a HR off the Twins Ervin Santana to tie the game. The teams jousted back and forth holding each other scoreless until the top of the 10th inning when Seattle’s Robinson Cano homered off of Chicago’s Wade Davis leading off the AL half of the inning. Cleveland’s Andrew Miller pitched the bottom of the inning and got the save. It was a good game. Baseball’s All Star game is routinely the best of the ASG’s IMO because it is the only one where the players aren’t just going through the motions, they are playing to win which makes it fun to watch.

Altuve, Correa and Springer went a combined 0-7 in the game but they contributed in other ways. Altuve and Correa turned a 4-6-3 double play in the 2nd inning and Springer was solid in left field. Chris Devenski pitched a perfect 8th inning which included striking out Joey Votto to end he frame. Between the Home Run Derby on Monday night and the All Star Game on Tuesday night it was a really nice two days for MLB.

Houston had six guys at the ASG but only Altuve, Correa, Springer and Devenski actually got in the game. Dallas Keuchel made the squad but he didn’t pitch because he is still rehabbing the pinched nerve in his neck. Lance McCullers was the emergency guy who would have pitched if the game had gone on longer. It was a bittersweet trip for McCullers because he wanted to pitch in the game for two reasons. One is obvious, he wanted to show off just like everyone else. The second reason is what gives McCullers experience the bitter part of the trip. The ASG was held in Miami and Miami was the team that McCullers good friend Felix Hernandez played for. Hernandez and McCullers were good friends and they grew up in the south Florida area and competed against one another in high school. McCullers would have loved to honor his friend on the field but it just wasn’t meant to be. McCullers was disappointed he didn’t get into the game but it was his first All Star appearance and he was extremely happy for the experience.

The second half of the season begins Friday for the Astros as they square off against the Minnesota Twins at the Juice Box. Charlie Morton will get the start for Houston while Minnesota sends Jose Berrios to the hill. The Twins have a good team but their bullpen is shaky but they will be looking to get some payback for the whooping Houston put on them on Memorial Day when Houston came back from a six run deficit in the 8th inning scoring 11 runs and adding another 3 in the 9th to take a 16-8 win and continued what would eventually be an 11 game winning streak at the end of May into the first part of June. That 16-8 win led to an eventual sweep of the Twins as Houston terrorized Minnesota pitching as they rung up 40 runs in that 3 game series. 40 Freaking runs! They did that banging out 47 hits in the series. You think the Twins have forgotten that beat down? I think not. The Twins notwithstanding the hope is Houston will be able to continue to keep winning games like they did in the first half of the season and it will start with a series win against the Twins. Should be a fun summer!

[eagle eye]

The Astros began the second half of the season just the way they ended the first half -- by bashing the hell out of the ball. The Astros stated starter Charlie Morton to an 8-1 lead after just two innings of play and the team was able to make the lead stand up even though the Twins tried to mount a comeback. Houston won 10-5 with Morton getting the win despite losing a 1/2 run on his ERA.

Jose Altuve's streak of games with 3 or more hits came to an end as he went 2-4 with a walk. It was okay though because every player in the lineup got at least one hit in the game. Altuve wasn't the only one who had a multi-hit as Josh Reddick, Carlos Beltran and Marwin Gonzalez, who led the team going 3-5 in the game continued the Astros hit assault on Twins pitching. They chased Twins starter Jose Berrios after just 1.2 innings as the Astros scored 8 runs in that 2nd inning. The big blast in the inning was a 3 run shot by Brian McCann.

Charlie Morton went 5 innings allowing 4 runs on 3 hits but he did walk 5 batters. 3 of those walks came in a 3 run 4th as Brian Dozier hit a 3 run double with 2 outs in the inning. Morton did improve his season record to 7-3 and the Astros got the win which is what we all wanted anyway.

 

Tonight Joe Musgrove goes to the hill for the Astros and the Twins All Star Ervin Santana who is 10-6 on the season pitches for Minnesota.

 

Relief pitcher Will Harris is going on the 10 DL with shoulder soreness. It is being reported that there was an x-ray done and there is no structural damage in the shoulder. Pitchers sometimes go through some shoulder soreness during the season and it is not thought to be serious. He could be back ready to go by next weekend if the rest does what it's supposed to. Reymin Guduan has been called up to fill his spot in the bullpen.

 

Houston Rockets newest member Chris Paul threw out the first pitch in last night's game. Paul, who brought both of his kids with him to the mound, tossed the first pitch to Dallas Keuchel.

 

Speaking of Keuchel, he threw a strong bullpen session before the game and he's looking like he it won't be long before he's back on the mound. Collin McHugh is even closer than Keuchel as the following link to Astros.com will talk about.

 

http://m.astros.mlb.com/news/article/242114018/mchugh-keuchel-get-closer-to-return-to-astros/?topicId=27118380

[eagle eye]

The Astros won the game and the series with Minnesota today by a score of 5-3. Mike Fiers was pretty dang good today going 7 strong innings allowing just 4 hits and 2 runs. The thing that killed Fiers from the beginning of the season was he had a nasty tendency to give up home runs. This continued until June when he AJ Hinch let Fiers know he was moving him to the bullpen. Since then Fiers had cleaned up his act and he cut down on walks and the home runs. In his last two starts those old home run blues have crept back into his game. His last outing against Toronto on July 8 Fiers gave up 4 walks and allowed 5 hits but he only allowed 3 runs in 6 innings of work. All things considered that wasn't bad. Houston lost the game but it wasn't all Fiers' fault. The offense only produced 2 runs and Chris Devenski had his worst outing of the season allowing the Blue Jays 4 runs in his only inning of work. In that game Fiers allowed just one home run but it was a biggie. A 3 run shot by Josh Donaldson gave the Jays a lead they never relinquished. Today it was a bit of a different story. Fiers allowed two home runs today but both were just solo shots and he allowed no walks. Plus, he struck out a season high 11 batters. Fiers is definitely serious about protecting his spot in the starting rotation. As for Houston's offense, They managed just 5 runs on the day but it was enough for a 5-3 win. Nori Aoki and Jake Marisnick got credit for 3 RBI's combined while Jose Altuve went 2-4 and he stole third and scored on a ground ball out to first from 3B to give Houston it's 5th run. Ken Giles, who has been stuck on 19 saves forever got number 20 today but not without a little trouble. He had a 5-2 lead and he allowed the first two batters in the 9th get on base with nobody out. He was able to retire the side but not without allowing a run to score. The first 3 games after the All Star break went just like you have hoped, with 2 wins and nobody hurt.

 

Joe Musgrove continues to struggle and struggle bad. On Saturday he went 5 innings and gave up 8 hits and 2 walks and allowed all four Twins runs in the game. The guys has clearly lost his mojo and I know exactly who is headed to California and AAA when either Dallas Keuchel or Collin McHugh comes back. McHugh has made a couple of rehab starts in Corpus and Keuchel is scheduled to make his first rehab start in Corpus this coming week. McHugh could actually make his 2017 debut next weekend in Baltimore. By the end of the July the Astros starting rotation should be making its first turn through the rotation as the rotation the team expected when Spring Training began in February. That's okay, just in time for the home stretch of the season. As Colonel Hannibal Smith used to say, "I love it when a plan comes together."

 

Seattle is up next and Lance McCullers is scheduled to start tomorrow night's game. He will be squaring off against the Mariners Ariel Miranda.

 

Can somebody throw a bucket of water and the goddamn Dodgers? They are ridiculous. Do you know the lollipops from La-La Land have won 27 of their last 32 games??? Sheesh, that is frigging unbelievable. I'm sick of those gentlemen stealing the Astros thunder. I hope when their mojo runs dry they go 27 losses in their next 32 games. Really, I'd rather the Rockies or the Diamondbacks win the NL West.

[eagle eye]

I only have one thing to say about the Astros 9-7 loss in 10 innings. Where the hell were our pitchers last night? From Lance McCullers to Tony (oh shit) Sipp there wasn't too much to brag upon. The offense has a share of the blame too. They went 2-10 with RISP and bases loaded situations are a source of disappointment rather than a source of opportunity. Houston has GOT to find a quality left hand relief pitcher because Tony Sipp sucks. He truly deserves my "Oh Shit" nickname. He was good two years ago but for the past year and a half inconsistent is being kind when characterizing his pitching. I am officially done with Mr Sipp.

 

We'll see how bad Brad Peacock wants to stay in the Astros rotation. Collin McHugh will be back this weekend in Baltimore and Dallas Keuchel might very well be back next week after an excellent rehab start at Corpus last night. Keuchel has declared himself ready to go but the team has final say and they want to see how he responds after his start. My point is Peacock might be getting his last chance to make his case to start going forward. Lance McCullers is trying his best to be benched. His last two starts how been forgettable and hasn't made it out the 5th inning in either start. I hate when Houston loses especially when the damn Dodgers keep winning.