Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Tuesday Morning Hot Links

*The Masked Marvel has your recap of the heart-breaking loss to the South Euless Rangers.

*Mike Fiers:
I can't give them too much credit this game. There were a bunch of bloop hits. They battled me on some pitches. But we just played bad baseball. That's pretty much what it comes down to.

*If the Astros don't play like the 1919 White Sox in the 1st inning, somehow not covering first base TWICE, then this game is a different story. Or maybe when the Astros had Springer and Altuve up with one out and the bases loaded and didn't get a run out of it. Or maybe when some Voodoo Methodist shaman came and sacrificed a goat on the field for the Grapevine Mills Rangers.

*Ken Giles - who deserves next to none of the blame for this loss - is ready to throw down:
*Correa, who bobbled what should easily have been a routine, inning-ending double play in the bottom of the 9th and allowed the situation for Punchy Odor to win the game for the Greater Texarkana Rangers, does deserve some of the blame, and says the rest of the team should share in that blame, as well.
It has to be a double-play ball. It got caught in my glove a little bit. I was still able to get the out at second, but not the double play. But still, we played sloppy since the game started. A couple of situational hitting spots we missed, a couple of ground balls, we didn't get to a base and stuff like that, and we ended up losing the game.

*Hinch talked about the closer-by-committee role.

*Evan Gattis' resurgence at the plate might be attributed to a return to catching.

*Luhnow feels like they're picking in the second round of the draft because of how long they have to wait.

*In a story that just feels appropriate given the circumstances of last night's loss to West Grand Prairie, the Astros former VP of Human Resources had his 2005 National League Championship ring stolen out of a safe he forgot to bring in from his car.

*RIP Evan P. Grant's nipples, who died from him tweaking them too hard.