Thursday Morning Hot Links

The Winning Streak has come to an end. Long live the Winning Streak. Houston could only muster four hits though, to be fair, that's the same number as the A's. The difference was a Matt Chapman 6th inning home run. Houston is 12-6. 11.1% of the regular season is complete.

*Oakland manager Bob Melvin:
They've beaten us four times in a row and we have to have somebody go out there and put up some zeroes. That's exactly what [Frankie Montas] did. In a game like that you have to count on your starter to lead the way and he definitely did that.

*Josh Reddick:
Any time you win 10 in a row, it's something special. It's a lot of fun, because you come in here every day and you know you're going to win. You just have all the confidence in the world. We knew it was going to end at some point. 

*For the first time this season, Houston did not record an extra-base hit. It happened 14 times in 2018.

*Chirinos/Kemp: 0x7, 5K:0BB.

*Houston went 1x7 w/RISP. They're hitting .209 as a team with runners in scoring position (31x148).

Altuve: .333 (3x9)
Brantley: .316 (6x19)
Correa: .267 (4x15)
Springer: .278 (5x18)
Reddick: .250 (3x12)
Bregman: .250 (3x12)
Marisnick: .200 (2x10)
Chirinos: .154 (2x13)
Diaz: .143 (1x7)
Gurriel: .077 (1x13)
White: .000 (0x8)

*Wade Miley: 6IP, 4H/2ER, 1K:1BB. He threw a first-pitch strike to 17 of the 23 batters he faced. He lamented a "lazy cutter" to Chapman that decided the game.

Miley's first two starts: 11.2IP, 12H/3ER, 8K:2BB
Miley's second 2 starts: 10IP, 10H/5ER, 3K:2BB

*A.J. Reed was placed on the IL with an oblique strain.

*Been a while since we've done this, let's check in with the projection sites after 18 games:

FanGraphs (100-62): 95.9% to win the division, 98.5% to make the playoffs, 21.9% to win the World Series.

FiveThirtyEight (101-61): 82% to win the division, 93% to make the playoffs, 20% to win the World Series.

Baseball Prospectus (97-65): 92.4% to win the division, 97.7% to make the playoffs, 17.6% to win the World Series.

*Levi Weaver has a great piece in The Athletic about batting around and striking out the side.

*FanGraphs' Jay Jaffe on the more extreme hitting stats of 2019 so far...

*Joe West ejected Tim Anderson after Anderson got hit by a pitch.

*You hate to see it:

The negative 42 run differential for #Redsox now worst by a World Series champion through 19 games in #MLB history

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) April 18, 2019

*Outside Magazine: Selfie Deaths are an Epidemic.

*A Musical Selection: