Monday, August 3, 2020

Monday Morning Hot Links

I had 18 hours of professional development this weekend. I just wasn't feeling it yesterday morning.

The Astros beat the Angels 6-5 in extra innings. Blake Taylor recorded the first win of his MLB career. Josh James struggled, again. Framber straight Frambushed the Angels. The Astros couldn't do crap with runners in scoring position, scoring six runs on eleven hits and eight walks. Houston is 5-4. They're off today (Monday) before going to Arizona to face the 3-7 D'amon'b'ck'. Tuesday will probably be Cristian Javier vs. Madison Bumgarner. I completely forgot that Bumgarner went to Arizona.

-This three-game series took 766 minutes, or 12.77 hours. If you watched all three games from first pitch to last pitch, literally 1/6 of your weekend was watching the Astros and Angels. Manfred is KILLING IT with his pace-of-play initiatives. Just kidding, he's a threat to the game and needs to be removed in a coup d'etat. Just let Selig be commissioner again in a zany Weekend at Bernie's type of deal.

-Josh James: 3IP, 1H/4ER, 4K:6BB. Just 33 of his 72 pitches were for strikes. Josh James' two starts: 6IP, 4H/8ER, 9K:11BB, 72 of 147 pitches have been strikes. He's had 17 swings and misses over two starts in 2020.

-Framber Valdez: 6.1IP, 5H/1R (0ER), 8K:1BB. The eight strikeouts were one shy of his career-high of nine, on September 23, 2018, against the Angels. Framber has struck out 8+ batters four times in his career. Three of those games are against the Angels. Showing my work. Here's Dusty, on the game:
We needed this game very badly. [There is] a lot of difference between 5-4 and 4-5. We certainly didn't want to go below .500. It was a great game for us. We got some key hits out there. Boy, we're all tired. We need a day off [Monday].

-Blake Taylor: 1.1IP, 0H/0ER, 2K:2BB.
Taylor, 2020: 7.1IP, 2H/0ER, 9K:2BB.

Astros pitchers walked 25 Angels batters in the three-game series. I'm not good enough at the new Baseball-Ref Stathead thing yet, but that's probably a lot of walks in three games, especially if you win two of them. The Astros have won six games in franchise history in which they walked 11+ batters. Two of those came in this Angels series. The Angels have lost 13 games in their franchise history in which they walked 11+ times and lost. Two of those came in this Astros series.

-The Astros were literally 2x17 with runners in scoring position. Jose Altuve and Kyle Tucker came to the plate four times with a runner in scoring position, Josh Reddick three times. There were no hits in there.

2019 Astros w/RISP: .268/.353/.503
2019 Astros Postseason w/RISP: .000/.000/.000*
2020 Astros w/RISP: .246/.360/.368
2020 AL w/RISP: .250/.344/.437

*Going off memory, here

-Alex Bregman had the game-winning RBI four innings after hitting a home run. It's his first 2-hit game of the 2020 season, and he has a three-game hitting streak. Bregman, on how he feels at the plate:
Horrible, but we're just getting started. I've just got to get better mechanically. I took BP before the game and got to get some good swings off there. 

-For just the third time in his career, Jose Altuve came to the plate six times and didn't get on base. (April 5, 2017 vs Seattle, September 18, 2014 vs Cleveland). Coming into yesterday's game, Altuve had faced the Angels more than any other team in MLB (132 games) and was hitting .333/.389/.501 against them.

-Michael Brantley was 3x4 with a walk. He's hitting .438/.514/.656.

-George Springer raised his 2020 OPS from .390 to .697 in three games against the Anaheim Guy Fieris.

-Albert Pujols has hit 658 home runs with 2080 RsBI. 60 of those homers, and 181 of those RsBI, have been against the Astros. His Grand Slam yesterday was his first against the Astros since April 11, 2009, when he did it against Roy Oswalt.

*To clean up some old news: Forrest Whitley has a sore arm, Roberto Osuna had an MRI and is on the IL. Less than 10 games into the season, the Astros had already let Gerrit Cole, Wade Miley, Will Harris, Collin McHugh, and Hector Rondon walk. Currently Justin Verlander, Brad Peacock, Roberto Osuna, Chris Devenski, and Joe Biagini are on the IL. That's a total of 879IP, probably more since I likely screwed up the addition, that are either gone or unavailable. Considering the 2019 Astros threw 1462.1IP in the regular season, it's not a good ratio.

*The Cardinals had four more positive tests within the team. Let's see how long before the season gets canceled, but I'm gonna bet on the "Well it's not happening to ME" mindset winning out.

*SI: Manfred's bluff to end season further exposes MLB's issues.

*A Musical Selection: