Tuesday Morning Hot Links

The Astros were off last night, and are about to start a three-city, eight-game road trip, going to Chicago, East Fort Worth, and Arizona (for the first two of a four-game home-and-home series). The Angels were the only AL West team to play last night, and they lost. The Astros still have a 15-game lead with 51 games remaining.

*The White Sox are the only AL team whom the Astros have not yet played this season.

*Jake Kaplan says October questions are already materializing.

*The Astros did indeed call about Verlander, but "nothing materialized."

*Deadspin asks if the Astros need Justin Verlander.

*Sam Miller says we should all root for an Astros/Dodgers World Series. Fun read. Miller:
The Astros' offense against the Dodgers' defense is basically just an All-Star game. It's an All-Star game that counts, really counts, and that goes for seven games and that will not let up no matter how out of adrenaline you are by Game 4. You don't have to like either of these teams to see the value in that.

*The Astros will show The Sandlot on the JumboBigMegatron after the August 17 game against the Di'mon'ba'ks. The game starts at 1:10pm, so you should be home by 6:30-7:00pm. Here's some VIP ticket information.

*Fresno had five runs before they even recorded a hit. Seriously. Let's see how that happens, here's the bottom of the 1st:
-Tony Kemp: HBP
-Reid Brignac: BB
-Preston Tucker: (Passed ball) Walk
-A.J. Reed: BB (1-0 Fresno)
-Jack Mayfield: BB (2-0 Fresno)
-Jon Kemmer: BB (3-0 Fresno)
-Drew Ferguson: Pop-up
-Garrett Stubbs: Groundout (4-0 Fresno), error (5-0 Fresno)

Fresno managed to piss away that game, though, with a 14-9 loss.

*Quad Cities extended their win streak to seven games with an 8-5 win over Beloit. Carson LaRue won his league-leading 12th game of the year.

*Helluva catch from last night's Tri-City/Aberdeen game:

Highlight reel catch by @IronBirds left fielder @TJNichting, as he flies into the stands!! @SportsCenter #SCtop10 @espn @MiLB pic.twitter.com/ZVXGN7YWkE

— Tri-City ValleyCats (@ValleyCats) August 8, 2017

*Jon Ryan, punter for the Seahawks, is running a summer league baseball team.

*This guy - once paralyzed - will run a half-marathon with the guy who hit him with his truck.

*Read this 1946 article about six survivors from Hiroshima.

*Have Smartphones destroyed a generation?

*RIP Don Baylor.

Thursday Morning Hot Links

What with me not having to be somewhere at 7am for the next few weeks, you'll notice the Hot Links will be published a little later. I appreciate your reading habits, but I ain't waking up at 4:45am if'n I don't have to.

*So this is less than ideal, though more from a bullpen usage standpoint than any referendum about the 2017 Astros. The Astros lost to the Royals 7-5 after Dallas Keuchel was a late scratch. All seven of the Royals' runs were scored with two outs.

*Astros vs AL West: 20-6
  Astros vs AL East: 8-2
  Astros vs AL Central: 9-10 (1-5 vs Cleveland, 2-4 vs Kansas City)

*Ned Yost:
A.J. said (Keuchel's) been sick and throwing up. (I thought) OK, I'm glad we don't have to face him.

Hinch:
(Keuchel) went back to the hotel. He's had some problems. He's lost a little bit of weight over the last few days. He hasn't felt a ton of energy.

*Keuchel went back to the hotel after he was scratched, so no word from him yet.

*So that means that Dayan Diaz had about a 15-minute heads-up that he would be starting last night, and it was a bullpen game. The Royals scored in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Bullpen usage last night:
Diaz: 2.2IP, 4H/3ER, 3K:0BB
Sipp: 1IP, 3H/2ER, 1K:0BB
Feliz: 1.1IP, 2H/2ER, 3K:2BB
Gregerson: 2IP, 2H/0ER, 3K:0BB
Giles: 1IP, 0H/0ER, 0K:0BB

*The Astros' bullpen has now thrown 200.2IP, most in the AL and only trailing the Dodgers in all of MLB. This is a concern. Though if we break down how those 200.2IP have been distributed, 32IP have been thrown by Tony Sipp, Jandel Gustave, Ashur Tolliver, Jordan Jankowski, Reymin Guduan, and Dayan Diaz (his innings last night didn't count towards this total, because he started). The main bullpen core of Giles, Harris, Devenski, Gregerson, Devenski have thrown a combined 107.2IP. Harris, Giles, and Gregerson have thrown 24 or 24.1IP each. Devenski has thrown 35IP. While Hinch has managed those five's IPs, the Astros are going to need to establish some other relievers capable of coming in and getting outs - hence the shuttle between Fresno and wherever Houston is playing.

*Hinch:
It's hard. You've got to get nine innings of outs and sometimes a lot of those come out of your rotation, and sometimes they come out of your bullpen and it usually cycles. There's also times where I'm trying to get guys from the bullpen into the game because they haven't pitched that much.

*Brian McCann had his first 4-hit game since September 2016, but he wasn't pleased with his pitch-calling:
I felt like I didn't do a good job tonight calling a game. I felt like I could have gone a couple of different directions, and I should have. I'm going to be thinking about some pitches I called tonight, going back to the hotel.

*You can listen to yesterday's two-segment interview with Jeff Bagwell on Sports Radio 610.

*Quad Cities' Yordan Alvarez and pitchers Carson LaRue and Enoli Paredes have been named to the Midwest League All-Star Team.

*Bleacher Report: They tanked like the Sixers, now the Astros are MLB's next big powerhouse.

*MLBTR talked to Jayson Stark about his career and the evolution of baseball coverage.

*Vulture: All 213 Beatles songs ranked from worst to first

*Vice Sports: The Alonzo Mourning Acceptance GIF ("giff" not "jiff")

Employees of the Month: April 2017

The Astros are 16-9 and are 1st in the AL West. Life has meaning again and everything is fun. Let's get to the Employees of the Month. These players get to park at the front and get 10% off in the Team Store.

Houston

Evan Gattis: Hitting .321/.400/.518 with 9K:7BB gets Gattis the Employee of the Month for April. Gurriel was a strong possibility but Gattis' top-to-bottom month gives him the nod.

Dallas Keuchel: No-brainer for Pitching Employee of the Month. Keuchel allowed 25H/6ER, 36K:11BB in 44.2IP for a 1.21 ERA/0.81 WHIP. These are stupid numbers.

Fresno

Jon Kemmer: Kemmer hit .356/.406/.559 for Fresno in April.

Brady Rodgers: Limited by elbow trouble, Rodgers still gets the nod because the rest of the pitching staff has been hot garbage. Rodgers made three starts, allowing 14H/2ER, 11K:1BB in 16.1IP.

Corpus

Catching prospect Garrett Stubbs hit .341/.413/.634 in eleven games in April - the next-highest OPS trails Stubbs by 191 points.

Dean Deetz: Deetz threw 13.2IP, 4H/1ER, 13K:3BB in three April games for a 0.66 ERA/0.51 WHIP.

Buies Creek

Kyle Tucker hit .301/.372/.566 with six stolen bases in April.

Franklin Perez pitched in three games, throwing 14.1IP, 3H/0ER, 14K:3BB for a 0.00 ERA/0.42 WHIP.

Quad Cities

Even though he only played in ten games, I'm rolling with Marcos Almonte over Jake Rogers. Rogers hit .258/.370/.565 with ten of his 16 hits going for extra-bases. But Almonte hit .359/.406/.667 with 6K:2BB in 39 ABs.

Carson LaRue: Over 20IP, LaRue allowed 12H/2ER, 18K:7BB. Walks are a little high, but a 0.90 ERA/0.95 WHIP over a month will play.