Tuesday Morning Hot Links

When I graduated from college I weighed 305 pounds. Within a year I was at 206. But I moved to marry the woman who is now my wife of almost 15 years (14 years, 11 months yesterday) and since I was happy and back in Texas and there was a burrito place around the corner from my apartment, I got back up to 270. Since then it's been a battle to get closer to the 206 side. I need to lose about 30 pounds. I can run forever, though, and I'm figuring out how to enjoy lifting weights (those things are heavy, though). As you know, I'm on vacation. Yesterday morning, my first morning at 10,000 feet, my brother-in-law and I went for a "trail run," which basically meant meeting up downstairs at 6:45am even though we'd both been up since 4:15am thanks to altitude and jogging for 30 yards before we both felt like we were going to have a heart attack and then proceeded to get a day-long headache. Vacation is awesome.

*The Astros game was weird. I found a place that was showing the game so I got to see the middle innings. Definitely did not see The Pride of Rosenberg Randal Grichuk pull back a George Springer game-tying home run. Or Jose Altuve get caught looking to end the game. The Astros are 52-28, 3.5 games up. They're 16-10 in series opening games.

Holy crap Randal Grichuk pic.twitter.com/YQVgL7zTvt

— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) June 26, 2018

*Hinch, on Grichuk's pullback (after he hit a home run in the top of the 8th):
Baseball can be pretty cruel. That's a tough one. Right off the bat, I thought George got one. It carried and carried and carried and looked like he had to go pretty deep into the stands to get it.

Springer:
That sucks. There's really not anything else to say about it. It's tough. It is what it is. They win.

*Toronto's starting pitcher and Former Astros Great J.A. Happ threw 6IP, 7H/3ER, 4K:2BB. In nine career starts against Houston, Happ is 5-2 with a 3.46 ERA / 1.42 WHIP.

*George Springer was 0x5 - his second 0x5 in three games - and is in an 0x16 stretch, though he has drawn four walks. Springer is hitting .220/.354/.402 in June, with 17K:16BB.

*6-9 in the lineup (Gattis, Marwin, Stassi, Marisnick) went a combined 1x13.

*Hunter Atkins is not here for it:

Jake Marisnick strikes out, flicks his bat and swats it down to the dirt, then throws down his helmet and begins a lonely walk to the field. How many times have we seen this? How many MORE times we will see it? OF Kyle Tucker is 28 for his last 57 in AAA Fresno.

— Hunter Atkins (@HunterAtkins35) June 26, 2018

The answer is 63. 63 times in 142 Plate Appearances we have seen Marisnick strike out. George Springer has struck out 64 times...in 353 Plate Appearances.

*Stacheless Alex Bregman hit his 12th home run of the year.

*Justin Verlander threw 6.2IP, 7H/4ER, 6K:2BB and allowed two home runs for the third time this season. After allowing five home runs in his first 13 starts (87.1IP), Verlander has allowed six home runs in his last four starts (26.1IP). Last night's game was the first time in 28 starts for the Astros, postseason included, in which he gave up 4ER.

Hunter Atkins writes about how Verlander had to pitch without his curve.

Both of Verlander's home runs came against former teammate Curtis Granderson. He joins an illustrious list of now-seven hitters to take Verlander deep twice in the same game: Nick Swisher, Carlos Quentin, Shelley Duncan, Pablo Sandoval (2012 World Series Game 1) Desmond Jennings, and J.J. Hardy.

*Will Harris allowed 1H/2ER, 2K:1BB in 1.1IP on Randal Grichuk's two-run home run in the 8th. Harris, June: 8.2IP, 10H/6ER, 16K:2BB, 6.23 ERA / 1.38 WHIP. Opponents are hitting .294 off him in June.

*Hinch, on the increased use of the bullpen:
We'll have to adapt to a guy not being (available) for a day or two. They've been asked to do a lot lately, but it's ok. There was a portion of the season where they weren't asked to do a lot because the rotation was taking up all the innings. It's flipped a little bit, but we'll be fine. 

*All six of Toronto's runs came with two outs in the inning.

*Jake Kaplan in The Athletic: Will the Astros regret trading away Teoscar Hernandez? Luhnow:
Any time a player goes off and has success you feel happy for them, but you wonder what could have happened if they had stayed...We always knew he had the potential to be an everyday player. He wasn't going to get that chance here any time soon, and we really felt like adding a left-handed pitcher with good stuff would help us immediately and it was a worthwhile tradeoff. 

*Mark July 11 down on your calendar. It's a Wednesday game against Oakland but is also another replica ring giveaway. There will probably be one in August, as well, so pick a random midweek game that would otherwise draw 17,000 fans and that's probably gonna be the one. I'll pick Tuesday or Wednesday, August 14 or 15 against Colorado.

*Kyle Tucker was named the Pacific Coast League Player of the Week after hitting .577/.607/.769. Cy Sneed was the PCL Pitcher of the Week.

*Craig Biggio made his MLB debut 30 years ago today. He went 0x2 with a walk, stolen base, and run scored in a 6-0 Houston win over San Francisco. The Astros were 1417-1295 when Biggio started.

*There's an SI story that they're tweeting out every 20 minutes about how the Red Sox are now J.D. Martinez's team. So it seems appropriate to point out that:
Martinez, Houston, 2011-2013: .251/.300/.387. Hit a home run every 40.63 plate appearances.
Martinez, DET/ARI/BOS, 2014-: .303/.366/.582. Home run every 16.32 plate appearances.

*Kirk Gibson is opening a batting cage in Johnson City, Texas.

*FanGraphs: The AL Central is historically bad.

*The Athletic: An oral history of how James Harden grew the beard.

*Bleacher Report: Ken Griffey, Jr., A-Rod, and the Greatest Home Run Hitting Team in MLB History.

*This story is nuts. From OregonLive.com, the quest to stop the next school shooter and its unintended consequences.

*Wired: Twitter users are analytical in the morning and full of ANGST at night. Premise holds up.

*Russia declassified a 75-year old case against four Russian soccer legends accused of plotting to assassinate Joseph Stalin.

Tuesday Morning Hot Links

*Richard Justice thinks the Astros should try to sign Adrian Gonzalez. Or Matt Adams. Or Lucas Duda. Or Curtis Granderson. Or anyone who is apparently old and left-handed. If those are the only two requirements, might I suggest that Luhnow call my agent (my wife).

*Jose Altuve is one of nine finalists for the Dallas Morning-News' Texan of the Year.

*Never forget.

2017 Ninja Award, Best Performance of a Curveball in a Leading Role. Lance McCullers (24 straight Curveballs to send the Astros to the WS). 🏆😷 pic.twitter.com/5kwMPi2pUQ

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) December 17, 2017

*Looking for something for that special Astros fan in your life? Might I recommend Astros Strong, published by the Chronicle. It's a wonderful ride back through the season that ended with, wait for it, yes, a World Series championship. Filled with articles, recaps, and interviews from the 2017 season, I really enjoyed reading it. And it's a good way to remember just how crazy Game 2 was. Maybe I've read it a couple of times. Okay, sure, it's in the bathroom right now. Get it in print or on Kindle.

*Check out this podcast with Corpus' Myles Straw.

*Cole Hamels donated his 32,000 square-foot mansion plus 100 acres of land to a camp for kids with special needs. You don't have to like him, though.

*The Gun Hunters of Hurricane Harvey.

*Deliverance from 27,000 feet.

*Can baseball turn a 27-year old into the perfect manager?

Astros among teams interested in Granderson

What do you know? The Astros, as well as the Mets, Cubs, and White Sox, are interested in signing Curtis Granderson. Granderson, who will be 33 next March, rejected the Yankees' qualifying offer yesterday.

We addressed this in the Spending Crane's Money post last month, but there are a few things working against the Astros in signing Granderson, who has hit .274/.357/.519 against RHP for his career:

1) Granderson is from Chicago.
2) Granderson's priority is signing with a winning team.

It's debatable how much the Homecoming Factor plays in to a free agent's decision-making process, but if Granderson wants to sign with a winning team (at least for 2014), he may pass on Houston.

Your Morning Realignment Roundup

Rather than have six separate posts talking about the same thing, here is your roundup of morning realignment links:

Diamondbacks Team President and CEO Derrick Hall plays suck-up to Bud Selig, saying his team could be interested in moving to the AL:

"If asked, we will look into it if it's in the best interests of baseball. However, we have to balance it against what is in the best interest of our fans."

Curtis Granderson is in favor of teams playing every other team in baseball - regardless of league.

Hunter Pence doesn't give two craps about realignment:
"I like the National League. I like where we're at. I don't focus on those things at all and I really don't want to."

The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo offers AL alternatives, but says the Astros may be the most logical move. Why?

This is a franchise in transition anyway, with new ownership, and the team is having a bad season.

Yeah, since the Astros are down, they're that much closer to your foot.