Slept on a 6-2 lead than Sleepy Joe rises again. How do you keep playing Abreu, did Joey forget every year MLB players stats different year to year. 17 hits and you dont win, it is manager issue. We are only 1 game behind from the worst team in MLB, White Sox. Manfred is smiling with parity.
Wouldn't be surprised if SEA's offense is only "found" two more games. Rockies haven't won since Houston. Being only 1.5 behind the division, Astros are nowhere near buried - but the pitching needs to stabilize. We have offense, besides maybe a little RISP struggle. We really need Arrighetti to be decent and a couple of our annual "surprisingly effective guys" to appear. Best AL record is 9-6... no team is world-beating right now. At this point, avoid the damn sweep in Seattle.
I know it's early and we shouldn't panic...but the Astros are in serious trouble already. It's not so much the losing...it's HOW they're losing that is very concerning. The pitching, both starting and bullpen, is the worst I've seen from an Astros team since the 100+ loss seasons in the early 2010s. And the way Espada is managing the staff is making the problem even worse...e.g. I think he took LMJ out too early last night. Hunter Brown is the only pitcher on the roster that has been really good so far, and he's on the IL. This really sucks because the offense so far is reminding me of the great 2017-2019 Astros. Only Yainer has been underwhelming.
The 2003 Tigers would find their offense against this staff. Hell, the local high school team would rake. This staff would give up runs even if the opponent did not swing the bat the entire game. We are going to get destroyed today.
I don't get why we don't bring in Vasquez to pinch hit for him in late innings of close games, especially with guys on base.
I sure hope our pitching gets better. It doesn't help when guys can't stay healthy. I really hate seeing Abreu struggling to get that ball in the strike zone. I hope that he finds a way to overcome whatever is causing him to be off. It's sad when our guys keep losing games with 6 or more runs. Their missed challenge calls sure don't help either. I'm baffled when they don't challenge an obvious ball, and shaking my head when they challenge the good pitches.
Man, make it make sense. So many issues - injuries - on and on. Is Crane gonna give Espada a longer leash simply due to injuries? Knee jerk I wanna shake things up real bad - not saying that fixes anything.
I agree, way too early to think doom and gloom, but we can look at projections for the pitching staff going forward. Even if the Astros managed to get close to a division title by September do they have the bullets to compete at all or is this team fooling themselves into mediocrity? Just like we can't expect Yainer to suddenly draw walks, we can't expect our pitching staff to suddenly start pitching well consistently. This team is who they are so far and although I don't believe the Astros are a 6-9 team, they certainly are not a 9-6 team.
Keep on running Abreu at there in leverage situations and when Espada loses his job he will have deserved to be fired. Really he should've been fired before he destroyed anymore pitchers careers.It's not happenstance that pitchers arms/shoulders started blowing out after Espadda became manager.
If Bryan Abreu is his usual self, this team is potentially 8-7 and leading their division right now - even with everything else that has gone wrong.
