Onto the ALCS
Agree or disagree, Hinch has the Astros in the ALCS with a gutsy move
Oct 12, 2017, 1:19 am
A.J. Hinch made a bold move and it paid off. Jason Behnken / Getty Images
The Astros and Yankees will square off in the ALCS starting Friday. John Granato, the dean of radio hosts in Houston, tells you how the Astros got there.
Game 4, Bottom of the 5th, Astros lead the Red Sox 2-1. With one out Charlie Morton walks Xander Bogaerts. Out of the dugout comes A.J. Hinch. In the bullpen for the first time in his adult life Justin Verlander is warming up. The right hand goes up and in comes Verlander with Andrew Benintendi waiting at the plate. After four fastballs topping out at 96 mph Verlander comes in with an 88 mile an hour slider that Benintendi deposits into the right field seats.
Cue twitter.
A.J. is an idiot and needs to go.
Worst decision I’ve seen in 50 years watching baseball.
This move reeks of desperation.
After Verlander shut the Sox down for the next 2 ⅔ and the Astros went on to win with a clutch 8th inning, twitter calmed down. It was pointed out that even though they won it doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the right move (think back to last year’s World Series and how Joe Maddon used Aroldis Chapman.)
That’s fair. Everyone has a right to their opinion. Mine is exactly the opposite. When he put Verlander in here’s what I tweeted:
AJ put himself out there with that move. Verlander not a reliever or 3 days rest guy but I can’t fault him for trying to win now. Love that
A couple weeks ago I wrote that I hoped that A.J. had learned something from his first playoff experience in 2015 and it appears he had. In ‘15 he stuck with Evan Gattis and Luis Valbuena even though they were awful at the plate. My contention was that you can put up with an extended slump in a 162 game season but in a five game series you don’t have that luxury. I thought A.J. lacked the urgency you need as a manager in the postseason.
In game 3 I was wondering whether or not he still lacked it. Carlos Beltran got the start at DH against Doug Fister which was understandable. Against lefties this year Carlos was good not great, but in that locker room no one is more respected. The guys look up to him and want to see him succeed. The bench exploded when Beltran had that huge hit in the 8th in game 4. Exploded. You can tell how much they revere him.
That said, when John Farrell went to left hander David Price in game 3 it was time for Carlos to sit down. He was overmatched as a right handed hitter this year. He hit .185, .228/.277/.505. Those numbers are just plain bad. Yet A.J. let him hit twice against Price in a one run game. You just can’t give away at-bats like that in the playoffs. You just can’t.
So when A.J. went to Verlander in the 5th inning in game 4 trying to hold onto a one run lead and end the series with his best pitcher I certainly couldn’t be critical.
Did he put himself out there for criticism? Absolutely. First, using Verlander on 3 days rest doesn’t happen. Coming in in relief had never happened and bringing him in in the middle of the inning as opposed to starting it was even ballsier. He went for the jugular. (If you know poker it was like pushing all-in with just a 50-50 chance of winning the hand. But he was doing it with plenty of outs. He had Keuchel waiting on the river if he got beat on the turn and that’s a pretty good ace in the hole).
Was it the right call? That’s arguable. I can see both sides. But they won and that’s all that matters. How will Joe Maddon be remembered, as the guy who misused Chapman or the guy that ended the Cubs 108 year run of futility?
Time for the Astros to end their run and they’re one step closer whether you think it’s because of A.J. or in spite of him.
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It’s go time! While the Astros are not the juggernaut they were over the more than half-decade stretch from 2017 through 2022 that yielded regular seasons with 101, 103, 106, and 107 wins, four American League pennants, and two World Series Champions, as the saying goes, they ain’t dead yet. There is no superpower in the American League West the Astros need to overcome. In fact, the American League as a whole is grossly inferior to the National League. As a result, a fifth Astros’ AL title in this era is not some absurd fantasy, though it is certainly unlikely. But winning the pennant is unlikely for every AL team, so if you’re a fan of the Astros there is nothing wrong with a “Why not us?” mentality. On the other hand, the floor for the 2025 Astros is lower going into a season than it has been in almost a decade. The lineup has numerous question marks, and if the terrific trio atop the Astros’ starting rotation (Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and Ronel Bronco) runs into injury or performance issues the Astros would have serious problems. That the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners both finish ahead of the Astros is clearly plausible. Play ball!
Astros history lives in these moments
It is simple fact that time marches on, but it is still amazing that the Astros are beginning their second quarter-century of play at what for its first two seasons was called Enron Field, then for the past 23 seasons Minute Maid Park, and now Daikin Park. That’s 25 seasons in the books, at least 26 more to come, with the Astros a few years ago having extended their lease through 2050. In non-specific order, I have twenty easily come-to-mind most spine-tingling moments at the ballpark. If you want 25 for 25 years, I leave five more to you.
Not all spine-tinglers on the home field are generated by the home team. Here are three produced by visiting players. In 2001, Barry Bonds smashed his 70th home run of the season to tie Mark McGwire’s single season Major League record. We know what went into the home run numbers of that era, but it was still jaw-dropping stuff. Bonds would finish the season with 73 homers. Game five of the 2005 National League Championship Series, with the Astros one out from winning their first ever pennant, Albert Pujols launched a Brad Lidge hanging slider that might still be airborne if not for the glass wall above the train tracks. It may be the most instantaneous crowd delirium to utter silence moment ever. It turned a 4-2 Astros’ lead into a crushing 5-4 loss. But, the next game Roy Oswalt pitched the Astros to that pennant in St. Louis. Lastly, the second game of the 2013 season, Rangers’ pitcher Yu Darvish retired the first 26 Astro batters before Marwin Gonzalez smacked a ball through Darvish’s legs up the middle for a base hit. Soooooo close to a perfect game. Only 22 perfect games have been thrown in MLB’s modern era (1900-today).
Now to Astro achievements. Fudging a bit by including Roger Clemens since it’s not for one specific moment. But the Rocket’s starts with the Astros were events. Speaking of Hall of Famers, Craig Biggio’s 3000th hit is an obvious list-maker. Jeff Kent is not a Hall of Famer but he was better in the batter’s box than any second baseman elected after Joe Morgan. Kent won game five of the 2004 NLCS with a bottom of the ninth three-run bomb to end what had been a scoreless game. Alas, the Astros would lose the next two games and the series in St. Louis. The crowd went much wilder over Kent’s homer than over Chris Burke’s series-winning homer over the Atlanta Braves in a 2005 NL Division Series. Burke’s homer came in the 18th inning, so sheer exhaustion held down the decibel level a little. A sleeper for the list occurred earlier in that same game, when Brad Ausmus of all people hit a two-out game-tying homer to get the game into extra innings.
Four no-hitters have been thrown by Union Station. Working backwards: Ronel Blanco last season, Framber Valdez in 2023, a combined job started by Aaron Sanchez in 2019, and the first in 2015 by Mike....yes, Fiers.
And now to the grandest home park moments of this Platinum Era in Astros’ history. Carlos Correa authored two of them, each in a game two of the American League Championship Series. In 2017 he doubled home Jose Altuve with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. That came off of Aroldis Chapman who shall appear once more in this column. In 2019 Correa tied the series at one win apiece with a walk-off homer. Yordan Alvarez also gets a pair of entries. You know, Yordan hit just .192 in the 2022 postseason. But talk about making your hits count. In game one of those playoffs, ALDS vs. Seattle, it was a two-out three-run walk-off blast off of Robbie Ray to give the Astros an 8-7 win. Then in the final game of those playoffs, it was a sixth inning gargantuan three-run launch to dead center turning a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.
That leaves four moments that are 100 percent non-negotiable entries. While not dramatic (4-0 final score), the payoff warrants inclusion of the Astros winning Game seven of the 2017 ALCS over the Yankees. Similarly, while the moment of victory lacked drama (4-1 final), how could one exclude the Astros winning the World Series on home turf in 2022. Finally, for my money the two most pulsating, goosebump-inducing, viscerally exciting moments at 501 Crawford Street. In one of the most scintillating games ever played in any sport, Alex Bregman’s bottom of the 10th inning single gave the Astros’ their epic 13-12 win over the Dodgers in game five of the 2017 World Series. Then in 2019, Jose Altuve’s game six homer ended the ALCS (I warned you Aroldis).
Here’s to the new season! Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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