The Pallilog
As Red Sox loom, Astros are rolling along at a historic pace
May 17, 2019, 8:28 am
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
There is no such thing as a pivotal mid-May baseball series. Even with a sweep at Fenway Park this weekend the Astros would get no vengeance for the Red Sox having dethroned them last October in the American League Championship Series. But they'd still enjoy it. The Astros have reeled off eight consecutive wins. The Red Sox have recovered from a dismal 6-13 start to win 17 of their last 24 games.
Reigning AL Most Valuable player Mookie Betts best reflects the World Series champs' staggering start and subsequent rebound. Betts hit a paltry .200 over the 6-13 start. Since then he's batting .360 with an OPS over 1.000. Overall, at least until (if?) the Yankees get healthy, only Boston in the AL has a lineup that can remotely challenge the Astros for depth of quality.
It's still too early in the season to make all that much of "on pace" stats, but more than one quarter of the schedule having been played is not a trivial slice. Both Alex Bregman and George Springer are on pace to hit more than 50 home runs. Springer in particular is off to an incredible season. For a leadoff hitter to lead the league in runs batted in is absurd. Springer leads the AL with 40. Only two leadoff hitters have ever reached 100 RBI for a season (Charlie Blackmon 104, Darren Erstad 100). Springer is on pace for 147. There is zero chance he maintains that pace, but breaking the leadoff man season RBI mark is clearly in play. Springer's contract is up after this season, but the Astros control his rights via salary arbitration for 2020. He's looking at a raise from 12 million dollars this season to 20 mil or so next, after which he can become a free agent (unless an extension is agreed upon in the meantime). However, Springer will turn 31 years old before hitting the open market so he can basically forget a six year deal like Bregman got, maybe the Astros would consider five, but they'll be wary. Jose Altuve's five year extension kicks in next year and takes him through the season in which he turns 34. It would be denial to not have at least a pinch of concern about that given Altuve's decline in production and now two different leg injuries.
Wrapping up the Rockets
An athlete or sports team can fail and fail miserably, without choking. The Rockets didn't choke in their latest demise at the hands of the Golden State Warriors. A better, more clutch (ouch), real championship team, beat them. Again. Still, the way the red curtain closed in game six was a crushing franchise failure. The Warriors played without their best all around player, Kevin Durant. Their most important player, Stephen Curry did not score in the first half. Draymond Green got in foul trouble.
Unlike in multiple prior elimination losses, James Harden wasn't awful and/or seemingly a broken player. He went down swinging. But it's also fact that in the last 10 minutes of their season Harden committed four turnovers, while the Warriors committed none. Until or unless he demonstrates otherwise, Harden's postseason shortcomings are a part of the evaluation when comparing him to all-time greats.
Chris Paul who was so mediocre over the first five games, showed out in game six. Offensively anyway. Wasn't enough. The three years 124 million dollars guaranteed remaining on Paul's deal make his one of the worst contracts in the NBA going forward.
Owner Tilman Fertitta sure talked tough after the loss. His intensity and boldness are fun. But let's face it, part of the Rockets falling short was their weak bench, construction of which was impacted by the Rockets going nickel-dimey over luxury tax concerns. The Rockets have basically no wherewithal to go big game hunting this offseason, but do have flexibility via salary cap exceptions to make moves to start next season with a legitimate NBA bench. That is if dodging the luxury tax is not an objective this time around. I presume it won't be. General Manager Daryl Morey needs to do a better job than he did last summer.
In trying to put some upbeat tone to things Mike D'Antoni referred to the Rockets core still being young. That is laughable. If the Rockets are in the second round of the playoffs next season Chris Paul and P.J. Tucker will be 35 years old. Eric Gordon will be 31, James Harden 30. The Rockets best hope isn't in them getting much better. It's in Durant leaving and the Warriors slipping, and younger, ascendant teams (Nuggets, Clippers, Jazz, Blazers) not going by them.
Buzzer beaters
1. Seven different starting pitchers have won a Cy Young Award after turning 36. Justin Verlander looks like a clear frontrunner to become the eighth. 2.Tyler White is overweight and been lousy so far this season. DH replacement in waiting Yordan Alvarez hit two more homers Thursday and is batting .410 and slugging .903 at AAA. 3. MLB's greatest fat hitters: Bronze-Prince Fielder Silver-later career Tony Gwynn Gold-Babe Ruth
It’s been an excellent weeklong stretch of games for the Astros tempered by the news of yet another season-ending injury to a starting pitcher. To get the bad news out of the way, it comes as no surprise that Ronel Blanco needs Tommy John surgery and is done until at least the middle of next season. While Blanco had not been nearly as good through nine 2025 starts as he was last season, he was still taking his regular return and on average getting into the sixth inning. Blanco turns 32 years old at the end of August. He’s not even salary arbitration-eligible until 2027. That last fact may be good news for him. The Astros will likely keep Blanco next year in hopes he can contribute in the second half of the season, since they will pay him barely the Major League minimum salary ($780,000 next year) That’s in contrast to Jose Urquidy, who in the midst of his salary arbitration years would have cost about three and a half million dollars to keep, so the Astros non-tendered him.
With Blanco joining Hayden Wesneski in the “See you next year! Hopefully.” club, it struck me as interesting that the Astros let Lance McCullers throw 102 pitches in his Wednesday outing vs. the Athletics. That’s eleven more than he had thrown in any of his prior four starts. McCullers holding up physically would be a huge boost, but the new essentials in the Astros’ rotation are Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. Framber has settled in to the tune of a 1.93 earned run average over his last four starts. Brown’s season ERA is 2.00. Brown has had five days of rest before all eleven of his starts this season. This Sunday is Brown’s presently next scheduled outing. He would work on four days of rest if on the mound Sunday against the Rays.
Taking the last two games from the Mariners was huge (for the second half of May anyway). Keeping the good times rolling by sweeping the two-game miniseries from the A’s was less significant but still nice. Maybe not quite nice enough to have Frank “The Tank” from the movie Old School belting out “We’re going streaking!!!” but it did give the Astros their first four game winning streak of the season. They still have not lost more than three straight.
On a heater!
Speaking of streaking, time for annual mention of one of my all-time favorite baseball factoids. The 1916 New York Giants hold the MLB record for the longest win streak with an incredible 26 in a row. Earlier in the season the Giants ripped off 17 in a row. Combine the two streaks and that’s 43-0! The 1916 New York Giants finished in fourth place. In all their other games the Giants went 43-66. The American League’s longest ever winning streak is of fairly recent vintage. The 2007 Cleveland Indians won 22 straight. There have been only two other winning streaks since 1900 of at least 20 games. The 1935 Chicago Cubs won 21 straight. The Art Howe-managed 2002 Oakland A’s won 20 in a row, and were the inspiration for the movie Moneyball. The Astros have three 12 game winning streaks as the longest in their history.
Expect the unexpected
Tuesday’s win over the A’s brought the Astros to the one-third completed point of the regular season. Isaac Paredes was definitely their best offensive player to that milepost. His “on pace for” numbers were the best on the ballclub 33 home runs and 93 runs batted in. Paredes also led in runs scored with 29. The last Astro to lead the team in all three of those categories was Alex Bregman who did it in both 2018 and 2019. That Bregman was clearly a better player than this Paredes, but Isaac healthy and making “only” 6.625 million dollars this season is a heck of a lot better value than Bregman at 40 mil for the Red Sox, especially given that while Bregman was off to a sensational start for Boston, he’s now out for at least a month with a quad injury.
Hunter Brown is on pace to win 20 games. The last Astro to get there was Gerrit Cole on the last day of the 2019 regular season. The day before that Justin Verlander won his 21st game.
The Cleveland Guardians’ bullpen was awesome last season, by far the best in the league with four relievers who each pitched in at least 74 games posting ERAs of 1.92 or lower, headlined by closer Emmanuel Clase’s microscopic 0.61. One-third of the way through this season for the Astros: Bryan Abreu sat at 1.90, Steven Okert 1.82, Josh Hader 1.57, Bryan King 1.52.
For Astro-centric conversation, 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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