PLENTY TO PLAY FOR
3 important factors to watch for as Astros take on Braves in World Series rematch
Aug 19, 2022, 1:33 pm
The Astros are headed back to Atlanta. Photo by Elsa/Getty Images.
Astros stave off elimination with World Series Game 5 win over Braves
In most sports, when the calendar provides a rematch of the two teams that squared off against each other for the championship in the previous season, you circle those dates. This weekend's matchup between the Astros and Braves in Atlanta is one of those times.
Typically, these types of rematches give both teams something to rise to the occasion; there's a revenge factor for the team that came up short the previous year, while the defending champions can show that they're still the team to beat. When the 2022 schedule was initially released, there was no guarantee that the three-game series kicking off Friday night would be one featuring two of the league's best teams.
Luckily for us, it is a playoff-caliber set of games, with the Houston sitting on top of the AL at 77-43 while the Braves sit third in the NL at 73-47 behind the 76-43 Mets and the league's best 81-36 Dodgers. Both teams are virtually guaranteed to be in the 2022 postseason at this point, but there's still plenty to prove.
Is McCullers Jr. all the way back?
"Having him come back now, might ensure that you're going to get the best part of him in October."Â
Lance McCullers Jr. was looking a lot like himself in his 2022 season debut this past weekend. 👀#MLBCentral | #LevelUp | @markdero7 | @LaurenShehadi | @RoFlo pic.twitter.com/taqEr699lL
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) August 15, 2022
In the series opener, we'll get an intriguing pitching battle when the Astros send Lance McCullers Jr. to the mound opposite Kyle Wright, who is 14-5 with a 3.14 ERA. Both of these teams are benefitting from solid pitching this season, with Houston's second-best team ERA of 3.05 and Atlanta's sixth-best 3.61.
McCullers made his 2022 debut on August 13th, and it was a good one. He made it through six shutout innings against the A's on just 81 pitches, nabbing his first win of the year as Houston would go on to win 8-0. While quality starts, especially shutouts, are never easy in the MLB, there is a big difference between the 41-73 A's and this Braves team.
One thing that could have bitten him in that first start was walks. He issued four over the six-inning outing, with some timely double plays helping erase them. He otherwise looked sharp, getting five strikeouts and allowing just two hits. If he can make the next step in his progression to complete form, replicating the success of his first start against a more potent offense, that will be a huge confidence boost for the rest of the season.
Are the bats finally peaking?
In the recent six-game homestand against the Rangers and A's, the Astros put up 39 runs, averaging 6.5 per game. Three low-scoring affairs followed that against the White Sox, where they managed just eight and dropped two of those three to Chicago. Then the lineup exploded in the series finale, demolishing the ball en route to a 21-5 clubbing to hang their hats on heading into this weekend.
As I've mentioned earlier this season, with Houston's pitching being mostly consistent with their strong performance, the offense has been the deciding factor in games more often than not. One key component of the top of Houston's order is Alex Bregman, who is having a hot August so far.
That's one way to keep him off 2nd. pic.twitter.com/ApJCUyj6BaÂ
— Houston Astros (@astros) August 18, 2022
Bregman's first half of the season was not up to his typical standards, finishing with a .238 average, 11 homers, and .764 OPS. That has quickly turned around in July and August, where he's slashing .343/.404/.667 and an impressive 1.070 OPS. So far this month, he has the third-best average in the league, is tied for the most RBI, and has the second-best OPS with 1.246 behind Paul Goldschmidt's 1.276.
While the rest of the lineup got in on the action in the blowout win in Chicago, Bregman was the most impressive, getting two homers and driving in six runs. If he can maintain this surge the rest of the way and be the spark for Houston's lineup, they could enter the postseason as one of the most well-rounded teams, which remains necessary for playoff success.
An exciting weekend in store
After the opener on Friday night with McCullers Jr. vs. Wright, the two teams will take to primetime on Saturday night as they'll play on FOX. That game will have Cristian Javier (7-8, 2.96 ERA) facing off with Spencer Strider (7-4, 3.04 ERA) at 6:15 PM Central. Then, the series finale will be at 12:35 PM on Sunday with the pitching matchup of Jose Urquidy (11-4, 3.69 ERA) and former Astro Charlie Morton (6-5, 4.04 ERA).
A World Series rematch. A potential preview of this year's as well. It'll be fun to watch and shapes up to be one of the final premier matchups the Astros have as we near the last month of regular-season play.
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A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”