THE PALLILOG
Eye-popping Astros projections with two thirds of the season in the books
Aug 6, 2021, 10:45 am
Thursday marked the start of the final third of the regular season. Composite image by Jack Brame.
Sad news with the death Wednesday night of former Astro J.R. Richard at 71 years old. Before the career ending stroke he suffered at just 30 years old in 1980, James Rodney Richard was one of the most intimidating pitchers ever to take the mound for the Astros or any other team. Six feet eight inches tall with a 100-mile per hour fastball, Richard at the end of his long pitching stride must have made batters feel like he was about handing the ball to the catcher at 100 MPH. He had a wipeout slider to go with it. In each of his final two full seasons, Richard topped 300 strikeouts and led the National League. Those same two seasons Nolan Ryan led the American League while with the Angels. Over those two seasons Ryan struck out 483. J.R. struck out 616. Nolan faced designated hitters instead of pitchers but that is still a huge gap. Since J.R. did it, the only pitchers to reach 300 Ks in consecutive seasons are Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson (not when they were teammates with the Diamondbacks). "The Big Unit" topped 330 four years in a row.
Three times Richard led the NL in walks, three times he led in wild pitches. In 1980 Richard had harnessed his wildness and was absolutely dominating. His earned run average was 1.90 and he'd given up just 65 hits in 113 2/3 innings. The league was batting .166 against him with a laughable .462 OPS. J.R. was making opposing lineups look like they were comprised of all guys significantly worse than Martin Maldonado (OPS this season .595). Richard started the All-Star Game July 8. He made one more start July 14 before being shut down feeling a "dead" arm. Barely two weeks later, the stroke on July 30.
In what has been disappointing to some and angering to some others, the Astros never retired J.R. Richard's number 50. The most recent Astro to wear number 50 was Charlie Morton, who certainly wore it with great distinction. J.R. is in the Astros' Hall of Fame. With COVID having messed up last year's planned celebration of Astros' Hall of Fame Class of 2020, the class will be honored Saturday night. The honorees are: Lance Berkman, Cesar Cedeno, Roy Hofheinz, Roy Oswalt, Billy Wagner, and Bob Watson.
Big opportunity for Astros
Off a 4-4 road trip to Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, the Astros should now resume racking up the wins. They started with a weak showing in losing to Minnesota Thursday night at Minute Maid Park so their American League West lead over Oakland is four games. While the A's play host to the abysmal Texas Rangers this weekend, the Astros get three more games against the lousy Twins. Those are followed by two at MMP vs the roadkill Rockies, three In Anaheim against the mediocre Angels, then four at crummy Kansas City. Winning fewer than nine of the next twelve would be at least mildly disappointing.
Astros projections
Thursday marked the start of the final third of the regular season schedule. Extrapolating some numbers from the two-thirds mark over the rest of the way…
Jose Altuve is on pace to top his career highs in home runs (career high is 31, on pace for 37), runs scored (112, 118), walks (60, 71), and strikeouts (84, 104).
Between injuries and a couple of down seasons Carlos Correa has never scored more than 82 runs in a season. He's on pace for 104. Correa's first full big league season (2016) is the only normal length season he's been healthy all the way. So far so good this year.
Kyle Tucker woke up May 9 batting .175. Since then he's hit .322 and is on pace for 31 homers and 99 runs batted in.
Historic Astros offense?
The Astros have never had four guys reach 100 RBI in the same season. Altuve, Tucker, Yuli Gurriel, and Yordan Alvarez are all on pace for from 96 to 105.
Buzzer Beaters:
1. Astros' starting pitchers may not combine for 19 complete games this decade. J.R. threw 19 complete games in 1979.
2. Lionel Messi may be the greatest soccer player ever. Messi is 34 years old so his leaving F.C. Barcelona isn't as big a deal as when the Edmonton Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky in his prime. It's probably a bigger deal than Michael Jordan unretiring to join the Washington Wizards. Jordan turned 40 during his second and final season with the Wizards. He played all 82 games and averaged 37 minutes per game. Load management of today's NBA must make Jordan laugh, if not make him nauseous.
3. Greatest real wizards, meaning not movie or book characters: Bronze-Gus Williams Silver-John Wooden Gold-Ozzie Smith
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While holding one’s breath that for a change the Astros aren’t publicly grossly underestimating an injury’s severity with Jose Altuve having missed the last game and a half with “right side discomfort…”
The Astros averting a sweep vs. Oakland Thursday was in no way a must-win, but getting the win allowed a mini sigh of relief. The Astros are NOT in the process of choking. Could they collapse? Sure that’s possible. Also possible is that they’ve just been in one more ebb phase in a season of ebb and flow. They certainly have left the door ajar for the Seattle Mariners to swipe the American League West, but with the M's simply not looking good enough to walk through that door the Astros remain in commanding position. The Astros made a spectacular charge from 10 games behind to grab the division lead. But there was a lot of runway left when the Astros awoke June 19th 10 games in arrears. September 3 the Astros arose with a comfy six game lead over the M’s. With Seattle blowing a 4-1 eighth inning lead in a 5-4 loss to the Texas Rangers Thursday night, heading into Friday night the Astros' advantage is back up to four and a half games despite the Astros having lost six of their last nine games and having gone just 10-12 over their last 22 games. Not a good stretch but nothing freefalling about it.
While the Mariners have the remainder of their four-game series vs. the dead in the water Rangers this weekend, the Astros play three at the lousy Los Angeles Angels. The Astros should take advantage of the Halos, with whom they also have a four-game series at Minute Maid Park next weekend. Since the All-Star break, only the White Sox have a worse record than the Angels 19-31 mark (the White Sox are 6-43 post-break!). Two of the three starting pitchers the Angels will throw this weekend will be making their third big league starts. To begin next week the Astros are in San Diego for a three-game-set against a Padres club which is flat better than the Astros right now. That does not mean the Astros can’t take that series. The Mariners meanwhile will be still at home, for three vs. the Yankees.
There are some brutal Astros’ statistics that largely explain why this is merely a pretty good team and not more. As I have noted before, it is a fallacy that the best teams are usually superior in close games. But the Astros have been pathetic in close games. There used to be a joke made about Sammy Sosa that he could blow you out, but he couldn’t beat you. Meaning being that when the score was 6-1, 8-3 or the like Sammy would pad his stats with home runs and runs batted in galore. But in a tight game, don’t count on Sammy to come through very often. In one-run games the Astros are 15-26, in two-run games they are 10-14. In games that were tied after seven innings they are 3-12. In extra innings they are 5-10. The good news is, all those realities mean nothing when the postseason starts. So long as you’re in the postseason. In games decided by three or more runs the Astros have pummeled the opposition to the tune of 53 wins and 28 losses.
General Manager Dana Brown isn’t an Executive of the Year candidate, but overall he’s been fine this season. Without the Yusei Kikuchi trade deadline acquisition the Astros would likely barely lead the AL West. Brown’s biggest offseason get, Victor Caratini, has done very solid work in his part-time role. Though he has tapered off notably the last month and change, relief pitcher Tayler Scott was a fabulous signing. Scrap heap pickups Ben Gamel, Jason Heyward, and Kaleb Ort have all made contributions. However…
Dana. Dana! You made yourself look very silly with comments this week somewhat scoffing at people being concerned with or dismissive of Justin Verlander’s ability to be a meaningful playoff contributor. Brown re-sang a ridiculous past tune, the “check the back of his baseball card” baloney. Dana, did you mean like the back of Jose Abreu’s baseball card? Perhaps Brown has never seen those brokerage ads in which at the end in fine print and/or in rapidly spoken words “past performance is no guarantee of future results” always must be included. Past (overall career) performance as indicative of future results for a 41-year-old pitcher who has frequently looked terrible and has twice missed chunks of this season to two different injuries is absurd. That Verlander could find it in time is plausible. That of course he’ll find it? Absolutely not. His next two starts are slotted to be against the feeble Angels, so even if the results are better, it won’t mean “JV IS BACK!”
Presuming they hold on to win the division, the Astros’ recent sub-middling play means they have only very faint hope of avoiding having to play the best-of-three Wild Card Series. Barring a dramatic turn over the regular season’s final fortnight, Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown are the obvious choices to start games one and two. If there is a game three, it is one game do or die. Only a fool would think Verlander the right man for that assignment. No one should expect Brown to say “Yeah, JV is likely finished as a frontline starter.” But going to the “back of the baseball card” line was laughable. Father Time gets us all eventually. Verlander has an uphill climb extricating himself from Father Time’s grasp.
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.