THE PALLILOG
Charlie Pallilo: Astros should have lofty goals for 2018 season
Mar 30, 2018, 6:30 am
Can the Astros host another parade? Other big goals remain as well. Bob Levey/Getty Images
Here’s to baseball season. Especially when we have a team this good to watch for the next six-plus months. Monday night should be glorious as the Astros wave their World Series Champions flag before the home opener.
One down, 107 to go. My lofty goal for the 2018 Astros is 108 wins. That would mean winning two out of every three for the season. That is a rare stamp of greatness in Major League Baseball. Since the regular season schedule expanded to 162 games in 1961 only seven teams have won 108. Of course winning the World Series again is the ultimate objective, but in the Wild Card era a merely pretty good team can win the World Series. No pretty good team can win 108 games. The Astros start this season with a better roster than they had last year when they torched MLB enroute to a 42-16 start and 101 wins overall. It’s been 17 years since a team won 108. The Seattle Mariners won 116 in 2001, then didn’t reach the World Series. The Mariners haven’t made the playoffs since.
One down, 24 to go. Here’s another extremely lofty (but not insanely so) bar for this season: Justin Verlander, 25 game winner. No pitcher has won 25 games in a season since Bob Welch won 27 for Oakland in 1990 (nevertheless Roger Clemens got shafted out of the AL Cy Young Award that year). Verlander is 35 years old, but he’s tremendous, tremendously durable (200+ innings pitched 11 of the last 12 seasons), and has a tremendous offense supporting him. The last pitcher to win 24 in a season: Justin Verlander when he won both AL Cy Young and MVP honors in 2011. Verlander is 11 wins shy of 200 for his career. He should cruise through that plateau. Add a second Cy Young Award (he’s also finished second twice and third once) and Verlander about cements a future plaque for himself in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And if all that’s not enough, I hear his wife is reasonably attractive.
In 2011 the Rangers came as close to winning a World Series as a team can come without actually winning it. In the 9th and 10th innings of game 6 they were one strike away against the Cardinals. Twice the Cardinals rallied, winning that game and then game 7 leaving the Rangers excruciatingly short of becoming the first Texas team to win it all. The Astros will forever hold that distinction over them. The Rangers had a fine run making the playoffs five out of seven seasons from 2010-2016. But that run is done. They weren’t good last year, and unless they are a huge surprise they won’t be good this year. The Rangers do not field a single player you’d take over his Astro counterpart for this season. After ace Cole Hamels the Rangers’ starting pitching rotation is a borderline laughingstock. The Astros have seven different starters who would rank at least second best if moved north.
Rockets are so good it’s boring
The Rockets are boring right now. Boringly brilliant. They win virtually every game they play, typically they win easily, and now don’t play a game with any meaning until the playoffs start in two weeks. Their latest double digit winning streak gives them three of them on the season. That obviously guarantees nothing in the postseason, in fact only two of the five previous teams to win 10+ in a row three times within a season went on to win the NBA Championship that same season.
Final Four, Texas style
San Antonio might not play host to many playoff games this spring, but has the Final Four this weekend. The delightful Loyola of Chicago story gets at least one more chapter as the Ramblers play Michigan before Villanova meets Kansas Saturday night. The NBA Bulls and NHL Blackhawks both stink like rotten eggs this season, so the Ramblers are the toast of the Second City right now. A school that doesn’t even have its games on the radio.
Hall pass
The Final Four is the annual site for the announcement of the year’s Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame class. For another year, Rudy Tomjanovich doesn’t make the cut. It’s an ongoing bad joke that he can be considered as a player (not-worthy) OR as a coach (worthy), but not for the totality of his basketball career (obviously worthy). It’s especially idiotic given there is a “contributor” category “for significant contributions to the game of basketball.” Dick Vitale is in the Hall. Former Comets coach Van Chancellor is in the Hall. John Calipari is in the Hall. Rudy T., nope.
Buzzer Beaters
1. It may be true that literally nobody with a working brain thinks the Astros won’t win the AL West 2. If healthy all season Giancarlo Stanton could make a run at 70 homers 3. Best berry competition: Bronze-black Silver-blue Gold-Halle
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Nick Chubb didn’t expect to be a Houston Texan. At least, not until he got the call on a quiet Saturday at home and was on a flight the next day. It happened fast — too fast, even, for the four-time Pro Bowler to fully process what it all meant. But now that he’s here, it’s clear this wasn’t a random landing spot. This was a calculated leap, one Chubb had been quietly considering from afar.
The reasons he chose Houston speak volumes not only about where Chubb is in his own career, but where the Texans are as a franchise.
For one, Chubb saw what the rest of the league saw the last two seasons: a young team turning the corner. He admired the Texans from a distance — the culture shift under head coach DeMeco Ryans, the explosive rise of C.J. Stroud, and the physical tone set by players like Joe Mixon. That identity clicked with Chubb. He’d been a fan of Ryans for years, and once he got in the building, everything aligned.
“I came here and saw a bunch of guys who like to work and not talk,” Chubb said. “And I realized I'm a perfect fit.”
As for his health, Chubb isn’t running from the injuries that cost him parts of the past two seasons, he’s owning them. But now, he says, they’re behind him. After a full offseason of training the way he always has — hitting his speed and strength benchmarks — Chubb says he’s feeling the best he has in years. He’s quick to remind people that bouncing back from major injuries, especially the one he suffered in 2023, is rarely a one-year journey. It takes time. He’s given it time.
Then there’s his fit with Mixon. The two aren’t just stylistic complements, they go way back. Same recruiting class, same reputation for running hard, same respect for each other’s games. Chubb remembers dreading matchups against the Bengals in Cleveland, worrying Mixon would take over the game. Now, he sees the opportunity in pairing up. “It’ll be us kinda doing that back-to-back against other defenses,” he said.
He’s also well aware of what C.J. Stroud brings to the table. Chubb watched Stroud nearly dismantle Georgia in the College Football Playoff. Then he saw it again, up close, when Stroud lit up the Browns in the postseason. “He torched us again,” Chubb said. Now, he gets to run alongside him, not against him.
Stroud made a point to welcome Chubb, exchanging numbers and offering support. It may seem like a small thing, but it’s the kind of leadership that helped sell Chubb on the Texans as more than just a good football fit — it’s a good locker room fit, too.
It appears the decision to come to Houston wasn’t part of some master plan. But in retrospect, it makes perfect sense. Chubb is a player with a no-nonsense work ethic, recovering from adversity, looking to write the next chapter of a career that’s far from over. And the Texans? They’re a team on the rise, built around guys who want to do the same.
You can watch the full interview in the video below.
And for those wondering how Joe Mixon feels about Nick Chubb, check out this video from last season. Let's just say he's a fan.
I’ve seen some speculation indicating that Joe Mixon may not be happy the Texans signed Nick Chubb. If that is what you believe, watch this clip from an interview with @greenlight pod last year & get back to me. pic.twitter.com/3vaip85esj
— Houston Stressans (@TexansCommenter) June 11, 2025
*ChatGPT assisted.
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