THE PALLILOG
Charlie Pallilo: On the Rockets, Astros, college hoops and Olympic hockey
Feb 23, 2018, 6:08 am
A.J. Hinch does not have a lot of decisions to make. Jason Behnken / Getty Images
The final six weeks of the Rockets’ regular season will be anything but boring as they roll toward a new franchise record for regular season wins (all they need is a 15-10 finish) and battle the Golden State Warriors for the best record in the NBA (winning that battle will require more along the lines of a 20-5 finish).
Astros’ spring training should be delightfully boring. For the World Series Champions no news will be good news. Any significant news would probably be injury related. Manager A.J. Hinch has three fringe roster decisions to make; who gets Yuli Gurriel’s spot as he serves a five game season-starting suspension, whether to carry a third catcher or a more versatile last man on the bench, and whether to carry a marginal lefty reliever.
No Texas fight
So, who’s doing the less impressive job this season: Billy Kennedy or Shaka Smart? The Aggies climbed out of the hole of an 0-5 start in SEC play to get to 6-6 following wins on the road at then 8th ranked Auburn and at home over then No. 24 Kentucky. And since have dumped three straight games including getting destroyed at Arkansas and then losing at home by 12 to a middling Mississippi State team. That has the Ags 6-9 in SEC play with games remaining at Vanderbilt, at Georgia, and home vs. Alabama. They should win at least two of those three and be OK for an NCAA Tournament berth. But worse than that followed by a first round loss in the SEC Tournament…
Meanwhile, Smart makes over three million dollars per season at Texas and has a produced a record to this point of 47 wins 47 losses. I thought Smart was a tremendous Horns’ hire. I’ve been wrong before. The loss of Andrew Jones to a leukemia diagnosis was a big blow to an offense that too often is inept. But scoring all of 48 points in a loss at Kansas State this week was pitiful. UT is 6-9 in Big 12 play. Its remaining three games are against teams that have already hooked the Horns this season: Oklahoma St., Kansas, and West Virginia. I don’t care how good and deep the Big 12 is, a team that goes 7-11 in conference does not belong in the NCAA Tournament unless it wins two games minimum in its conference tournament.
USA! USA!
It’s only once every four years that there’s any realistic chance of me watching a women’s hockey game. The latest quadrennial occasion was Wednesday night and it sure was worth is as the U.S. women beat Canada for the gold medal. Four years ago in the gold medal game the American women had a 2-0 lead with five minutes left but blew it, and lost in sudden death overtime. 10 of the players who swallowed that bitter pill were back and tasted the sweetest victory. It was a great game and a great story, made even greater in that twin sisters scored the tying and game winning goals for the U.S. Can’t wait until Beijing in 2022!
Remembering the Miracle
Thursday marked the 38th anniversary of the greatest sporting event in U.S. history. It was Feb. 22, 1980 when the entirely amateur-comprised American hockey team stunned the Soviet Union machine at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.
It is inconceivable that a future sporting event could resonate as strongly in this country as did that victory coupled with the subsequent gold medal win. The USSR was our sworn Cold War enemy, our economy was a mess, and we had 52 hostages held captive in Iran. It was not the best of times.
We did not win the gold by beating the Soviets. That victory got the U.S. a shot at gold playing against Finland two days later. It wasn’t a straight up gold medal game. Under the format of that time a loss to the Finns would have meant only bronze for the U.S. A tie would have resulted in the gold to the Soviets on a tiebreaker.
Against Finland we trailed 2-1 after the second period. In the third period we scored the tying goal, while unbelievably, ABC-TV was in commercials. Out of the commercials Al Michaels said “We’ve got the greatest news of all for you. As you can see the Americans, the mob scene there, Phil Verchota has just scored to tie the game!” Not quite as famous on the Al Michaels page in Bartlett’s Quotations as “Do you believe in miracles….yes!!!”
ABC managed to not be in commercials for the go ahead and insurance goals that capped the Miracle On Ice.
Buzzer Beaters
1. Kansas wraps up an insane 14th straight Big 12 title if it wins at Texas Tech Saturday. 2. I wonder if Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock think Kevin Hart is very funny. 3. Match Game Super Match Edition, Ice ______ : Bronze-Ice, Baby! Silver- Breaker Gold-Cream.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
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 YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.