The Kentucky Derby is Saturday. Kentuckyderby.com
Saturday’s Derby should be a highly entertaining, competitive race. Justify is the 3-1 favorite, and he has a lot of promise. However, there are a lot of reasons to bet against him. No horse has won the Derby without starting as a 2-year-old since 1882. He has not raced outside of California. And he has raced against small fields. Now, he is fast enough that he won’t know there are 15 or so horses behind him. But he will also face serious pace pressure for the first time in his life.
I think the winner comes from nine horses: the 5-6-7-9-11-12-14-16-18-20. Of those, I like Bolt D’Oro the best and will be betting him across the board, in exactas with the other contenders and will also attack the trifecta in three different ways.
The picks:
No. 11 Bolt D’oro -- Battle tested, should love the distance and could turn the tables on Justify.
No. 12 Enticed -- A troubled second in the Wood, he is also bred to love the distance and could be in the mix at a price.
No. 20 Combatant -- Can’t win, but should clunk up for a piece late at a monster price.
No. 7 Justify -- Could win this, but plenty of reasons to play against.
The other contenders: No. 14 Mendelssohn, No. 9 Hofburg, No. 5 Audible.
The contenders who could struggle or surprise: No. 16 Magnum Moon, No. 18 Vino Rossi.
We will have two trifecta plays. One will key Bolt D’Oro first and second. The other will key Combatant second and third. We can conceivably hit them both. They are available in .50 increments. If you can only afford one, go with the first one:
First tri:
11 with 5-7-9-12-14 with 5-6-7-9-10-12-14-16-18-20
5-7-9-12-14 with 11 with 5-6-7-9-10-12-14-16-18-20
In .50 increments, that will be $45.
Second tri:
5-7-9-11-12-14 with 20 with 5-6-7-9-10-11-12-14-16-18
5-7-9-11-12-14 with 5-6-7-9-10-11-12-14-16-18 with 20
This will cost $54 in .50 increments.
For Friday's Oaks, we will do an exacta box with the 5-10-13-14.
You can find breakdowns on every horse here.
Last year, we went 1-for-3 on Triple Crown trifectas, ending a nice stretch of 9 out of 12. On a confidence level of 1-10, I would say this is a 6. If you are at Sam Houston Race Park, swing by the ESPN VIP area and say hello. Good luck on your wagers!
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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 nine 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 a 4-8 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 (though not Breggy Bad). 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.