THE PALLILOG
Cracks over pings, 71s & 17s, and the impossible Astros record Altuve is chasing down
Feb 29, 2024, 10:19 am
Josh Hader will become the 4th Astro to wear number 71. Photo by Rich Storry/Getty Images.
Growing up, I was never a fan of aluminum baseball bats. I refused to use one throughout my Little League days, since “Big Leaguers” didn’t use them. It wasn’t like the extra power of an aluminum bat was going to turn me into a slugger anyway. Plus, the “ping” of bat meeting baseball always sounded fake to me, certainly relative to the great sound of the crack of a wood bat making sharp contact with the ball (great sound for hitters anyway). In less than a month now the Astros’ highly potent batting order will produce many a loud crack of the bat. This weekend however “ping” is the thing as the Astros play host to their annual College Classic at Minute Maid Park. As always the six team field is excellent. It’s not a tournament. Each team gets in three games. The best atmosphere of the weekend no doubt occurs at the Friday night 7:05 matchup between Texas and LSU. The Longhorns are 14th ranked (via Baseball America) while the reigning National Champion Tigers are number three. On Sunday UT plays Vanderbilt which checks in at number nine. Houston, Texas State, and Louisiana are also in the field.
An Astros number game
New Astros’ closer Josh Hader wears number 71. That’s a number one would more typically associate with some minor league prospect getting a look in spring training than with one of the premier closers in the game. When coming up with the Milwaukee Brewers Hader wanted number 17 but was told no can do. The Brewers haven’t retired number 17 but no one has worn it for them since a second baseman named Jim Gantner in 1992. Gantner played in 17 big league seasons all with the Brewers, and was a below average offensive player in 16 of them. Former Astros’ manager Cecil Cooper played 11 years with the Brewers that fully overlapped with Gantner’s tenure. “Coop” had a six-year stretch over which he was an absolute stud, three times finishing fifth in American League Most Valuable Player Award voting. 15 different players have worn number 15 for Milwaukee since Cooper did. Gantner is a Wisconsin native (Cooper grew up in Brenham and went to Prairie View A&M) but still seems an odd choice to have his number de facto retired. Anyway, since Hader couldn’t get number 17 with the Brewers he inverted it to the available 71, and has stuck with it. Incidentally, the Astros didn’t give out number 17 for a decade after Lance Berkman was traded. Jake Odorizzi then David Hensley have worn it over the last three seasons.
Hader will become the fourth Astro to wear number 71 in a regular season game. In a perfect Astroworld that appearance comes when locking down a victory over the Yankees on Opening Day. You are scary good on Astros trivia if you can name two of the three prior wearers of number 71. One would be impressive. If you can name all three, you almost certainly looked them up.
TIME’S UP! In reverse chronological order…Peter Solomon pitched in six games in 2021. Carlos Sanabria pitched in two games in 2020, J.C. Gutierrez pitched in seven games in 2007, the last four of them for then interim manager Cecil Cooper who had taken over from Phil Garner.
Hader supplants Ryan Pressly as the Astros’ primary closer. He has a tough act to follow in entry music. Pressly’s use of the Johnny Cash classic “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” has been pretty epic. With the Padres last season Hader entered to D.J. Khaled’s “Every Chance I Get.” An upgrade seems in order. When a Brewer Hader used “Renegade” by Styx.
Catch me if you can
In falling down a rabbit hole while researching a couple of things one can learn some pretty arcane stuff. Any Astros fan of even middling caliber should know Craig Biggio is the franchise leader in regular season games played (and several other categories) with 2850 which ranks 18th all-time in Major League Baseball. That’s fully 700 more than runner-up Jeff Bagwell. Jose Cruz is third with 1870. Jose Altuve is fourth with his 1668 regular season games. Under contract for six more seasons, Altuve would have to average 197 games played per season to catch Biggio by the end of 2029. Given a regular season is 162 games, Biggio seems rather safe atop the games played mountain.
More Astros, please!
A mention that our second season of the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast is off and running. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics weekly. On our regular schedule the first post goes up Monday afternoon. You can get the video version (first part released Monday, second part Tuesday, sometimes a third part Wednesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available at initial release Monday via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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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.