THE PALLILOG
How Houston's current rotation is already making Astros history
Jun 4, 2021, 10:39 am
Astros fans know all about great starting pitching. Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images.
Given the caliber of competition (Dodgers, Padres, Red Sox) the Astros finishing their homestand with five wins and four losses is fine. Now they're on the road for nine starting with spending this weekend in Buffalo playing the Toronto Blue Jays. The birds flew north for the summer after playing their first two months of home games in Florida. As when the Jays were in Houston last month the Astros will not play against George Springer. For his six year 150 million dollar contract, Springer makes about 150 thousand dollars per game whether he plays. Springer has played in four games this season. He remains sidelined recovering from a quad strain.
The Astros have a rich pitching heritage, the best of which I would break down into three eras of guys whose careers overlapped for multiple years. First the J.R. Richard/Joe Niekro/Nolan Ryan era, then Roy Oswalt joined by Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, then most recently Dallas Keuchel into Charlie Morton, Justin Verlander, then Gerrit Cole. In none of those eras did the Astros ever have starting pitchers go seven consecutive games giving up no more than one run. The current Astros' rotation did just that before Jake Odorizzi gave up a three run homer Thursday. I don't know what the Major League record in the category is, but the Astros don't have it since earlier this season the Brewers had an eight game run of starters giving up no more than one run.
Stuff happens over a long baseball season but if the Astros lose the American League West or miss out on a Wild Card by a game or two, they'd probably think back and wonder how in the heck did they get swept in series by the Tigers and Rangers. A.J. Hinch's Tigers are on pace to lose 95 games. The Rangers are worse, pacing for 101 losses. Since taking three straight from the Astros the Rangers have not won a game. 0-9. They have lost 15 consecutive road games.
Quirky: before going 0-4 Thursday Alex Bregman had reached base safely in 20 consecutive games. Over those 20 games his season batting average dropped 17 points.
Stop me if you've heard this before: the Astros have some rulebreakers on their team. No, not lingering residue from 2017/18, but pitchers who illegally put substances on the ball designed to up spin rates. Unlike the trash can scheme which was unique to the Astros in its proven breadth, it's a virtual certainty that every team has pitchers who put stuff on the ball. MLB supposedly is about to get serious in trying to crack down on it. Not a coincidence that this happens while the overall MLB batting average is a sorry .236, which would be the lowest season long mark ever. Strikeouts per game are on course to set a record high for a 16th consecutive year.
A new-look Rockets broadcast is coming
Changes happen. The Rockets have experienced a lot of them in the last year, most notably going from a good team to woeful. Nothing lasts forever, including broadcasting jobs. It is not damning that the Rockets/AT&T SportsNet are making changes to their broadcast teams beyond Bill Worrell's retirement. Word hit this week that Matt Bullard is out after a decade and a half in the TV analyst's chair. Whatever one's opinion of Bullard as a game analyst, I'd be surprised if you can find anyone with a bad word about "Bull" the guy. A smart, funny, friendly man of integrity. And he loves the NHL playoffs. I said he's smart.
To the deep chagrin of TNT and especially Disney (ESPN/ABC) the Lakers NBA title defense didn't make it out of the first round of the playoffs. It's the first time in 15 career postseason appearances that LeBron James loses a first round series. For the first time in a decade the Western Conference Finals will have neither the Lakers nor the Warriors nor the Spurs (2011 Mavericks-Thunder). Jazz-Suns would be interesting. Nets-Bucks in an Eastern Conference semifinal starting Saturday night is highly interesting. Milwaukee has the personnel best equipped to at least somewhat slow the Brooklyn scoring machine.
Still alive in the postseason: Chris Paul, James Harden, P.J. Tucker, and Clint Capela. Trevor Ariza went out in the first round.
Buzzer Beaters:
1. With regards to baserunning there is sometimes a fine line between aggressive and stupid. Sometimes the line is thick and crystal clear. The Astros too often cross the line to stupid.
2. Still no Deshaun Watson at Texans OTAs? In other news, water is still wet. Go Tyrod Go!
3. Greatest NFL Taylors: Bronze-Charley Silver-Jason Gold-Lawrence
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A lockout appears unavoidable! Photo via: Wiki Commons.
Looming over baseball is a likely lockout in December 2026, a possible management push for a salary cap and perhaps lost regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
“No one’s talking about it, but we all know that they’re going to lock us out for it, and then we’re going to miss time,” New York Mets All-Star first baseman Pete Alonso said Monday at the All-Star Game. “We’re definitely going to fight to not have a salary cap and the league’s obviously not going to like that.”
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred and some owners have cited payroll disparity as a problem, while at the same time MLB is working to address a revenue decline from regional sports networks. Unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, baseball has never had a salary cap because its players staunchly oppose one.
Despite higher levels of luxury tax that started in 2022, the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets have pushed payrolls to record levels. The last small-market MLB club to win a World Series was the Kansas City Royals in 2015.
After signing outfielder Juan Soto to a record $765 million contract, New York opened this season with an industry-high $326 million payroll, nearly five times Miami’s $69 million, according to Major League Baseball’s figures. Using luxury tax payrolls, based on average annual values that account for future commitments and include benefits, the Dodgers were first at $400 million and on track to owe a record luxury tax of about $151 million — shattering the previous tax record of $103 million set by Los Angeles last year.
“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America on Tuesday. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”
Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, 2026, and management lockouts have become the norm, which shifts the start of a stoppage to the offseason. During the last negotiations, the sides reached a five-year deal on March 10 after a 99-day lockout, salvaging a 162-game 2022 season.
“A cap is not about a partnership. A cap isn’t about growing the game,” union head Tony Clark said Tuesday. “A cap is about franchise values and profits. ... A salary cap historically has limited contract guarantees associated with it, literally pits one player against another and is often what we share with players as the definitive non-competitive system. It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. It’s not about a fair versus not. This is institutionalized collusion.”
The union’s opposition to a cap has paved the way for record-breaking salaries for star players. Soto’s deal is believed to be the richest in pro sports history, eclipsing Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million deal with the Dodgers signed a year earlier. By comparison, the biggest guaranteed contract in the NFL is $250 million for Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
Manfred cites that 10% of players earn 72% of salaries.
“I never use the word `salary’ within one of `cap,’” he said. “What I do say to them is in addressing this competitive issue that’s real we should think about whether this system is the perfect system from a players’ perspective.”
A management salary cap proposal could contain a salary floor and a guaranteed percentage of revenue to players. Baseball players have endured nine work stoppages, including a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that fought off a cap proposal.
Agent Scott Boras likens a cap plan to attracting kids to a “gingerbread house.”
“We’ve heard it for 20 years. It’s almost like the childhood fable,” he said. “This very traditional, same approach is not something that would lead the younger players to the gingerbread house.”