Eric Gordon continues to fill in well for the injured Chris Paul. NBA photos
Last week I had an epiphany. I was at the bar eating lunch and watching the Texans attempt to emulate a football team. I was discussing just how wretched the game was with my buddy, when it hit me:
I don't have to watch this. I should stop watching this.
And we did. I finished lunch and we immediately closed out toward the beginning of the third quarter.
Weekend 1 of no NFL has been nice. Freeing, even. Now that I no longer feel obligated to watch nine hours of football, I've been able to do other things like, oh I don't know, write about the Rockets.
And that's a way better topic because the Rockets are absolutely crushing teams right now. They have one of the best records in the league and James Harden looks like the early frontrunner for a player of the month award.
Add their success to my lingering World Series buzz and the impressive playoff run the Dynamo are stringing together, and it's easy to understand why it feels good to be a sports fan in Houston right now.
That is, unless you only watch the Texans. If that describes you, well, stay strong I guess. I'll be sure to keep you updated on my awesome Texans free Sundays from here on out.
Game Twelve: Rockets vs Cleveland Cavaliers (W, 117-113)
Thursday’s matchup between two of the biggest stars in the league certainly lived up to its nationally televised billing. Any team with LeBron James on it is going to be tough to put away, and this meeting was proof. The Rockets jumped out to an 11 point lead after James took a seat, and ballooned up to 15 behind a few consecutive deep Eric Gordon 3 pointers. James immediately returned, and by the end of the half the Cavs had tied the game behind the efforts of James himself and a surprising performance from journeyman Jeff Green. The Rockets received key contributions to close out the game from Clint Capela (19 points, 13 rebounds) and P.J. Tucker. Harden finished with a triple-double (35 points, 11 rebounds, 13 assists) and Gordon chipped in 20 point as well.
Game Thirteen: Rockets vs Memphis Grizzlies (W, 111-96)
Looking to avenge their 0-2 start vs the Grizzlies, the Rockets jumped out to a quick 9-0 lead and never trailed Saturday night. It was all Rockets, who dominated both sides of the ball on the way to tallying 14 steals on defense while finally crossing the 100-point mark against a team that has posed an early season challenge for them. Harden posted his fouthth 30-point game (38 points) in his last five outings, and Gordon went 6-11 from beyond the arc on the way to a 26 point outing.
Game Fourteen: Rockets at Indianapolis Pacers (W, 118-95)
Sunday evening the Rockets traveled up to Indianapolis and steamrolled the Pacers for their sixth straight win. Ignited by Harden’s career high nine assists in the first quarter, the Rockets never trailed for the second game in a row. Harden would finish with 26 points and 15 assists. Gordon chipped in 21 points and Clint Capela continued his great start to the season by adding 20 points and 17 rebounds.
Takeaways:
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Clint Capela is operating on a completely different level this season. He’s fourth in the league in rebounds, third in blocks, and first in field goal percentage. He’s also firing 70% from the charity stripe, up from 50% last season.
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Harden is currently leading the league in points, assists, and free throw attempts. Granted it’s way too early to speculate, but at the moment Harden looks like he’s going to be staging another strong campaign for league MVP.
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They’re playing angry. Following the Rockets’ last loss, they’ve blown out almost every team during their current six game win streak by an average point differential of 17.6 points per game.
Rockets Player of the Week (not named James Harden):
Eric Gordon. He’s certainly picking up the slack in Chris Paul’s absence and has posted four straight 20-point games, all while shooting 43% from beyond the arc.
Looking Ahead:
This week the Rockets will get their first looks at Toronto and Phoenix this season before taking on, you guessed it, Memphis yet again. Toronto has looked good to start the season, so this could be a good test at home for the Rockets. Phoenix is terrible, so a win should be expected there. Finally, on Saturday the Rockets will look to even the season series with the Grizzlies, who lead it 2-1. I expect no more than one loss this upcoming week.
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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.