James Harden and the Rockets continue to soar. Rockets.com
Week seven of the NBA season saw the Rockets up to their usual steamrolling tactics, overwhelming teams from three and playing great defense. There was little drama to be had this week as the Rockets made easy work out of a relatively soft week of games. The Rockets remain first in the conference, with a one game lead on Golden State. San Antonio trails the Rockets in the division by 3.5 games.
Game 20: Rockets vs Brooklyn Nets (W, 117-103)
James Harden went for the throat early, going 5-5 from three on the way to a 20-point first quarter. Those 20 points were part of a 43-26 first quarter, which ultimately proved insurmountable to the Nets. Chris Paul added a season high 14 assists and Clint Capela contributed his third 20-point effort of the season. Harden would finish with 37 points, 10 rebounds and 8 assists.
Game 21: Rockets vs Indiana Pacers (W, 118-97)
Watching from the stands, a friend leaned over with a concerned look on their face as the Pacers closed out the first quarter with the lead.
“Don’t worry,” is all I replied.
A close first half concluded with a slight Rockets lead. That lead would explode late in the third, concluding in what has become a typical Rockets blowout. All of the Rockets’ starters registered double digit points, while Harden flirted with yet another triple double (29 points, 8 rebounds, 10 assists). Capela added 22, marking his first consecutive 20-point outings of the season to go with 13 rebounds and two blocks.
Game 22: Rockets at Los Angeles Lakers (W, 118-95)
Late Sunday night the Rockets matched up with the Lakers for the first time this season and emerged from the Staples Center with their seventh straight victory. Offense was at a premium, as Harden, Paul and Eric Gordon would ultimately be the only three Rockets players who would score in double digits. Each was highly effective, however, scoring 36, 21, and 22 respectively. With the help of Kentavious Caldwell Pope and Brook Lopez, the Lakers pulled to within 3 halfway through the 3rd. A P.J. Tucker 3-pointer on the other side seemingly ended the Lakers’ run and the Rockets’ lead would balloon from there. Lakers point guard Lonzo Ball would finish the game 0-4 with 2 points, 3 assists, and 1 rebound.
Takeaways:
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After helping Harden shoulder most of the scoring load, Gordon’s production has dropped off considerably, averaging only 12.7 points per game in his last 7 games. It could be a result of Paul’s return to the roster, or that less playing time with Harden has resulted in having to create more of his own shot.
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So much for home court advantage: The Rockets are now 10-1 on the road, having won the last six consecutive road games by 15 or more points.
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It seems like every week it’s either Eric Gordon or Clint Capela playing the glue guy. With Gordon slumping, Capela has shouldered the load this past week, averaging 16.7 points and 10.7 rebounds.
Looking Ahead:
This week the Rockets have a light workload, with a Thursday game at Utah and Saturday at Portland. Thursday will be the second time the Rockets have faced the Jazz, the first time being a matchup that involved Harden scoring a career-high 56 points. Saturday will be the first matchup between the Rockets and Trailblazers. The Trailblazers are 13-10 at the moment and are second in the league in rebounding. It’s hard at this point to look at a team with 10 or more losses as a team that could pose a challenge, however Blazer’s point guard Damian Lilliard is really difficult to sleep on. In a fairly soft point of the schedule, Portland should pose the toughest test of the past three weeks. I see the Rockets taking at least one of the two, extending their win streak to at least eight, and facing a tough test in Portland.
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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.