Taylor and Smith were bad. Bats were bad. Ump was bad, but consistent at it. Luck was bad. This was a bad game. Barring a miracle, **** it, forget it, and win the series tomorrow.
This is now the second time Maldonado has come up in a fairly high leverage spot in the late innings and Dusty has left him in, instead of using a better pinch hitter option (ie McCormick against RHPs, Castro against LHPs). This is the kind of stuff you lose on the margins.
Absolutely not but that’s a separate conversation altogether. This was about feeling sorry for Altuve.
Morality??! Where did you get that?? No ****ing way. This is about NOT feeling sorry for Altuve. I’ve defended this team through this entire ordeal. **** morals but it was wrong and they all get to take part in the blowback, that’s all I’m saying. The facts are we got ****ing hosed, everyone else gets off the ****ing hook. I’m the last one that give two ***** about morals.
If our starter gives up 6 runs, my thinking is oh, he just didn't have it tonight If one of our reliever opens the flood gates, I get extremely frustrated. You only had one job! Is this normal, should I seek help.
Not that worried about the bullpen. Scrubb should be back in a week or so and Baez shouldn't be much further behind. Hopefully after Odorizzi gets a few starts under his belt he will pitch more than 5 innings on a regular basis unlike everyone in the rotation not named Greinke. Same goes for Framber which will likely slide Javier to the pen and provide a significant upgade to the back end of games. Then Paredes will be back eventually and it's probably not the end of the world for him to miss some time early in the season. We will need him down the stretch and in the playoffs so reducing his innings now isn't the worst thing provided he heals up well. I am also glad to see Nivaldo Rodriguez get one more chance. He's pitched very well in the minors with a 2.88 ERA, 1.056 WHIP, and 9.4 K/9 in 4 seasons. He's probably the last guy on the 40 man roster. So it's nice to see if he can get it done before we end up cutting him and losing him for nothing in the near future with the 40 man roster moves that have to happen this year. It would be nice if the hip injury was a nagging reason James stunk for a couple years and it just finally popped in the playoffs. If we get 2018 James back that would be awesome Pressly Javier Baez Paredes Stanek Abreu Smith Raley/Taylor/James/Scrubb Taylor, James, Scrubb, Stanek, Abreu, Paredes, Rodriguez, Bielak, Garcia, and Javier all have options so you can send them down and shuffle them as needed.
Taylor and Smith have to be better. That's twice now that they've directly lost the Astros games in the last two innings, and we're only eight games into the season. Help is coming in the bullpen, but until then, those guys are going to have to pitch in high-leverage situations.