This place used to be great. Now, game threads are polluted by knee-jerk posters, guys jumping off ledges with every pitch, people who seem to have never watched a meaningful game... let alone a pennant race. Then you have the pseudo-banned (widely ignored) poster who need not be named... having conversations with himself in one thread and bringing up Carlos Delgado in another. Anyways, I want a thread for serious posters/serious discussion/civil discussion and constructive/meaningful dialogue. Controversial opinions largely welcome... but should be backed up by statistical evidence if possible. Please save the "hot takes" for elsewhere. If you want to rail on Hinch and his "softness", there's another thread for that. If you want to question his decisions with statistical evidence to support (or contradict) widely held beliefs, go right ahead. Now, regarding the rest of this season... as of 9/15, this team is no longer in first place. They have 5 games left against the team they're trailing... 3 at home... and their ace will pitch in 2 out of the 5. That scenario does not scare me. They've run into some really awkward and frustrating injuries that has made this team/lineup pretty damn mediocre compared to where they were just a week ago... Gomez strained ribcage, Lowrie bruised foot, MarGo swollen finger, Castro's quad. This has led to a marked increase in playing time for Villar, Carter, Conger and Marisnick during the most important games of the season. That's not a trivial fact. Their lineup tonight was on-par or worse with any lineup they've trotted out all season... and these are the must win playoff games (ironically, the bad parts of the lineup did show up early enough to score some runs). Lastly, the bullpen... everybody's favorite way to blame Hinch for everything. I agree, he's overused Harris, underused Gregerson (saving him for the save that never happens), and basically has not taken advantage of the extra arms afforded him with the September callups. Then again, you got this far with certain guys pitching at a certain level... are you really going to stop using them now? I don't think this Astros team is anywhere close to being a finished product... and as of now I know people would shudder to think how they'd perform in a short series against a powerhouse Toronto, but we all know absolutely anything can happen in any given game. I've been talked off the ledge before... I'm not even close to the ledge now... but as this truly is now the playoffs, they're down 0-2 in a 7 game series with their pound-for-pound best two pitchers coming up. Even a split keeps this division within 0.5 games with 3 more at home. Season is far from over... but there are issues to discuss.
If it hadn't already been completed before, then the GARMing of this section of ClutchFans certainly finished tonight.
Agreed. I rarely start threads or care enough to vent, but I do want a place to seriously discuss what this team needs to do to not only settle back down... but get back to playing quality baseball. I would honestly like a new "section" if possible, but I'll settle for a separate thread. Bring up serious points, post in an educated fashion... it may just catch on and dis-infect the rest of this place.
I understand this season is not over, but the flaws of this team is starting to show when the bats go cold. Unreliable bullpen Piss poor plate discipline Poor management of personnel movement in terms of call ups Team seems to become shell shock on the road (can't expect to make the playoffs if you can't play on the road). The reliance on the go big or go home batting. They can still win this division or make the wild card, but this team has to get its act together and do so quickly.
if u going to any remaining home game this season i want you to boo this team when we are down runs. this is ****ing pathetic and unacceptable
With next Saturday's game being moved to Fox, 4 out of the 9 home games left are going to be played at noon or 1pm. Just an interesting oddity since they haven't had that many day games in any home stretch this season... I have fears about next Wednesday's 1pm game against the Angels being able to draw more than 15K of actual people.
I can ignore the idiots who are just making themselves look even more foolish by posting the "hot takes/Hinch sucks/Choke city/boo the team!" blather here. Hell, one guy said he was turning the game off when it was 4-0... and he's still here! I actually applaud the passion that this team has allofasudden created in here... just trying to get people to channel in a constructive way.
Except that most people that pay to go to games actually like their team and probably are a bit more mature than stupid anonymous message board fans.
The team's inability to compete on the road is terrible, but for a young team, expected. Hopefully we close out strong and make the playoffs, though I can't say I'm not nervous about it.
It doesn't even have to be that dramatic. They have 5 games left against the Rangers with Keuchel/Kazmir/McCullers combined to pitch 4 out of the 5 games. 3-2 likely gets them back in first place. At the end of the day, both of these games could have gone either way... and today's was particularly frustrating because they were making some awful/awful (AWFUL) mistakes, combined with some dumb-luck, that led to the outcome being what it was. If that same sort of fluke-ishness holds up for 5 more games, then I guess you move on from this crazy sport... but things tend to even out.
No, they just aren't idiots. In case you truly are clueless, booing your team is not going to help them win. If you don't like watching them play, just don't show up.
The Astros are in 2nd for the first time in... what, 3 months, and virtually everyone in this section of the BBS has declared this season over.
Unfortunately for the more reasonable posters we've reached the point in the season where it feels like every game matters and single game performances carry more weight. In the perspective of the whole season what happens these next few weeks is a statistical blip on the radar. The problem is finding a middle ground between rational patience and using you gut to make decisions based off incomplete evidence. This is where the human element of the game , and while it could all be based of random chance and luck , as fans we'd like to think there's more to it than that. Take Harris' performance the last few games. Looking at the whole season , he is probably our best reliever. However the last 3 outings he has been hit hard. Is 3 outings in a row a large enough sample to come to any conclusions ? Hopefully the coaching staff could look at mechanics and film to see if there were any underlying concerns or reasons for his recent poor performance. They also need to take into account his mental state and confidence . I think putting Harris in there was the wrong move , but not because I felt he was any more likely to lose the game than Gregerson. After fielder got on and was pinch run for , I felt that the game was over . Beltre is an amazing hitter and the runner had better than a 50 % shot to get to second on a steal. Statistically, thats an amazing chance. If i was going to put Harris in the game , i would have given him a clean start to the inning and not given him an insanely stressful and difficult assignment. I suppose it came down to whose confidence Hinch would rather risk , Harris' or Gregs'. Of course it could have worked out and resulted in a huge confidence boost and gotten our most dependable bullpen arm back on track. What i would have liked to see is Velasquez or Feliz put in for McHugh after the 4th and let one of those dudes work 2 innings . If are gonna use those guys at all this month then they need to get some low leverage MLB innings in. Personally I'm not the biggest Lunhow guy and feel that he hasn't proven to be a top 10 GM yet which is what we should strive for / expect if we want to become a great organization. But that is a post for another time , perhaps in this thread. I appreciate the more reserved fans and even though I haven't posted much over the years, I'v done quite a bit of lurking on this forum so I respect you guys as fellow fans and know that yall arent part of the knee jerk crowd. As for the knee jerk crowd, as annoying as they are they can still be right for the wrong reasons so arguing with anyone of that ilk is a risky proposition and will only reinforce their behavior if the coin flips their direction.
It's absolutely not over bit it is not looking good ... watching all the games for the last month it is easy to see we are struggling to score runs and the bullpen/defense has seemed pretty shaky compared to early in the season. We need to at least split these last 2 games against the Rangers and the come home and have a great homestand.
