Skip to main content

That Was Fun

It's good to win the first game of the season because it's always fun to make the 162-0 joke.  It's even better to win the first four games of the season because it's even better to get to make the joke four times.  

The Astros curb stomped the A's this weekend in Oakland, winning all 4 games by a combined score of 35-9. How did it go for the A's?  Their most effective pitcher this weekend was position player Ka'ai Tom, who threw a scoreless inning in the top of the 9th inning on Sunday, after being sent to the hill by manager Bob Melvin as a human white flag. 

The Astros took an early lead in all four games, and added on late in three of them to drain this early season showdown of the top two contenders in the AL West of any late drama. 

As an Astros fan, this series was a ton of fun to watch. 

This was only four games in a season that will feature 162 of them. There will be many more games to play, including another four game set against the As at Minute Maid Party next week.  We should not make too much of one series, no matter how fun it was to watch.

But taking four games on the road from your main challenger for the division crown is helpful to the effort. You can get a sense of it from the chart below, which traces the odds for winning the AL West title this year.  Four wins can increase your chances, and four losses can certainly decrease them. These numbers are likely to bump up and down this season, but they begin by moving in the right direction for the AL West's pre-season favorite.

Here are some of my other observations from this weekend's games in Oakland.
  • Yordan Alvarez went 5 for 17 with a walk, two doubles, a homer, and 6 RBI.  His knees looked healthy and his bat looked like the hammer of the gods that it always has.
  • Alex Bregman went 6 for 12 with 2 homers and a double.  The Astros are being cautious with Bregman after an off-season hamstring injury. The brought him along slowly in the Grapefruit League, gave him a day off on Saturday, and removed him in the late innings on Thursday and Sunday. So far, this plan is working.
  • The bullpen proved effective, giving up only 4 runs in 17 innings. The pen remains walk-prone (8 BBs), but limited their hits allowed to 9 and home runs allowed to 1, and struck out 17 batters. As a result, they ended up with a 1.00 WHIP and and FIP of 3.02.  In short, they were very good.
  • Highlighting the excellent work from the bullpen were the last two guys to make the roster, Bryan Abreu and Brandon Bielak. Abreu went 2 1/3 IP on Friday with 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, and no runs allowed. Bielak had a perfect 4 2/3 IP on Sunday, strking out 4. Both of these pitchers were shaky in 2020, and improvement from them would help address the issues in pitching depth. These outings were encouraging. 
  • Four Astros hitters were on the bench in the opening day lineup on Thursday--Aledmys Diaz, Chas McCormick, Jason Castro, and Robel Garcia. These four slashed .412/.444/.882 in 18 PAs over the weekend. They scored 8 runs and drove in 7, and Castro and McCormick both homered. These efforts were very helpful to the sweep. 
It is too early to determine how much of what we saw this weekend was improvement from the 2020 season for the team or individual players. And we all know that this team won't win every game. But the opening weekend tilt in Oakland was about as enjoyable for Astro fans as a series could possible be. May it continue in Anaheim tonight and tomorrow. 





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Rays-esque Trade by a former Rays Front Office Guy

James Click is a product of the Rays front office. It showed on Thursday.  Click made a surprising move right before the trade deadline sending starting CF Myles Straw to the Indians for reliever Phil Maton and minor league catcher Yanier Diaz.  The Rays are well known for trying to trade players at the peak of their value from the surplus areas of their team. The Rays did this again yesterday when the traded their closer Diego Castillo to the Mariners for another reliever and a prospect at 3B. Few expected Castillo to be traded, but having received excellent performances from a number of relievers, the Rays dealt from their surplus to gain a prospect.  Click did something similar here, seeing a surplus (even if a small one) in his stable of center fielders. The Astros will now make Chas McCormick their regular center fielder, and have called up Jake Myers from Sugarland to serve as the team's fourth outfielder.  McCormick has been a revelation this year as a fourth ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Phil Maton: High Spin, High Movement, Middling Results

The trade was an absolute shocker. While we all knew that the Astros needed bullpen help at the trade deadline, none of us expected them to get it by trading their starting centerfielder. In exchange for Myles Straw, the Astros acquired another bullpen arm--Phil Maton.  My analysis of the trade has tended to focus on the centerfield situation for the Astros. At the time, I argued that James Click thought that he had a surplus in centerfield with Straw, Chas McCormick, and Jake Meyers. In analyzing whether Jake Meyers could take over as the everyday centerfielder, I noted Click's analysis that "McCormick and Meyers would produce as well as the combination of Straw and McCormick...has worked as planned." Phil Maton's spin rates are better than his results. James Click identified a surplus at one position on his roster and used that strength to try to plug a weakness at another spot. Six weeks later, we know Click was right about having a surplus in the outfield, but we...
Post a Comment
Read more