Astronomical Knowledge

[Edgy MD]

Whatever juice has been missing rom Cal Raleigh's diet in 2026 has ended up in Yordan Alvarez' refrigerator.  The Houston DH/once-a-week-LF has long been a good, and sometimes very good player.  This year, however, he has enjoyed a season-long vacation at BarryBondsWorld, slashing at .319 / .434 / .609 // 1.044.  Each of these numbers leads the league in the category.

Whatever he is drinking, though, he isn't sharing very often.  Leadoff hitter and shortstop Jeremy Peña is doing  a solid job in front of him and thirdbaseman Isaac Paredes likewise behind him,  So he shares with his circle of protection but once you get past those guys it's a AAA lineup.  While Alvarez is generally too valuable to use in the outfield, the guys Houston has put out there are what Keith would call "El stinkeroonie."

For most of the year, that has been Taylor Trammell, Jake Myers, and Cam Smith, but Myers has been farmed out and now you'll probably see more of veteran Daulton Varsho, gobbled up at the trade deadline, out there in the middle.  And a guy name Daulton Varsho is always good for giving the team a 90s feel.

Cam Smith is kinda like Mark Vientos, these days.  His batting average and on-base percentage is paltry, but if you take him for granted, he can still run into one — living up to his colorful nickname, "The Aircraft Carrier."

I'll let somebody else fill you in further, but the starting pitching has cratered, leading the Astros to add venerable organizational pitching coordinator Brent Strom to the big league staff.  Strom is closing in on 78 years old, and is mostly known to me as the guy on the 1972 Mets who had the worst season on the whole team, but still retained enough value to be traded for Phil Hennigan, which allowed him to appear in a lot of limericks, if nothing else.

Checking his bio, it turns out that Strom was the second-ever recipient of Dr. Frank Jobe's ligament reconstruction surgery, commonly called Tommy John Surgery, which I guess now makes him the longest-surviving recipient of the procedure.

[MFS62]

Do you think they'd like to trade Alvarezes?

now i K my E

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

[Frayed Knot]

The OPS+ figures for Houston starters: SS Jeremy Pena is at 128, 3B Isaac Paredes = 120, and 1B Christian Walker at 109 (but dropping like a stone). Everyone else is below triple digits ... except for Jordon Alvarez who's at 192. Let's see if we can figure out who not to let beat us.

This is the middle of three series vs 1st place teams. The difference here is that the Astros are a .500 [67 - 67] 1st place club and currently have slim 1.0 and 3.0 G leads over TEX & SEA so '1st place' is really only a moniker that applies a couple days per week.

Gary quoted various stats several times last night about how bad the Houston bullpen has been of late. And then they went out and shut down the Yanx: 5 innings, 0 runs, 2 hits, 5 Ks

They've been in NYC all week as they're doing the Bronx to Queens tour. which started with winning two of three from the Yanx.

[MFS62]

54 minutes ago, Frayed Knot said:

The OPS+ figures for Houston starters: SS Jeremy Pena is at 128, 3B Isaac Paredes = 120, and 1B Christian Walker at 109 (but dropping like a stone). Everyone else is below triple digits ... except for Jordon Alvarez who's at 192. Let's see if we can figure out who not to let beat us.

This is the middle of three series vs 1st place teams. The difference here is that the Astros are a .500 [67 - 67] 1st place club and currently have slim 1.0 and 3.0 G leads over TEX & SEA so '1st place' is really only a moniker that applies a couple days per week.

Gary quoted various stats several times last night about how bad the Houston bullpen has been of late. And then they went out and shut down the Yanx: 5 innings, 0 runs, 2 hits, 5 Ks

They've been in NYC all week as they're doing the Bronx to Queens tour. which started with winning two of three from the Yanx.

In honor of Dolly Parton, it looks like;

5 to 9 is where we'll have to make our livin'.

Pitch to those top four, and you may have some misgivins'

Later