Hopefully Baltimore is hung over from partying their dicks off after clenching.

My butthole is clenched

Butt-chugging

jetch17 said:

---

My butthole is clenched

---

Haaawt

This team is the opposite of hawt

Pressly

Well ****

Pressly is pretty damn frustrating.

This is on Crane not addressing the bullpen or an outfield bat in the off-season. Maybe this time around, he lets Dana Brown GM instead of Bagwell.

Pressly isn't a closer, but we continue to call him one.

This team isnt going to win unless Dusty starts playing the best 9 with a consistent lineup each day, which he wont do, but I am afraid it is too late anyways.

Pressly's ERA is almost 1 run higher this year than last. He's given up 8 home runs this year compared to 4 all last year. He's also had to pitch a lot more though.

Ferris Wheel Allstar said:

---

This team isnt going to win unless Dusty starts playing the best 9 with a consistent lineup each day, which he wont do, but I am afraid it is too late anyways.

---

The 9 in the lineup did more than enough to win last night....

You can always point to a game here and a game there, but over the course of an entire season not playing one of your better hitters more often than not probably means you lose 3-5 more games than you should. This goes for both Chas and Yanier.

Mikeyshooter said:

---

You can always point to a game here and a game there, but over the course of an entire season not playing one of your better hitters more often than not probably means you lose 3-5 more games than you should. This goes for both Chas and Yanier.

---

Yet we're still in first place in the division....

I don't like Dusty, I'd prefer him gone next year. But acting like we haven't clinched because of him is as silly as the people who act like we won last year in spite of him.

I had to quit following the MLB Astros thread because over 80% of the posts are over the top Dusty hate, even when we win. Don't make this thread that....

Chewy said:

---

12th Man Ag said:

---

This is on Crane not addressing the bullpen or an outfield bat in the off-season. Maybe this time around, he lets Dana Brown GM instead of Bagwell.

Pressly isn't a closer, but we continue to call him one.

---

So how do you explain 5.2 innings and a 0.00 ERA in the 2022 World Series? Sheer luck?

As a whole you're talking about the bullpen that had the lowest ERA ever in post season baseball in 2022.

They've been pretty stressed this year by a rotation that's struggled to go deep into games and an offense that's been challenged at times.

With an ordinary bullpen we're not leading the division.

I don't like blowing late inning leads but it happens in baseball. More times than not this bullpen has been wonderful the last 2 seasons.

I'd say they've actually been the strength of this team in 2023. They're not perfect but no bullpen is.

---

Pressly has a 14.29 ERA with only 2 saves in 4 save opportunities to go with 2 losses in his last 6 appearances. He has given up 9 runs in 5.2 innings over that time. 3 good outings to go with 3 terrible outings is not what you would expect from an elite closer. He is not currently a good closer and we should be using Abreu or Neris until Pressly can get himself back on track. And FWIW, most of the bullpen had a 0.00 ERA in the 2022 world series.

He's 30 of 36 in save chances on the season.

Most closers go through rough patches.

I'll fully admit Pressly can be frustrating but to say he's total trash is pretty disingenuous.

The combo of Neris to Abreu to Pressly has been pretty damn effective for two seasons. I wouldn't mess with it just yet.

Chewy said:

---

He's 30 of 36 in save chances on the season.

Most closers go through rough patches.

I'll fully admit Pressly can be frustrating but to say he's total trash is pretty disingenuous.

The combo of Neris to Abreu to Pressly has been pretty damn effective for two seasons. I wouldn't mess with it just yet.

---

The toughest thing for closers is the constant need to be perfect. The mentality to be that way on every single pitch might be the toughest mental requirement in sports. It's a huge reason why so many closers are awesome for short periods of time but once that veil of invincibility is pierced they lose it.

Ryan Pressly is tipping. @TaylorTravis15 with the catch. 🧵

He's tapping with his fastballs as the start of his delivery, but not on his breaking stuff.

— Jeremy Branham (@JeremyBranham) September 19, 2023

Chewy said:

---

The combo of Neris to Abreu to Pressly has been pretty damn effective for two seasons. I wouldn't mess with it just yet.

---

Then why did Dusty mess with it last night?

Chewy said:

---

He's 30 of 36 in save chances on the season.

Most closers go through rough patches.

I'll fully admit Pressly can be frustrating but to say he's total trash is pretty disingenuous.

The combo of Neris to Abreu to Pressly has been pretty damn effective for two seasons. I wouldn't mess with it just yet.

---

The problem with baseball is that you can't win a game today with stats you generated earlier in the season. He is a 50/50 shot to implode and lose the lead in save opportunities over his last 6 appearances. Abreu and Neris both have significantly better recent appearances. With the team in a dogfight to win the division and having significant difficulties winning at home, I don't trust Pressly in save situations right now. He isn't giving up a run here and there, when he has a bad night, he is giving up 2-4 runs and losing you ball games. Unfortunately, recently, bad nights are about every other outing. Let him pitch the 7th or 8th a couple of times to make sure he has fixed his pitch tipping, then bring him back as closer if you want.

Slumps don't happen in sports?

I think you're also missing a huge mental aspect of the game where players can just be interchanged willy nilly without thinking about a player's rhythm.

Kind of like Dusty with his hitting lineups!

Also, what is your arbitrary point at which historical statistics are no longer relevant to help predict future success?

Chewy said:

---

Slumps don't happen in sports?

I think you're also missing a huge mental aspect of the game where players can just be interchanged willy nilly without thinking about a player's rhythm.

Kind of like Dusty with his hitting lineups!

---

Of course they do. And if you are in game 10 of a 162 game series, you don't panic and let them work it out. When you have 11 games left and only a 1.5 game lead and the guy has blown his last two outings in a row giving up 5 earned runs in 2 innings pitched, maybe he isn't your first choice in a key save opportunity when you have options like Abreu who hasn't given up an earned run since July 15th and Neris who has given up 1 ER in his last 11 outings. I get that you don't want to just mess with their heads like Dusty is doing to Chas and Diaz for random reasons that have no basis in reality, but Pressly's job is to get guys out and shut down teams and he hasn't been doing that.

Abreu is pitching like a closer and Pressly isn't. Pressly has given up 11 hits in his last 6 outings, Abreu has given up 11 hits in his last 24 outings. The last time Abreu gave up more than 1 hit in an outing was July 2nd. In that same time, Pressly has given up 2 or more hits 7 times. Pressly isn't trash, he is a good relief pitcher, but he hasn't been pitching like a closer lately.

Chewy said:

---

Also, what is your arbitrary point at which historical statistics are no longer relevant to help predict future success?

---

That wasn't the point I was trying to make. I was pointing out that being 30/36 in save opportunities meant less than being 3/6 in quality outings recently. I don't want to belabor the point, just pointing out he isn't our best option at closer right now based on the last month or so.

Prior to the Detroit outing he had 8 straight appearances with no runs.

After the Detroit outing he had 3 straight appearances with no runs.

He's had two appearances where he completed the inning but gave up 2 and 3 runs. While disappointing it's not like he just blew up and had to be replaced.

I don't get how you can just arbitrarily got back to the Detroit outing while ignoring the previous 8 appearances and say he's now a 50/50 closer.

That's being awful selective for a guy with a very proven track record.

I'll admit Pressly used to scare me until about August of last year. The dude had a legit claim to be the World Series MVP last year.

Partially because of that and partially because of his record this whole season I'm not just gonna knee jerk and mess with the guy's head. Like someone else mentioned being a closer in baseball is as much mental as it is physical. You kill their confidence and you just potentially burned an arm.

He's gonna have to do a lot worse to lose my trust.

A lot worse like not resolving tipping his fastball for the last two months (which is clearly on both him and the staff)?

Nobody knows for a fact he's tipping pitches. That just seems to be the defacto excuse for when someone has a bad outing. Someone states it on Twitter and everyone runs with it.

Just like Altuve's buzzer.

If he's been doing it for two months he's had some REALLY effective outings during that time frame which is even more impressive he can throw an inning and get no runs while he's tipping pitches.

I will say Pressly's greatest challenge is he doesn't have anything that's truly dominant. He has four pitches that he's pretty damn effective with. He tends to mix them up and keep hitters fooled.

He's certainly not a guy that's going to come in and blow everyone away with a single pitch. He does a lot of dancing to get guys to swing at pitches they don't recognize.

I think hitters do well against him when they just wait on a pitch they zone in on rather than worry about which of the 4 pitches he's going to throw and where.

I will say his greatest negative is he tends to walk guys because he dances around the zone to see if he can get called strikes or guys to chase stuff. When he's missing with guys taking he gives up walks he shouldn't. That walk killed him last night.

In the end no matter what we think Dusty will continue to run him out there as his closer so we'll see what happens.

Watched some video (visit the Astros thread on the MLB board if you want to take a look) that showed a small extra pump into the glove as he starts his motion on a fastball, and much of the damage has been done by lefties who would have a better line of sight to that motion. Fortunately, if that's all it is, it should be an easy fix.

I honestly hope it's that as well. Entirely possible.

It just seems odd for someone who makes millions and lives or dies by repetition to not only disguise the type of pitch but to be able to routinely spot the ball where they want to slip up so easily.

Repetitive mechanics are a big thing to pitchers.

Like I said before, thanks to Dusty, we're gonna find out if Pressly is in a slump or trending down. He's Dusty's closer no matter what we type on this board.