I watched this with a huge **** eating grin on my face.

Ready to Reign

my dick is hard already waiting for thursday. I love the Astros. Run this mother****er back. I want back to back.

Our Astros house of three is now an Astros house of five, so we'll be bringing even more mojo this season. Thinking about making a couple "GLF" onesies.

Faustus said:

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The offseason has been interminable.
LFG!

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Imagine how it feels for the losers who weren't still playing in November.

Predicted Record: 101-61
Team MVP: Kyle Tucker
Team Cy Young: Cristian Javier
Rookie of the Year: Yainer Diaz
Surprise Player of the Year: Ronel Blanco
Make 2 or more Positive Predictions:

• Luis Garcia takes the next step from being above avg to good bordering on great. Sub 3.3 ERA with 185+ K
• Kyle Tucker also takes the next step from good to great. Top 5 MVP finish. 30-30 with 100+ RBI.
• Jose Abreu has the best season at first base in an Astro uniform since 2008 Lance Berkman.
• Ronel Blanco establishes himself as a member of our rotation and makes the postseason roster

Make 2 or more Negative Predictions:

• Altuve starts to look his age a little. Not a bad season, but more in line with .275/.350/450. Nowhere near his 2022.
• Hunter Brown is fine. More in line with a 4/5 type with flashes of brilliance and flashes of meltdown.
• One of the med/high (Pressly, Montero, Stanek, Neris, or Abreu) leverage relievers just flat out stinks for the majority of the season.

Closing time. 🔥

These are the top ten bullpens in 2023 as ranked by https://t.co/Z3s2EpgF39. pic.twitter.com/pcyVLHG4Tk

— MLB (@MLB) March 28, 2023

That's the 3rd person to predict my ace getting hurt or sucking. Yall need to stop that right now.

New thread, same countdown, TWO days until Opening Day gets us down to #2.



Did you know the Colt 45s and Astros had a Hall of Famer on the team in 1964-1965? Tis true, Nellie Fox, legendary Chicago White Sox infielder, played here at the end of his career. Joe Morgan said he tried to emulate Fox's style as they were both small guys. Fox le the AL in singles 8 years in a row in his prime, check out this hit total from 1951-1959: 189, 192, 178, 201, 198, 196, 196, 187, 191. All that and he didn't get to 3,000 hits (2,663). He played 133 games for the 45s in 1964, hitting .265 and leading the NL with 20 sacrifice hits.



Gerald Young wore the number next, from 1987-1992 on and off. Why didn't he keep being awesome? The world will never know. G-Man came up in 1987 and was just fantastic in half a season - .321 average, .380 OBP, 26 steals. In 1988, he started 149 games and stole 65 bases but his average dropped to .257. In 1989, that average dropped to .233, he stole only 34 bases and got caught 25 times. He was never a starter again, appearing mostly as a pinch runner and defensive replacement.



A few guys wore #2 for a year or two, but in 2004 it found a home on the back of Chris Burke. A three-time All-American at Tennessee, he hit .435 as a junior with 20 HR and 49 stolen bases. The Astros took him with the #10 pick in the first round of the 2001 draft. In 2004 he tore it up in AAA, hitting .315 with 16 HR, 52 RBI and 37 steals. He got called up but was really bad in a small sample, 1 for 17 (.059). In 2005 he came up after about a month in the minors and saw a lot of time in left field, even though he was a natural middle infielder, but he wasn't displacing Biggio or Adam Everett. He hit .248 in 318 at bats with 19 doubles and 5 HR, and stole 11 bases.

When the Astros faced the Braves in the 2005 NLDS, he didn't play in Game 1, but had a pinch-hit single in Game 2. He was a defensive replacement in Game 3 as the Astros took a 2-1 series lead. Game 4 of the NLDS is all-time great Astro win, of course. The team trailed the Braves 5-0 after 4-1/2 innings, and was down 6-1 with 6 outs to go. Lance Berkman hit a grand slam off Kyle Farnsworth in the 8th to make it 6-5, who somehow stayed in the game in order to give up a game-tying home run to Brad Ausmus in the bottom of the ninth.
In a move that would have earned Dusty Baker's approval, Phil Garner pinch ran Buke for Lance Berkman with two outs in the bottom of the 10th. The Braves walked Morgan Ensberg intentionally and the One-Armed Man, ,Jeff Bagwell, flied out to end the inning. Since Bagwell could no longer throw the ball, that led to Lidge coming in to pitch, Jose Vizcaino moving from shortstop to 1B, Eric Bruntlett moving from CF to SS, and Burke moving to CF.
In the 13th, Burke moved to left, Bruntlett went back to center, Vizcaino moved to shortstop again, Dan Wheeler replaced Luke Scott, who had been in left, Raul Chavez came in for Ausmus, and Ausmus moved to first. Ausmus had not played 1B in game since a 2-inning stint with the Tigers in 2000, and had played the position for a total of 3 innings as a pro.
Burke flew out in the 13th and walked in the 15th. Roger Clemens led off the bottom of the 18th by striking out, leading to Burke doing this:



He went on to hit .300 against the Cardinals in the NLCS with yet another homer. That led to the Astros trying to make him happen in the regular season probably a lot longer than they should have. He had a solid 2006, hitting .276 with 11 SB and 23 doubles, but fell off from there.

In 2016, #2 found its permanent home, as you can't imagine anyone else wearing it after Alex Bregman. When he was a junior in high school, Bregs hit .678 with 19 HR. At LSU he was a two-time All-American, and the Astros took him in the second pick of the first round of the 2015

He slayed at every level of the minors and got the call-up to the majors on July 25, 2016, making his debut against the Yankees. He was 0 for 17 before getting a hit on July 31, and hit his first career HR at Minute Maid on August 16.



He played 49 games, hit .265 with a .478 slugging percentage. In 2017, the job was his to lose in spring training, and he never let anyone haer it, hitting .284 on the year with 39 2B, 19 HR, 71 RBI and 17 steals. His first grand slam came at Yankee Stadium during a 10-7 win.
He became a force to be reckoned with in the 2017 post-season with a game-tying home run off Chris Sale in the 8th inning of Game 4 of the ALDS and a gorgeous play on defense in Game 7 of the ALCS, gunning down Greg Bird at home.



In the World Series, he was the author of what remains my favorite play in Astros history, the walk-off against the Dodgers in Game 5. I love the crowd cheering, not quite sure it believes we're going to win, and then exploding in the loudest roar of all time.



Bregman was unreal in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, he led the league with 51 doubles, hit 31 HR, drove in 103, scored 105, and hit .286 with a .926 OPS. he was even better in 2019: 122 runs scored, 41 HR, 112 RBI, 119 walks to lead the league and a .296/.423/.592 slash for a 1.015 OPS. All-Star both years, and the All-Star MVP in 2018, the first Astros to ever win the award. He is the first primarily 3B to have a season with 50 doubles and 30 HR in major league history.

MVP runner up in 2019. He hit .556 with an OPS of 2.048 vs the Indians in the 2018 ALDS and .353 with a 1.097 OPS vs. Tampa in the 2019 ALDS. He's played in 86 post-season games and has hit 15 HR with 47 RBi. In six ALDS series, he's hitting .356 with a 1.109 OPS.

Injuries and perhaps a bruised ego saw Bregs fall back in 2020 and 2021, but about two months into 2022, he found his old form and took off, finishing with 93 runs scored, 38 2B, 23 HR, and 93 RBI. He is one of the most patient hitters in the league, walking 87 times and striking out 77 times last year.

And in 2020, the rich got richer when he married Reagan.