EastCoastAgNc said:

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Everyone should prepare themselves for the roof being open for most all of the ALCS. The forecast shows favorable temperatures in Houston for game 1 / game 2. Wouldn't be surprised if MLB makes the Rangers open the lid on the propane grill for their games too.

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One can hope. It's October baseball.

Let's be fair here...His defense sucks

It's his game calling and staff management that is valuable. That's different than catching, throwing, and framing.

He can call, coach, lead those attributes. Dude doesn't need to be playing.

Mr President Elect said:

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Defintely want the division. Our home woes do bother me, but am hopefull we get that turned around. It is just such an easier path to the WS. One less series and getting to play a team that just had to burn their #1 & #2, instead of us being the team having to burn ours.

This is a bit of a defeatest mentality, but after the way this year has finished, I'll be relatively happy if we can just keep our ALCS streak alive. Our starting pitching really worries me and while we have the bats to compensate, they just haven't all clicked at the same time.

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Baseball gods, I was high on crack at the time of this writing. I am now sober and would like to fully retract this statement.

Regarding Maldonado I think two things can be true at the same time:

- His bat and defense are a liability and the Astros would have won more regular season games with him getting less starts

- He provides a lot of intangibles that we can't see and the organization is smarter than we are and knows what they're doing

As brutal as it was during the regular season, we're in the ALCS and it's hard to argue the results to this point.

You won't hear any more complaints from me as long as we keep winning until the season is over.

Ag_07 said:

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Let's be fair here...His defense sucks

It's his game calling and staff management that is valuable. That's different than catching, throwing, and framing.

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Agreed. Those are things coaches do from the bench.

Players are supposed to perform.

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it is misleading to not tell the whole story, we dont calc player stats from 1969 on, we do it for the entirety of baseball.

case in point, the Cleveland Indians have 6 AL pennants (1920 1948 1954 1995 1997 2016) by that metric they are every bit as good as the astros

It is however a good metric of success since the astros joined, I do agree w that

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The Astros have blown by the Indians/Guardians. If anything adding 3 pennants from when the Astros did not exist is what is misleading. The Indians were so sorry prior to the 1990s that they were literally chosen as "whats the sorriest team we can pick to make the movie "Major League." 3 penants from 1901 to 1969 in the single division format is a joke. They basically won their "division" 3 times in 70 years.

Even the "Loveable Losers" Cubs won like 10 pennants in that era. The idea that expansion teams should be judged harshly against pre-divisional play pennants is simply not a viable method of comparison.

I think most folks would agree until the first GIDP he coughs up in the ALCS.

Also why are we still griping about this? We just made our seventh straight ALCS for Christ sake.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Also why are we still griping about this? We just made our seventh straight ALCS for Christ sake.

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Because we have 3 days of no baseball. It is what we do

"I wasn't even ****ing here" - JV

Make a plaque for that. Simply awesome.

LB12Diamond said:

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Maldonado defense and catching the game is very important. Too many focus on his batting and do not appreciate how he helps this team win way to often.

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So passed balls are important as part of that defense, correct?

Also pitch framing is VERY important and he's DEAD last. I've said it before, he doesn't know how to frame low strikes, he jerks the mitt up a full foot and more times than not HPU will think he's trying to be fooled (even though it IS a strike) and calls it a ball. That changes at bats (and future at bats with the same hitter) and can quickly snowball into big innings.

Now I will say he's good at pitch framing outside strikes. Just watch the last pitch of the game last night...minimal movement. Yes, he does bring it closer to the zone but not so jarring as to try to "fool" the ump. That's how you get those called...see Blue, he threw it exactly where I wanted it...STRIKE THREE!!! Ball game!

Unfortunately he's 37 so I seriously doubt he'll ever learn to frame those low strikes.

What's funny is you said too many focus on his batting and I'd argue we don't focus all that much because everyone knows he can't hit for s***. Now that he rarely throws runners out (yes a lot is on our pitchers but Diaz is throwing out twice as many when adjust the numbers) he doesn't provide a lot "defensively" other than calling a great game. Well guess what, he can call it in via the dugout right to Diaz.

TLDR - We're in the ALCS so I'll shut up now lol.

BTW, the Houston Astros are also the only expansion team that is over .500 in all time record. I believe for a decent while the Angels were the only one that held that distinction, but they are below it now and the Astros above it.

The Blue Jays (13 games below .500) are the only team potentially within a season of joining the Astros)

Here's my uneducated fan opinion on the ALCS:

we HAVE to take both games at home. If that means we throw CJ out game 2 then so be it and let Framber take game 3. I know we are better on the road, especially at GLF, but it's the playoffs and anything can happen.

If we split, we need to sweep them at GLF because given our home woes the last thing we need is an anything can happen chaotic game 7.

I believe we can hit Eovaldi, and I know we could hit Sherzer, but the goal every game has to be to drive pitch counts up and get the starters out ASAP so we can get to he BP and wear them down.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Also why are we still griping about this? We just made our seventh straight ALCS for Christ sake.

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Because sometimes humans would rather be right than happy. LOL.

Bag said:

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Texas A&M said:

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While we're waiting for some more baseball, here's a good at bat to re-watch.

🍿Last night was a movie🍿 pic.twitter.com/DsmoymhncO

— Space City Sports (@LiveSCS) August 9, 2023

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imo this literally broke the Os

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It may very well have broken Big Felix. He went out for the season needing TJ not too long after that.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Also why are we still griping about this? We just made our seventh straight ALCS for Christ sake.

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It is clear that the whole Dusty/Maldonado situation has broken some people to the point that they can't even enjoy another trip to the ALCS.

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his team thrives on the road atmosphere. I'd go with CJ in game 3 - dude is absolute nails on the road.

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You definitely want to start with JV and Framber because it sets up the best configuration for the road games with Javier, Urquidy, and JV.

That gets both Crmaber starts at MMP and leaves Javier for Game 7 if needed. You don't want Framber on the road with his tendency to get rattled/overamped.

interesting maybe only to me:


most common ALCS matchup: Yankees v Royals 4 times.

Prosperdick said:

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TLDR - We're in the ALCS so I'll shut up now lol.

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Promise?

I went back and watched the highlights of the game last night and listen to the orgasmic call of Lewis' home run compared to Brantley's and Abreu's.

What a joke and you can argue, well, they knew Royce's shot was out the moment he hit it but Brantley's was pretty much a no doubter and when they DO realize it's a homer there still is no change or inflection. Hell, Abreu's 2 run shot broke the game open and yet you would think they were broadcasting from a morgue.

1:21 Lewis HR
2:41 Uncle Mike's HR
5:56 Abreu's blast

The Porkchop Express said:

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Prosperdick said:

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TLDR - We're in the ALCS so I'll shut up now lol.

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Promise?

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F*** off.

Bottom line is that NO ONE (except Stros fans obviously) wants the Astros to win again. And honestly I wouldn't want it any other way.

All I do is Nguyen said:

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So who are we blasting to counter act the "Creed" boys in southern Oklahoma?

Personally I like Slipknot, Disturbed, Metallica. Basically any metal band \m/

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they chose Creed over Dallas' own PANTERA.

we take that sh*t and come onto the field to 'Cowboys from Hell' or 'Walk'

RE-SPECT