All series talk goes in here. Non series talk goes somewhere else. No PBP, that can be found from other sources if you need it. All games are broadcast on AT&T Sports SW unless otherwise noted. 9-20 Jaime Barria (R) vs. Zack Greinke (R) 7:10 9-21 Patrick Sandoval (L) vs. Wade Miley (L) 6:10 9-22 Jose Rodriguez (R) vs. Justin Verlander (R) 1:10
ESPN article on best fastball hitting teams Link Are we that bad at hitting fastballs? “This October, there is an intimidating Against High-Velocity story looming, in Los Angeles. The Dodgers are fantastic against high velocity, almost stunningly so. The Astros, a seemingly equal superteam in most respects, have been quite poor against high velocity this year. We know both of these teams are great, but are we moving to a clay court that favors one team over the other? Are the Dodgers built for October in a way Houston isn't? Will the reasonable hypothesis survive testing?”
Hard to take any fancy stats the Dodgers accrue seriously, since they're doing it against a NL that is 60% tanking. Any stats that have a sub .500 correlation coefficient are white noise to me.
My eyeballs say, yeah, we are. Granted, Altuve just a 100 mph high fastball over the fence a couple days ago, but yeah, I'd believe it. Speed eats Springer alive. Before I say I know everything, though, I must say that I really don't recall a ton of instances of the Astros facing really hard throwers this year. Maybe the Dodgers just see more of them than we do, so they're a little more attuned to it. I dunno. I'm not too worried. We have a lot of guys with good eyes, I think playoff adrenaline will transfer to a little extra bat speed. I hope. As for how the Dodgers will fair against our high-velocity 1-2 punch, I'm not worried about that either. JV and Cole aren't CYA-1 and CYA-2 because they throw fast. JV doesn't even throw 95+ for most a game. He starts getting up there towards his final innings. Our guys throw fast AND in the right locations and at the right times. They'll be fine. Then after the co-Cy Youngs, the Dodgers can have fun hitting former Cy Young Greinke and his 55 mph eephuses. And Miley and his nonstop edge-nibbling cutters. Ok, so the Dodgers hit better against 95+? Cool for the Astros' pitching staff that doesn't need that to win.
Pressly activated today. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/09/astros-activate-ryan-pressly-injured-list-knee-surgery.html
I find it interesting but not meaningful. Or not enough to care about. A large portion of our lineup has significant postseason success. They’re capable against anyone.
Noodling around on Wiki while waiting for the game to start, I learned some interesting things. No team in MLB history has every had FOUR consecutive 100-win seasons. I trust in Luhnow and Hinch to change that next year. This season will mark only the eighth ever major league season with three 100-game winners once the Dodgers hit triple digits. It's happened in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Obviously, the Astros were part of all those seasons. Also, this is the first time three consecutive seasons will have 100-game winners. There's still time for the Twins and/or Braves to win enough to have the first ever 4+ 100-win team season.
Hinch said to Julia that Pressly will pitch today. I think. He definitely said he's back in the bullpen, and Hinch isn't giving him any hints as to when he'll be called on, so he needs to be ready.
I mean, the quality of pitching the Dodgers had to face has to be worse than what the Astros have faced this year.