I so totally agree. Back issues all last year. Knee issues this year. And Singleton is their backup plan?
I'd love a trade for Burger or Arraez but I'd like to ride it out with Loperfido and see if he's the real deal.
Loss fault thru 4/10: 4/10: Arrighetti 4/9: Suero (bad luck) 4/6: Pressly, 5-9 of the order 4/5: Brown, Bielak 4/2: Hader (bad luck) 3/31: Hader (bad luck) 3/30: B Abreu 3/29: Scott, Mushinski, J Abreu 3/28: Montero, Pressly (bad luck) Verdict: Org didn’t have pitching depth to weather Verlander and Framber and Urquidy getting hurt (on top of having McCullers and Garcia out long term). J Abreu is washed up. They’ve had tough luck on bullpen batted balls and the offense hitting but not scoring. If JV comes back effective I think he will bring a big morale boost and possibly give them a chance to right the ship.
I wished they would have started Caratini as a few more called strikes at the right time could have been a huge help to Arrighetti in his outing. Still, I thought he did fairly well all things considered although his wildness is obviously a continuing issue for him. The Astros are very lucky that France and Blanco have looked good so far, or things would be much bleaker. I think that as long as one of JV and Framber returns soon and is effective they should eventually turn things around.
True, how many teams could lose their top 5 starters and be successful? I wish they had signed Lorenzen late in camp. He could've gone to the bullpen after everybody got healthy.
Quietly -- or maybe not so quiet -- Tucker is starting slowly too. Low-700 OPS ain't gonna cut it, but he will regain his form soon enough. Chas and Bregman are also playing subpar at the plate. Their ineptitude won't last long and Alex showed signs of breaking out last night with 2 doubles. Hunter Brown playing better is an absolute must. He played well the majority of the season until fatigue snatched his powers late in year. We can't have an entire rotations worth of pitchers DNPing AND have the ones who are playing pitching like trash and only going 2-3 innings. Hunter MUST do better. Hopefully his turn around begins tonight. Bullpen is a bright spot. The main guys have shaken their first-week funk. Montero has even gotten into the mix along with a couple more guys in Taylor and Martinez. I'm not worried about the bullpen. Abreu needs to DNP a couple of weeks. Singleton isn't any worse right now. Jose might still be injured from ST, he's sucking, and he pulled a McGrady vs Toronto last night with that missed popup catch. Dude probably needs to be DFA'd but Crane is too invested. 1) The guys struggling at the plate will do better 2) Brown will perform and 3) we will get healthier. This team will still win ~95 games. We're just having a rough start against good competition and are experiencing more injuries than most teams. Espada just needs to be average and not wreck the ship. He hasn't been terrible. All these are not just possible, they're probable. The dynasty continues.
Hader, B. Abreu, and Pressly are on a combined pace for 62 losses. Bad runs happen with hitting, starters, emergency starters, etc. Ken Giles and company during the 2017 Postseason Bullpen Meltdown (thank you baby Jesus for starters that pitched in relief) only lost 3 games out of 18 that postseason. I don't think I've ever seen the 5 losses out of 13 games from high leverage relievers of Hader, Abreu, And Pressly's quality in an Astros uniform before.
Seriously, everything is fine other than Abreu looks like he’s actually washed. We have a couple guys who might be able to fix that in the minors. We shall see. JV back in a couple weeks. Framber allegedly not serious. Javier, France and Blanco pitching well. Upside in Brown. Return to heath eventually of Urquidy, Garcia and McCullers. Saw some stuff I liked from Spencer last night. offense is good just not scoring runs due to bad sequencing. I’d still rather be us than anyone else in the AL.
Jose Abreu 2023/2024 March+April splits: xwOBA: .276/.149 xwOBA (fastballs): .351/.186 xwOBA (breaking): .169/.116 xwOBA (offspeed): .091/.068 xwOBA (pitch speed 95>): .444/.048 LMAO Yeah he cooked
So how bad do Singleton and Abreu have to be before the Astros just bite the bullet and play Diaz at 1B 2 out of every three games? Maybe Loperfido or someone else can come up from the minors and be a better option (I doubt it as Caratini looks good at C even with the K problem). Apparently an wRC+ of -24 (OPS of 0.263) over 14 games with bad defense is not enough.
