This is the coaching staff that made JP France and George Constanza serviceable MLB pitchers. Javier, Imai, and Burrows will figure it out as long as their bodies cooperate. The only concern I have is the ABS system effecting Javier more than anyone else. He used to get a lot of swing and misses on high fastballs out of the zone. I think hitters may be less likely to swing at those.
I'm counting on the offense to hide the pitching deficiencies until they get it together. Another 8 runs a game would be nice!
Reed will be infinitely better career wise than Maloney. But Maloney’s first two seasons were better, at least to date, than Reed’s. His offensive stats including 3pt% were better across the board. He was a sturdier defensive player, but defensive stats don’t tell the story and we were talking about a time when defense was played and officiated much differently. Maloney is not even Reed’s floor, but as far the first two years it is a fair comp. In 1996/97 he was the starter for the Rockets who won 57 games and went to the Western Conference finals.
Huge tests for Imai, Javier, and McCullers in a minor league park against a dangerous lineup. If they average 5+ ip across these next 3 games that’ll be a great sign for how this rotation will hold up. I’m slightly pessimistic, predicting LWL
Astros going to throw a goose egg in one of these games. I can see 2 games we score under 4 runs but could eek out a 3-2 victory in one of them to go 2-1 in the series. No way we keep our scoring up for another 3 days straight
If ABS was around then James Cameron never makes Avatar, which in turn doesn't allow Bin Laden to watch the show while he's being fire bombed and actually lives, which allows him to secretly arm nukes over the next 5 years and use them to annihilate the world as we know it. Why would you want the world to not exist. Why?
We need to see more offense from Smith - he's been given the starting job in RF, but not sure he's really earned it. I'm good with him holding the job but he needs to turn it on. Diaz needs to get his head out of his a$$ (aka swinging at garbage) and hopefully Matthews finds some inspiration too. I'd like to see more consistent playing time for Loperfido - he seems to be adjusting.
