Fortunately, the Astros survived Toothpick's foolishness in the regular season. Best bet for success going forward is playoff handcuffs. Diaz hasn't the light of the day in his proper role in over a week.
Not to defend Dusty... but we somehow did win the division with our squad rested and even winning 100 games wouldn't change our seeding (until the WS that is)
Only out of pure luck. If the Rangers were competent and Julio didn't **** the bed, we would have not made the playoffs. Our margin of error was a half game. I'm ecstatic at our situation but let's not pretend this is what Dusty or anyone on the Astros planned. I'm just hoping for playoff Dusty and hoping that it wasn't playoff Click that made the last 3 seasons happen.
As much as I bashed Dusty most of the season, he made it happen in the last 3 games. Putting Urquidy, Taking Verlander out, taking 0 out Graveman, and putting Neris at the most important points. Then inserting Dubon and keeping Abreu at 5th in the batting lineup. The Astros never trailed in the series. Let's not forget Bochy lead the Rangers celebration on Saturday, it looked liked a World Series celebration. One of the worst thing is to celebrate at enemy's base then have to fight next day.
Leaving Urquidy in and starting Javier yesterday were both good moves. He never should've gone to Graveman, but otherwise he managed a pretty solid series in Arizona.
He managed the pitchers very well (though apparently JP was unavailable - Urquidy was not the plan). On the other side, they scored 3 runs in the 2 games when Arizona was trying … while their fourth best hitter was glued to the bench. Dusty does some things well, but his stubbornness and favoritism still costs runs. Luckily those runs didn’t cost wins this time.
I would simply say we did not WIN the division so much as Texas BLEW IT. If we had gone 7-2 against the dregs instead of 2-7, then we could claim we WON it. Again, it's in spite of Dusty, not because of Dusty.
both rangers and mariners fell flat on their face. division was there for the taking and they both said no thanks. astros tried their best but they suck less.
Diaz played Saturday and Sunday against the Royals. Astros lost both games. Diaz playing was not an automatic win.
As was the case all season. While the Astros had injuries early on, the Rangers busted out of the gate sprinting while the Mariners tumbled out of the gate slumping still feeling like they're entitled to something after Yordan ripped their souls out in the post-season. Then the Rangers got really confident feeling they're a bullpen and starter away... ended up trading a young phenom lefty that ended up being the AL pitcher of the month for Chapman, and got a broken down Scherzer. Ironically Ragans would have likely given them more wins and would be under cheap club control for several more years than whatever Scherzer/Chapman did to end the season. The Mariners got ultra hot, peaked in August... then regressed back to their inconsistent ways. All along, very interesting that the Astros are now the healthiest they've been all year, somehow have rehabilitated Javier to have a 2nd gear again, somehow have gotten Urquiddy to be a viable spot starter as needed, and are one Hunter Brown phenom bullpen performance away from being as weaponized as anybody.
No win is automatic. The point is playing your best players, then over the course of a season a team will win more games. Dusty chose to dick around most of the year, and barely made the playoffs by two games. He cost the team wins and a ROY. Astros are very fortunate berthing a bye and won't be throwing a half staff of gassed pitchers entering the playoffs.
The Rangers went 6-4 in their last 10 games and lost two 1 run games to the Mariners. That’s not some epic collapse. The Astros went 6-4 in their last 10 and 5-1 in their last 6 against two potential playoff teams. They also drubbed the Rangers head to head to have the tie breaker. The Astros won the division. I don’t really care if people want to complain about Dusty, and you can complain they didn’t lock up the division earlier because of him. But don’t act like the team backed into the playoffs or division. Verlander, Urquidy, Abreu, the bullpen overall, and others stepped up when needed and did what was needed.
He actually showed urgency to win games, finally. He chose not to go all out to wins games the rest of the season. I was glad he managed the way he did the last week, but it also left me scratching my head wondering where this has been in all the other super important games lately.
