Beast

Just let Gray throw 200 pitches today. Save some semblance of hope in the bullpen for tomorrow.

The incompetence in these spots is unbelievable. Spineless.

Show some life here offensively. Somebody grow a spine and do something. Just get 2 and make it a game.

They were always broken and always will be if they’re doing crap like that. Inexcusably poor performances by 3 players in the course of 1 inning. This thing is done.

Can’t come back from that. Embarrassing at bats. Gray will probably give up another crooked number here anyway.

There wasn’t a pitch within a foot of the zone and struck out on 3 pitches. Inexcusable. Thats something the Astros would never do.

That’s an absolutely horrendous plate appearance.

Take a pitch Royce, my God.

Don’t blow this.

Still can’t wrap my head around how you can give up a 3 run home run to the zombie corpse of Jose Abbreu there. Absolutely grooved right down the pipe. Throw his entire regular season in the garbage. He stinks.

I could feel this coming all day. Just felt wrong to think anything positive. Awful defense. Awful pitch by Gray. Game over. Series over.

Nice play Kirilloff. That’s how you lose a playoff series.

Pretty good assessment. Going to need to keep them off the board early. A multi-run inning early is going to take the crowd out of it. That’s worst case. Need some sort of power production out of Kirilloff and Wallner. They’ve been abysmal at the plate in the playoffs. They’ll be key tonight against a RH fly ball pitcher. Put something in the seats.

Wainwright was absolutely gushing over Lopez all night.

I don’t think a better message could’ve been sent to Houston and the rest of MLB (and myself), that this is a team that should be in the conversation for AL rep in the World Series. There were still some mistakes I’d like to see cleaned up. That squeeze play was poorly executed. They still need to figure out a way to get these RISP across at a better rate. I saw a stat last night at one point that all hitters other than Correa were 1 for 24 with RISP in the playoffs. That was before the Julien AB, so there’s at least one more hit there now. But, if we’re even hitting .200 in those situations (roughly 5 for 24), we may have a 2-0 series lead and are headed home to put this thing away. I felt the “here we go agains” hard during/after game 1. This game, even if we don’t win the series, makes me feel a lot better about this team.

Really impressed by this game so far. Massive response. Correa and Lopez are incredible. I’m loving the crow. I thought the series was over. We might now have home field in a 3 game series. This one’s not over. But, finishing out off would be nice ending to what was nearly an incredibly depressing weekend for Minnesota sports fans.

We are absolutely hapless with runners on. My God. We’re blowing huge opportunities here.

Grooving those 93 mph fastballs in the top of the strike zone….that’s not going to be the last long home run today.

That’ll about do it.

Have to capitalize there.

Pretty nervous about Ober against that Astros loaded lineup today. That short porch and Ober being a fly ball style pitcher could get ugly. I don’t like Polanco in the 2 hole. I’d rather have Correa in there in there. I just need to remind myself that we just need one of the first two in Houston. A loss today isn’t the end of the world.

They’ve been here nearly a decade and just got their first playoff win against a team that played poorly and somehow got out managed by Rocco Baldelli. Are we so desperate that we now have people peacocking and saying “I told you so?” Good grief. Let’s not lose track of reality, here. They’ve still done a very, very poor job overall. Competent baseball franchises that actually win things would fire their GM for one playoff series win in 8 years. Let’s actually win something before we give the FO a lifetime extension like we did with Ryan. I want them to succeed. But, I need real success before going this far. Not a consolation ribbon.

I thought I saw Royce Lewis a couple of times during game 1. But, still feel like I may have dreamt it.

I’m not overly excited about Ober starting game 1. But, I agree that he’s the best option. If we can somehow steal game one with an offensive outburst, having Verlander out of the way with Lopez and Gray lined up would look pretty good.

Any lineup featuring a batting order of Altuve, Bergman, Alvarez, Tucker, Abreu, and Brantley is extremely scary. They also have a competent player like Dubon, and Jeremy Pena, who had a a career playoff OPS over 1.000 in 60 ABs. Verlander is the most experienced playoff starter we’ll ever see. He’s started 34 games, won 16, has struck out over one guy per inning. Talk about his decline all you want, but his ERA this year was 3.22 with a 1.12 WHIP. Those are right in line with his career numbers. Framber Valdez is arguably the best LHP in the game (and we can’t hit lefties). He’s started 12 playoff games and won 7 with a 3.41 ERA and 75 K in 68 innings. Cristian Javier has pitched 32 postseason innings as a 26 year old with a 2.20 ERA and 48 Ks in 32 innings, WHIP well under 1. Urquidy has struck out a batter per inning over 36 playoff innings with a 3.72 ERA. Pressly has struck out 48 over 38 playoff innings with a 2.56 ERA. Stanek has struck out 20 over 16 playoff innings in 19 games with a 1.69 ERA and a .69 WHIP. Neris has a 1.5 ERA, .33 WHIP, 9 Ks in 8 playoff appearances Graveman, 1.64 ERA over 9 appearances. Montero, 1.93 ERA 10 appearances. Maton 1.15 ERA 15 appearances. Oh, and they know Carlos Correa at the plate like the back of their hand. Take out Maeda, who hasn’t been used yet, and we have 17 playoff appearances across our entire pitching staff before this season. The high leverage guys (Duran, Jax, Stewart, Thielbar, Varland) have 1 appearance combined before this season. The offensive side is pretty barren outside of Correa also (Vasquez has some experience, but awful offensive numbers). The Astros don’t care about the regular season. They don’t miss Springer and Correa. They’re the current defending champs. Their core has been in the World Series 4 of the last 6 World Series, winning 2 of them. Let’s not try and fool ourselves. This is the team to beat this time of year, and it’s not even close. Can they be beaten? Sure. But, we should be very, very concerned about this series. I’d rather play any other team in baseball. They are loaded with elite playoff performers with cast iron cannonballs between their legs.