submitted by austro
Nostradumbass Sees All
Atlanta Braves (38-37) @ Houston Astros (33-44)
Well, the Braves are back in town, but now that the wife-beater and the teenie-bopper bait are gone and we no longer see them in the playoffs, it’s hard to work up much hate for them anymore. And after watching UT lose in the bottom of the 10th, followed by the news about Correa, followed by the USMNT giving up the goal you knew was coming but had almost convinced yourself wouldn’t come, the Braves are pretty low on my list of things to give a shit about.
Tuesday, June 24, 7:10 CDT
Aaron Harang (5-6, 3.83) vs Scott Feldman (3-4, 3.95)
The Harangutan is back! Fowler has 19 PAs against Harang, with a .133/.316/.400 line against him. Six other Astros have a combined 24 PAs, with a combined line of underflow/underflow/underflow. It’s a pretty depressing picture, made even more depressing by the fact that Jerome Williams has the most production, with a double in three ABs.
Current Braves have a combined .244/.396/.366 line against Feldman in 41 ABs and 53 PAs. The Upton brothers alone have 21 ABs and 29 PAs, with Justin doing the most damage: 3 hits in 7 ABs, including a double and a HR. They also have four walks, and somehow BJ has managed to get hit by three pitches.
I like Feldman, but I’m not very optimistic about his ability to shut down the Atlanta offense. On the other hand, Harang has been pretty awful in his last three starts, going 1-2 with a 6.35 ERA. So maybe we’re looking at a shoot-out for this one.
Wednesday, June 25, 7:10 CDT
Alex Wood (5-6, 3.43) vs Collin McHugh (4-5, 2.76)
Not much to see here: Fowler has three PAs against Wood, with a walk to show for it, and Guzman has one PA with nothing to show for it. And that’s it: no other Astros have faced Wood in the bigs.
McHugh has only seen two Braves himself: Andrelton Simmons has a single in his only PA against McHugh, and Uggla was HBP in his only PA.
Wood is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in his last 3 starts, and with only 4 Ks, so either the Astros are going to get a bunch of good opportunities, or they’re going to rescue Wood’s K rate. McHugh hasn’t been great in his last few starts, but he hasn’t been awful, either. You can probably count on him going 5 or 6 innings and giving up 2 or 3 runs. Hopefully the bats will come alive for this one and take advantage of Wood.
Thursday, June 26, 1:10 CDT
MikeMinor (2-4, 4.20) vs Jarred Cosart (7-5, 3.78)
Once again, Fowler leads the charge with a .300/.417/.500 line and two walks in 12 PAs. Dominguez has had good success in a tiny sample size, with two hits, including a double, in 4 PAs. But that’s the end of it, because Castro, Corporan, and Feldman are zip/zilch/nada in six PAs.
Cosart has faced exactly one current Brave: Ryan Doumit, who has a line of zip/zip/zip in three PAs. Not much predictive value there.
Minor has been brutal in his last three starts: 0-0 with a 7.31 ERA in 16.1 innings. The lone bright spot in that stretch is the 20 Ks he’s recorded, which doesn’t make me all warm and fuzzy given the Astros’ proclivity for striking out. On the opposite side, Cosart has been outstanding in his last three starts, going 3-0 with a 2.57 ERA in 21 innings. I think the Astros will actually be favored in this one.
Injuries
On June 18, 1967, Don Wilson struck out 15 Braves to record his first no-hitter. The next year, on July 14, 1968, he struck out 18 Reds in a 6-1 victory. The following year, on May 1, 1969, he no-hit the Reds in a 4-0 victory. Sadly, Wilson committed suicide on Jan 5, 1975.
J.R. Richard was establishing himself as one of the most feared pitchers in MLB, leading the NL in strikeouts in 1978 (303) and 1979 (313), and leading the league in ERA in 1979 (2.71). I can say from personal observation that several LA Dodgers wanted nothing to do with standing in against the mighty JR. Sadly, after missing a couple of starts because of shoulder pain, JR suffered a stroke on July 30, 1980 while throwing a side session. He tried to come back later, but he was never the same.
Cameron Drew was a star outfielder for the University of New Haven, and the Astros drafted him with the 12th pick of the 1st round in 1985. He performed well in the minor leagues and was called up to the Astros on September 8, 1988. Sadly, he had suffered from knee problems for a long time, and after a 7-game major league career, he retired.
Carlos Correa was drafted by the Astros with the 1st pick in the 1st round of the 2012 draft. He immediately distinguished himself for both his baseball skills and his character, and in 2013 he helped lead a very talented Quad Cities low A team to a Midwest League title while putting up a .320/.405/.467 line and playing outstanding defense at short. In 2014 he was bumped up to high-A Lancaster, and he had put together a .325/.416/.510 line through 62 games when, sadly, he injured his right leg sliding into third on a triple. Thus far, the Astros have offered disturbingly little information about the injury. I wish felt better about this than I do.