SERIES PREVIEW

Baltimore Colts @ Houston Oilers

May 24-26, 2016

It’s time for a history lesson.

On June 1, 2005, the Houston Chronicle declared the Astros’ season dead, complete with a tombstone pic that, to its credit, is still fairly memorable in Astrodom.  The team was 19-32 entering the day’s game and had the same record through 51 games as the 90-loss 2000 team.  We all know how the story goes: the Astros won that day, caught fire, climbed above .500 by the All-Star break, and went on to win the NL Wild Card and the NL Pennant.  Many credited the Chron’s article with playing some part in turning the Astros’ season around.

I am here to call bullshit.

You see, someone had already beaten the Chron to the punch.  That person was none other than Kevin, co-founder of OWA’s progenitor, Kev & Scott’s AstrosConnection.  Eleven years ago today, on May 24, 2005, El Jefe pointed to the outfield fence and called the granddaddy of all shots: “It ends here.”  The Astros did lose that night to drop to 15-30 through 45 games and extend their losing streak to seven games.  However, the next day they won to avoid a sweep at the hands of the Fuck The Cubs at Wrigley, went to Milwaukee and took two of three from the Brewers, and then took two of three from the Reds in Cincinnati.  In commenting on the team’s incredible turnaround, many in the media cited May 24 as the date after which things got better.

The 2016 Astros have played 45 games.  At 17-28 they are not quite as bad as the 2005 team, but they’re close.  Both teams’ records through 45 games represent the nadir of their respective seasons.  Their four-game losing streak is not as bad as the 2005 team’s was, but it’s close.  We know, just like we knew with the 2005 team, that despite whatever they’ve done to this point they are capable of winning more games.

Kevin, if you’re out there and reading this: we need your help.  The Astros need your help.  Even if it’s just some false hope to hang onto to get us through a series or two, we could use it.  It doesn’t even have to be a prognostication of good fortune for the Astros; it could be something much less risky in nature, like “Fuck the Rangers”, or even a shot at Chip Caray for old time’s sake.  This date and the circumstances surrounding this team are ordained to receive a word from you.

Help us, El Jefe.  You are our only hope.

Tuesday, May 24 – 7:10pm CDT
Chris Tillman (6-1, 2.61) vs. Doug Fister (4-3, 4.22)

To the extent there is a good way to face the AL’s best team, Tillman is certainly not the opening draw you want.  After a 6 ER day at the office in Arlington earlier this year, he’s tossed six straight quality starts and the Orioles have won all six.  He’s also been stingy on homers (only two allowed all year), but he has been allowing a lot of walks.  In his only appearance against the Astros in 2015 he gave up two runs over seven innings but took a loss.

Fister has only continued to build his case as the Astros’ best starter (dammit, Keuchel), picking up a solid win over the ChiSox last week.  He did not see significant time against the Orioles last year, but in 2014 he held them to two runs over seven innings.  Look out for a fair amount of hits, though, since several hitters on the Baltimore roster have decent histories against him.

Wednesday, May 25 – 7:10pm CDT
Tyler Wilson (2-2, 3.68) vs. Collin McHugh (4-4, 5.13)

Wilson started the year in long relief before shifting into the rotation, where he has seen moderate success: he has a 4.40 ERA in five starts.  That number would be lower were it not for getting touched up by the Mariners for five runs last Thursday.  Wilson was up and down from the minors in 2015 and has never faced the Astros.  Based on scouting reports he is a finesse pitcher with a low-90s fastball, so at least we’re not likely to see a repeat of Sale-style dominance.

Speaking of Sale, McHugh was the unlucky one to share the mound with Sale in Chicago last Thursday, earning a loss despite throwing a very good game.  The Orioles didn’t have a lot of trouble scoring runs off him last season, allowing eight runs over 13 innings.  None of the Baltimore hitters have huge tracts of land sample sizes against him but the numbers are decent.

Thursday, May 26 – 7:10pm CDT
Kevin Gausman (0-1, 2.70) vs. Lance McCullers (0-1, 5.91)

Gausman battled injuries last year and again this spring, cutting into his workload in the month of April.  Since making his season debut on April 25 his worst start involved giving up four runs to the Tigers over six innings.  Gausman has never faced the Astros so his experience against any Astro hitters is largely irrelevant.  He has a mid/upper 90s fastball with an excellent changeup.

McCullers was another victim of not enough run support, contributing six innings of two-run ball against the opening game against the Rangers last weekend.  He got his first big-league complete game against the Orioles in just his fourth start last season, allowing just one run on only four hits.

SERIES PREVIEW

Odor’s Pseudo-Suspended Sore Vulva @ We Just Took a Road Series from the ChiSox So Fuck the Rangers

May 20-22, 2016

The English language is constantly evolving: nouns get used as verbs, verbs get used as nouns, and subordinating conjunctions get used as prepositions.  Some of these emerging behaviors have become so ubiquitous in the vernacular (side note: “ubiquitous in the vernacular” sounds like either a promising follow-up to “Insane in the Membrane”, a really sick burn, or a great double entendre, e.g. “I’d like to get ubiquitous in her vernacular, if you know what I mean”) that Oxford English Dictionary officially recognizes “Google” and “Photoshop” as verbs.  “Facebook” hasn’t quite made it there yet, so the pending apocalypse is not yet imminent.

Those are positive examples, though, and it’s not usually a good thing when someone’s name morphs into a different part of speech.  At a previous job I had a coworker to whom I will refer as “Debbie” because that is her real name and I really hope she reads this someday.  She was the admin assistant for a higher-up and used to raise all sorts of hell about the smallest of things.  One day another coworker saw that I was a bit flustered by something and, without really thinking about it, I just happened to say, “Debbie’s going all Debbie again.”  My coworker understood instantly and no elaboration was necessary.

Little did I realize that “going all Debbie” would spread like wildfire at the office.  The shorthand acronym “GAD” quickly became common among my coworkers so that it could be used around Debbie, and it eventually became lowercase and evolved into a term that could be used about anyone who got irrationally upset about minor things; for example, “Sorry, I was going to work on that today but Steve is really gadding it up right now.”  The term survived her retirement and was still in use (both written and verbally) when I left a while later.

I heard on the radio this morning that the Rangers and Arlington will announce plans to build a new retractable roof baseball stadium within the next few years.  Such a stadium would replace The Ballpark in Arlington Ameriquest Field Rangers Ballpark in Arlington Globe Life Park, which only opened in 1994 and is leased to the Rangers through 2023.

My very first thought was, “That’s so… Rangers.”  There really isn’t a more succinct way to put it;  “Rangers” as an adjective is just so all-encompassing that other words fail me.

Now, any idiot can see that of course the Rangers need a retractable roof stadium.  Granted, in 1994 the Rangers would have been relative early adopters of retractable roof technology since the SkyDome was the only stadium of its kind in MLB at the time, and the next retractable roof stadium would not open until 1998.  Still, to have the technology available and instead spend $191 million on an open air park in Texas for a sport primarily played during the summer is… well… very, very Rangers.

I’ve also been casually wondering if the lifespans of the 1990’s-2000’s “stadium boom” stadiums would be any different from their predecessors.  I had to figure they would last quite a bit longer since the expectations for amenities haven’t yet changed much over the last 20 years, or at least not as much as they did from the 1960’s to the 90’s.  For instance, it’s pretty hard to imagine the Astros replacing Minute Maid Park in 14 years.  The public is also increasingly more aware of the drawbacks of publicly-funded sports stadiums.

It figures that the Rangers would be the first team to dump their modern stadium.  (I don’t really count the Braves leaving Turner Field since it was sort of Frankensteined together after the 1996 Olympics.  “The Ballpark” was purpose-built from the outset.)  Even better is that it’s an objectively nice stadium plagued by only two real problems (the fans that inhabit it and its geographic proximity to the Metroplex) and is very well-liked by many Ranger fans I know.  That they’ll kick this one to the curb after less than 30 years and likely try to drop at least half a billion dollars of taxpayer funds on new digs is decidedly Rangers.

Other things that are so Rangers:

• Getting all pissy about Bautista’s bat flip after giving up a devastating home run in the playoffs
• Waiting until Bautista’s last AB of the season against them to plunk him
• Fuckhead second baseman with a well-document history of ridiculous fucking slides starting a brawl when he gets a taste of his own medicine
• Declaring themselves the master race of baseball in the Lone Star State after two near-championship seasons and decades of mediocrity
• This bullshit
• Whining about divisions and time zones ‘n’ shit
• Making the Round Rock Express cream themselves about their shiny new affiliation

Fuck ‘em.  And my proposed entry in the Oxford would read:

Rangers, adj. (ˈreɪndʒərz)

1. candyass
2. chickenshit

Friday, May 20 – 7:10pm CDT
Colby Lewis (2-0, 3.12) vs. Lance McCullers (0-0, 9.64)

Lewis has been a reliable arm for the Rangers this year, with seven of his eight starts being of the quality variety.  The team has only won half of his starts though, either due to low run support or his bullpen blowing loads leads.  Although the Astros didn’t do terribly against him in 2015 (4.15 ERA, 6 HR in five starts) he did go 4-0 against Houston.

McCullers got the call in the crappy weather against Boston last Friday and got beat up pretty good, although it wasn’t unexpected given the dangerous Red Sox lineup and it being his first start of the season.  The Rangers also beat up on him in two starts last year, handing him two losses and a 12.79 ERA.  Both of those starts were in Arlington, though, and McCullers’ ERA at Minute Maid is 1.86, so fuck the Rangers.

Saturday, May 21 – 6:15pm CDT
Cesar Ramos (0-2, 4.32) vs. Mike Fiers (3-1, 4.63)

Career reliever Ramos was signed to a minor-league deal before spring training and is making only his third start on the big club.  His starts have been decent, if not spectacular: a quality start against the Yankees (Rangers lost 3-1) and giving up one run over 4+ innings in the brawl game.  He also has a couple of relief outings, most notably giving up four runs in the top of the 12th against the White Sox on May 9.  As an Angel in 2015 he made seven relief appearances against the Astros, pitching 6.1 scoreless innings.

Fiers is back in the rotation after working out of the bullpen during the Red Sox series.  He allowed two runs in four innings of relief work during the 10-9 shitburger game on Sunday.  His only career appearance against the Rangers was last August in Arlington, allowing six runs in five innings, but fuck the Rangers.

Sunday, May 22 – 1:10pm CDT
Cole Hamels (4-0, 3.10) vs. Dallas Keuchel (2-5, 5.43)

Hamels pitched 6.2 innings of one-run ball against Houston in April, largely aided by an Astros lineup that went 1×12 with runners in scoring position.  The lineup has been performing better lately, though, and Hamels can be gotten to: he has given up a combined five homers against the A’s and White Sox in his last two starts.

Keuchel shook off his recent blechh and held the White Sox to three runs in 6.1 innings on Tuesday.  The Rangers slapped him around for six runs in six innings earlier this year, but fuck the Rangers.

SERIES PREVIEW

Wretched Refuse of the Teeming Gulf Shore @ The Wretched Refuse that is Chicago’s South Side

May 17-19, 2016

Second-best team in the AL.  Fewest runs allowed in the AL.  A pitcher whose name rhymes with a song that is the perfect blend of catchy and annoying and will now be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future.

Yes, the White Sox are a good team, but it’s not terribly unlikely for the Astros to steal a couple in this series.  See below for the matchups.

Some X-factors in this series could be some recent roster moves.  Evan Gattis is back; Erik Kratz is sent fudge packing.  Preston Tucker is back in AAA; Tony Kemp has been called up.  It also appears that third base prospect Colin Moran will be in uniform in Chicago.  As of the time of this writing it’s not certain what the corresponding 40-man roster move will be; it doesn’t appear anyone is headed to the DL, so many are hoping it will be the dumping of a certain player who is next-to-last in OPS for qualified hitters.

Tuesday, May 17 – 7:10pm CDT
Dallas Keuchel (2-5, 5.58) vs. Carlos Rodon (1-4, 4.99)

There’s not a whole to write here that hasn’t already been said or written.  Keuchel is this year’s ace in name only; you could make a pretty solid argument that he’s a #4/#5 starter.  He did pitch extremely well against the White Sox last year, going 1-1 with a 1.13 ERA in two starts.  We’ll know by about 9pm tonight if that’s worth anything.

Rodon has been a bit inconsistent this year and is certainly prone to giving up crooked numbers.  He does eat a lot of innings, except against the Angels where he gave up five runs and didn’t make it out of the 1st.  He’s coming off a loss in Arlington where he allowed six runs and twelve hits.  Rodon was 1-0 with a 0.73 ERA against Houston in his 2015 rookie campaign.

Wednesday, May 18 – 7:10pm CDT
Doug Fister (3-3, 4.22) vs. Mat Latos (5-0, 3.40)

If you had said before the season that Fister would be the Astros’ best starter by mid-May, I probably would have said that could only happen if the other starters had met their ends in bizarre fashion (e.g. Keuchel’s beard getting lopped off in a freak toenail-clipping accident).  Nevertheless, Fister has indeed been the steadiest arm not named Will Harris.  He was at least spared from the shitshow in Boston, but was robbed of a win in last week’s 16-inning game against the Indians.  He has not faced the White Sox since 2013 but their roster is an aggregate .242/.315/.394 against him – not too shabby.

Latos was beastly to start the season, allowing just two runs in his first four starts spanning 24.1 innings.  He’s allowed 13 runs in his three starts since so there is cause for hope.  A newcomer to the AL, he has not had any meaningful recent appearances against the Astros, but Houston hitters are .397/.431/.647 against him.  Of particular note, a player named Carlos Gomez is 10×24 with two homers against him.  It should be noted that the OWA series preview desk cannot confirm or deny that this is the same Carlos Gomez currently occupying a roster spot in the navy and orange, so readers should .

Thursday, May 19 – 7:10pm CDT
Collin McHugh (4-3, 5.58) vs. Chris Sale (8-0, 1.67)

Let’s dispense with the usual format here.

Chris Sale has notched a win in every game in which he has pitched this year.

There is nothing good about facing Chris Sale.