Alternate title: “The Cave-In”

SERIES PREVIEW

Team from a Rainy City @ Team from a Rainy City

April 25-27, 2016

Once upon a cloudy morn I awoke, awash with scorn
At the extra-inning game my team had lost the night before.
Colby tied the game post-haste, only to watch it go to waste
When Billy Wagner 2.0 could not even prevent a score.
After five hours and twelve frames the Red Sox made the winning score.
The Astros scored nevermore.

I rose from bed, feeling foolish that this baseball team so ghoulish
Could see a reversal in its fortunes and not be a bore.
I checked the schedule.  Up next: Sea Hags.  Could this bunch of scalawags
Be just what the Astros need to boost them to their play of yore?
And another thing that just might get them back to times of yore:
No King Felix to account for.

But then I saw: they’re on the road!  A new burden on me bestowed.
I banged my keyboard on my desk and cried to Orbit as I swore:
“In twenty-fifteen they were shitty away from the Bayou City!
“West coast road trips cannot help.  They’ll just keep being an eyesore!”
Orbit shrugged at me and said, “Away or home, they’re an eyesore.”
This team’s problems could grow more.

“It’s not fair to make them travel just to watch them more unravel!
“Has MLB not seen the massive flooding that’s been such a chore?
“The team will need a boat and paddle to get them up to Seattle!”
But my complaints could do no good; Orbit had heard this all before.
“Don’t be so negative,” he said.  “You’ve seen them turn around before.”
Perhaps he’s right.  Good days in store?

Then I realized: west coast games mean late start times.  My ears shot flames!
These contests just might be played while I’m in bed catching a snore.
I cried again, “My will is pure!  How many more must I endure?
“Staying up ‘til twelve or one makes me the coming day abhor.”
There was nothing to these games that I did not fully abhor.
Lamented Orbit, “Fifteen more.”

Monday, April 25 – 9:10pm CDT
Doug Fister (1-2, 5.94) vs. Taijuan Walker (1-0, 1.50)

Following two outings that were firmly mediocre at best, Fister turned in a solid effort against the Rangers last Wednesday, only allowing two runs on a home run through six innings.  Fister also deserved better than to be matched up with Cole Hamels, against whom the Astro bats could do almost nothing.  Fister has at least had good success against the Mariners during his career, going 2-0 with a 2.49 ERA in three career starts, and none of their hitters can claim gaudy stats against him.

Walker comes into the series with some early success in his second full big league season.  He’s thrown three straight quality starts, picking up no-decisions in a loss to the A’s and a win against the Rangers and, most recently, getting the W against Cleveland.  He’s also being stingy with allowing baserunners, currently owning a sub-1 WHIP.  The silver lining is that the Astros had good success against him last year; he faced them four times in 2015, going 1-1 with a 5.91 ERA against the good guys and getting lit up for 7 ER in three innings in Houston in April.  The Houston lineup also has seven homers off this guy, and Rasmus is 5×10 with a crank off him.

Tuesday, April 26 – 9:10pm CDT
Dallas Keuchel (2-2, 3.71) vs. Nathan Karns (1-1, 5.28)

I’m not sure what it is about the Rangers that gives them the ability to bring out the worst in Keuchel.  They blew him up for nine runs in 4+ innings last September (by far his worst outing of the year), and got to him again for six runs and 13 hits in his last outing.  That he lasted six innings is something of a minor miracle.  I’m personally looking for him to get his groove back on Tuesday since he’s had good historical success against the M’s and at Safeco.

Karns, like Walker, is also in his second full season in the bigs, but he off to a bit of a rockier start.  In three starts he has yet to finish a 6th inning and has already allowed nine walks, so if the Astros can stay at least a little patient at the plate they can find themselves some scoring opportunities.  Karns did not have the same struggles with walks in 2015 so Houston needs to get while the gettin’ is good.  He did face the Astros once in 2015, allowing just 1 ER over six innings while striking out eight.

Wednesday, April 27 – 9:10pm CDT
Collin McHugh (1-3, 7.56) vs. Hisashi Iwakuma (0-2, 3.81)

Man, I just don’t know.  It’s tiring to watch the hit parade that always seems to ensue when McHugh is on the mound (he’s sporting a smooth 2.10 WHIP right now), and his start in the home opener against KC remains the lone bright spot in what has been a crappy season so far.  The Mariners also went monster mash on him last year, tagging him for six home runs in three games and being responsible for McHugh’s worst outing of the year (3 IP, 8 ER) in June.  Forgive me if I’m not brimming with confidence on this one, and I’m just hoping Fister and Keuchel can eat some innings ahead of this game.

Iwakuma has been a steady arm for the M’s for several years, and his record belies his performance so far.  His losses against the Rangers and at the Yankees came with little run support behind him, and he did not get a decision in his best two starts in Arlington and Anaheim.  He has also progressively worked deeper into games, turning in eight innings in his most recent start against the Angels.  On the plus side, non-100-loss Astros teams have hit him pretty well: in six starts against Houston since 2014, he is 2-3 with a 5.61 ERA.

SERIES PREVIEW

Grossly Overweight Third Baseman @ Grossly Overweight Loss Column

April 22-24, 2016

Overall I would say that I have adapted to the American League pretty well.  The DH really doesn’t bother me anymore and I have actually come to prefer it, sacrilegious that may be.  Not having the old NL rivalries sucks but it is what it is.  I’ve even gotten over the habit of looking for the Astros in the NL Central standings.

Days like today really make me miss the National League.  Not because of the DH, not because of rivalries of yore, not because of history.

I miss the NL because of the Texas Fucking Rangers.  Not because they keep whipping dat ass (although that sucks too) but because of how they have necessarily changed my mindset as an Astros fan.

In the Astros’ NL days I could be blissfully indifferent toward the Rangers.  They played in one sandbox, the Astros played in another.  Until just a few years ago, except for 1996 they were never a playoff team when the Astros weren’t.  The few occasions that they played each other were completely drummed up by marketing as if to force me to be more than indifferent, and whatever successes or failures came out of those were “ho-hum, just another game” in the grand scheme of things.  And when the Rangers did become World Series contenders, I could engage in a bit of schadenfreude when they pissed away postseason games in ways that are, tragically, very familiar to Astros fans.  Misery loves company, right?

I can’t be indifferent toward the Rangers anymore; I am required to hate them, and that bothers me.  It doesn’t help that the Rangers started becoming really good when the Astros started becoming really awful, causing the media and baseball fandom to ignore 45 years of history and declare the Rangers God’s gift to baseball in Texas.  So, coming into 2013, the Rangers were one year removed from back-to-back AL pennants and the Astros had had back-to-back 100-loss seasons.  They were officially rivals.  I had to hate them.  And what did that automatically make me and just about any other Astros fan that cares?  The little fucking brother.  Fuck.  That.

That’s to say nothing of the stRanger fans I know who had all but one fingernail off the bandwagon last year before clambering back on during their resurgence to the AL West title.  “Why can’t you just be happy that a Texas team will win the division?”  “You mean you didn’t root for the Rangers in the World Series a few years ago?”  THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS.  I suppose I could have done that before 2013 if I had wanted to, but now Ranger success is directly detrimental to MY team.  If you want me to be happy about that then you can wrap your ass cheeks around an electric fence.

These things can never be said enough: Fuck Bud Selig in his goat ass sloth rectum goblin sphincter.  Fuck Drayton McLane for ever letting the team get so irrelevant that they could be used as a bargaining chip.  Fuck Nolan Ryan (Reid, you’re cool) for being the main cheerleader of the Astros’ move to the AL, and for switching allegiances between Houston and Arlington whenever it personally benefits him most.

And double-fuck the Rangers.

[This was supposed to be a series preview. – Ed.]

Right.  Sorry.

The 5-11 Astros are a mess.  The pitching in particular is hard to watch since none of the starters – including Keuchel – seem to be able to string together any consistent outings in the early going.  It’s getting hard to know what to expect from any guy on any given day.  Fields inspires very little confidence when he toes the rubber; I almost turned off Wednesday’s game when he came in, and actually did so after he predictably dug a deeper hole .  Ken Giles has been worrisome; I know, In Luhnow We Trust, but if you like not feeding the ulcer you may already have, do yourself a favor and don’t go look up Vince Velasquez’s stats for the Phillies.

It should be noted that none of the above applies to Gregerson, Devenski, Harris, and Neshek.  All of them, and especially the first three, have been pitching their asses off with a regularity that would make Von Miller’s bowels happy.  Sipp has also been improving with four straight scoreless outings after some early struggles.  

The hitting is less than the sum of its parts.  Three guys (Rasmus, Altuve, White) have a four-digit OPS, and three other guys (Springer, Tucker, Correa) are over .800.  They lead MLB in stolen bases.  They’re going yard in bunches, currently ranking third in MLB in HRs and fourth in slugging.  However, their closest peers in HR and SLG – namely the Turds, Rockies, and Orioles – are scoring anywhere between 9-21 more runs.  Think that would be worth a few more wins?  The Astros’ problems lie in running themselves out of scoring opportunities on the basepaths, a just-barely-not-bottom-tier OBP, extremely poor situational hitting (29th in hitting with RISP, dead last with RISP and two outs).  It’s tough to be optimistic about the last two stats since the same lineup had big problems with those same things in 2015.

Equally as frustrating is that all of the good performances – pitching or hitting – seem to be happening on islands: it’s been almost impossible to get great individual performances to coincide with other great individual performances, the team as a whole can’t score when they can pitch, and they can’t pitch when they can score.  In that light, it feels like the standout performances by all the guys I mentioned have been wasted.  Sucks.

The Red Sox pitching staff is coming into the series with four would-be contributors on the DL, including Joe Kelly who was originally slated to start Sunday’s game.  Pablo Sandoval is on the DL for some combination of a shoulder injury, being fat, and/or having a bad attitude.  The team as a whole is coming off of a 3-4 stretch against their middling AL East competition.  Offensively the Sawks are pretty competent, near the top of the league in most major categories except home runs.  The pitching overall has been pretty comparable to Houston’s: similar ERAs, Astros giving up more hits, Boston allowing more walks.  One big cause for concern: the Red Sox are 2nd in MLB in strikeouts.  Harris County may be under a wind advisory this weekend.

Friday, April 22 – 7:10pm CDT
Steven Wright (0-2, 2.13) vs. Collin McHugh (1-2, 6.39)

There’s not much that I like about this matchup right now, mostly because we have no idea which Collin McHugh is going to show up.  Will it be the McHugh that blanked a pissant Royals lineup for seven innings in the home opener, or will it be the McHugh that bookended that excellent outing with nine earned runs in his other five-plus innings?  The good news is that McHugh has had good success against the Red Sox as a whole (2-1, 2.86) and decent success against their hitters individually.  Keep the Tums within arm’s reach just in case.

Wright has thrown quality starts in both of his starts this year but has suffered from a lack of run support.  All of his runs have been allowed in the first inning, so hopefully Altuve can start the game hacking.  Remarkably, most of the Astros lineup has never faced him, and in his only career start against Houston he gave up three runs in only one inning against the craptastic 2013 Astros.  Maybe there’s hope?

Saturday, April 23 – 3:05pm CDT
Clay Buchholz (0-1, 5.74) vs. Mike Fiers (1-1, 6.48)

There’s little doubt that Fiers is off to an ugly start, tied for an MLB-worst six home runs allowed already.  He threw a quality start against the Royals but took the loss anyway, then allowed four runs in 5.2 innings against the Tigers and picked up the win.  All part of the team’s Jekyll/Hyde routine.  Since Fiers has spent most of his career in the NL he has never faced the Red Sox, but has held three of their hitters to a combined .091 average.  Take that for what it’s worth.

Buchholz’s season hasn’t been great thus far either: it says a lot when you allow five earned runs in your second start and your ERA goes down.  His most recent game against the Blue Jays was much better, throwing 6.2 innings of shutout ball only to watch the bullpen blow the game.  In fact, the Sox have lost all of his starts.  However, Buchholz has been devastating against the Astros, going 3-0 with a 1.38 ERA against them for his career and going the distance while allowing just one run when they met in 2015.

Sunday, April 24 – 7:05pm CDT
TBA/Henry Owens (2015: 4-4, 4.57) vs. Scott Feldman (0-2, 4.11)

I’ll say it: Feldman has deserved better.  Sure, he sucked in Milwaukee and his start in Arlington could have been better, but he could easily be 2-1 with a little better run support against KC and fewer bullpen meltdowns after he leaves a game.  Turning our attention to this weekend, it doesn’t help that Feldman is 1-4 with a 7.24 ERA against the Sox for his career.  He did not face them last year but got lit up for 14 earned runs in 10+ innings against them in 2014.

At the time of this writing MLB still officially lists Boston’s Sunday starter as TBA, but the scuttlebutt is that soft-tossing lefty Henry Owens will be getting a callup from AAA to fill Kelly’s slot.  Owens broke into the league last August and started 11 games for the Red Sox with generally decent results, although he was prone to a bad outing here and there (three games where allowed seven earned runs).  Since not making the Opening Day roster he’s been lighting it up in AAA, going 1-1 in three starts with a 1.00 ERA and 23 K’s in 18 innings.  However, he has also walked 10 batters.  Based on scouting reports his fastball flirts with 90mph, backed by a low-80s slider, mid-70s change, and high-60s/low-70s curve.  Not really sure what to think of this one – I could see the Astros teeing off on this guy just as much as I could see them getting blanked.