The Astros had their backs against the wall, down 0-3 to a surging Tampa Bay team. For one night, though, they had an ace in the hole: their ace, Zack Greinke, made his first and likely only appearance of the series after two straight days of being pushed back in the rotation.

When Houston acquired Greinke last year, he was a severely overqualified third starter, the delicious dessert after a Cole/Verlander entree. With Gerrit Cole in New York and Justin Verlander felled by a pesky elbow, however, Greinke stands alone among the pitching staff, surrounded by Lance McCullers Jr. and a passel of rookies.

Greinke brought his usual bag of tricks: fastballs in the eighties, changeups with fastball velocity and hummingbird movement, and a slow curve that all other slow curves merely imitate. The Rays struggled to adjust to the funk; Manuel Margot watched four straight fastballs go by to lead off the first, the last three of which were strikes. Randy Arozarena got ahead 3-1 before taking a 72 mph curve for a strike and swinging over a diving changeup, giving Greinke two strikeouts in his first three batters faced.

In the bottom of the inning, Tampa Bay brought reverse Greinke: Tyler Glasnow throws 100 mph, snaps off lollipop curves whose velocity rivals Greinke’s fastball, and tries to do with power what Greinke does with guile. His height adds to the effect; a 100 mph fastball coming from a 6-foot-8 pitcher with an upright delivery gives the distinct impression of a payload dropped from orbit. Read the rest of this entry »

Though undersized by baseball standards — just 5-foot-7 and 160 pounds — Joe Morgan stands tall in baseball history. As the second baseman for the Cincinnati Reds during his prime (1972-79), he helped elevate an already-strong team that starred the more famous Pete Rose and Johnny Bench into a powerhouse for the ages, earning back-to-back NL MVP honors on the Big Red Machine’s 1975 and ’76 championship teams. Over the course of a 22-year major league career (1963-84) with five franchises, Morgan made 10 All-Star teams, won five Gold Gloves, and built a case as the best second baseman in the game’s history, less by attaining traditional milestones and awards than by standing out in ways that became more apparent with advanced statistics. In 1990, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility; he would leave a stamp on that institution later in life as well.

Morgan died at home on Sunday in Danville, California at the age of 77. According to a family spokesman, the cause was nonspecified polyneuropathy, a condition that affects the peripheral nerves of the body. He had endured other health woes in recent years, having received a bone marrow transplant in 2016. He’s the sixth Hall of Famer to die this year, after Al Kaline, Tom Seaver, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, and Whitey Ford, the last two of whom passed away earlier this month. He’s also the third member of the late 1960s and early ’70s Astros to die in 2020, after Jimmy Wynn and Bob Watson. It’s enough to make any baseball fan cry, “Uncle.”

Justifiably hailed as “the game’s most complete player” in a 1976 Sports Illustrated cover story, Morgan had more tools in his belt than the standard five, including an off-the-charts baseball IQ that earned him the nickname of “The Little General,” and, by his own admission, a brand of arrogance. As he told Mark Mulvoy in that SI feature, “To be a star, to stay a star, I think you’ve got to have a certain air of arrogance about you, a cockiness, a swagger on the field that says, ‘I can do this, and you can’t stop me.'”

Morgan hit .271/.392/.427 (132 OPS+) for his career, racking up 2,517 hits, 268 home runs, and, thanks to his keen batting eye and compact strike zone, 1,815 walks (and just 1,015 strikeouts). His walk total ranks fifth all-time, while the 266 homers he hit as a second baseman rank fourth. While he only posted batting averages above .300 in his two MVP seasons, and never finished higher than fourth in that category, he drew at least 100 walks in a season eight times, and topped a .400 on-base percentage eight times as well, leading the league in four of those years, and finishing among the top 10 11 times. He also stole 689 bases, a total that ranks 11th; of his 11 times cracking the league’s top 10 in that category, seven times he ranked second, five of those behind Brock. His 81.0% success rate ranks 17th among players with at least 300 attempts since 1951 (caught stealing data was not consistently available earlier), but fifth among those with 600 ore more attempts. Read the rest of this entry »

In Game 1 of the ALCS, the Astros out-hit the Rays, struck out eight fewer times, watched Framber Valdez whiff eight batters in six innings, put 13 runners on, and threatened in nearly every inning. They lost. In Game 2 of the ALCS, the Astros out-hit the Rays, struck out five fewer times, watched Lance McCullers Jr. whiff 11 batters in seven innings, put 16 balls into play at 95 mph or harder and 13 runners on base, and threatened in nearly every inning. They lost.

Game 3 of the ALCS, though, would be different. Jose Urquidy hit a season-high 98 mph with his fastball, striking out four through five innings. A first-inning homer from Jose Altuve gave the Astros an early lead. They out-hit the Rays yet again and put 11 runners on and threatened in nearly every inning.

They lost.

The battle for the American League is, barring a miracle comeback, over. In beating Houston 5–2, Tampa Bay took a 3–0 series lead in the best-of-seven matchup and can both clinch its first pennant in 12 years and deny the Astros their third of the last four seasons with a victory on Wednesday. The best team in the Junior Circuit during the truncated 2020 campaign has gone 8–2 this postseason and looked virtually unbeatable in every facet of the game. The pitching has been crisp, the defense has been perfect, the offense has kept the line moving. Throughout October, the Rays have been a well-oiled machine. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday afternoon, the Tampa Bay Rays moved to within two wins of advancing to their second World Series in franchise history with a 4-2 victory over the Houston Astros. The scoring was relatively sparse, with five of the game’s six runs coming on three home runs.

Sadly, the game itself was at times overshadowed by the passing of legendary second baseman (and former Colt .45 and Astro) Joe Morgan at 77. Morgan was perhaps more famous for his part on the Big Red Machine, but he was also a key contributor during Houston’s early years. Astros manager Dusty Baker, the only manager in baseball to play against Morgan at his peak (Bud Black and Terry Francona, among others, faced him late in his career) and a friend, said a few words about the Hall of Famer before the game.

“He meant a lot to us, a lot to me, a lot to baseball, a lot to African Americans around the country. A lot to players that were considered undersized. He was one of the first examples of speed and power for a guy they said was too small to play.”

But baseball grinds on despite grief, and after Game 2 was done, Charlie Morton had earned his sixth career postseason win, improving his October line to 6-2 with a 3.16 ERA in 11 starts. While it will go down in the history books as a five-inning shutout, and the ninth consecutive playoff start in which he allowed two runs or fewer, Morton’s start wasn’t anywhere near as neat as you might expect if you only read the box score. The Astros frequently made solid contact but, thanks to the Rays’ defense and a bit of bad luck, failed to cash in on any of their opportunities. Houston left seven runners waiting futilely on the bags through five, only going down 1-2-3 once (in the fifth). Read the rest of this entry »

When you lose to the Rays, sometimes you get beat by top prospects and players with first-round pedigrees and the kinds of hyper-talented physical freaks who make up the majority of major league rosters. And sometimes you get beat by the back of a bullpen and a light-hitting catcher and a Cuban outfielder who before September was such an unknown that he probably could’ve walked through Ybor City on a Saturday night in full uniform to the attention and recognition of no one.

In taking Game 1 of the ALCS, 2–1, against Houston, Tampa Bay leaned on the parts of its roster that collectively should amount to nothing but ended up making the difference against a team in its fourth pennant series. Blake Snell, the former AL Cy Young winner, started, but given how he wobbled and weaved his way through five difficult innings, he wasn’t the star of this one. (His last inning of work, though, was crucial: Already at 83 pitches and clearly laboring, he was tasked with facing George Springer, Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley for a third time and did so perfectly, sparing Kevin Cash from having to lean even harder on an already exhausted bullpen.) Instead, it was the Rays’ chest full of misfit toys that gave them a 1–0 series lead in this best-of-seven battle.

Case in point: the man who put Tampa Bay on the board, Randy Arozarena. Coming into this series, he’d hit .444/.500/.926 in 30 postseason plate appearances, including three homers in seven games. He treated Yankees pitching like a piñata in the ALDS, and he did the same to Framber Valdez in Game 1, poking a belt-high sinker to right-center in the fourth to make a 1–0 Houston lead vanish. Getting a fastball by Arozarena has proven virtually impossible all month; Valdez learned that the hard way. Read the rest of this entry »

Note: The Rays did indeed add Josh Fleming, along with José Alvarado, who had been on the Injured List with a shoulder issue; the team DFA’ed Oliver Drake to make room for Alvarado on the 40-man. Trevor Richards and Brett Phillips were dropped from the ALCS roster to make room for Fleming and Alvarado. The Astros, meanwhile, added Chase de Jong and bumped Chas McCormick from their ALCS roster.

Sunday’s American League Championship Series Game 1 begins the next layer of MLB’s grueling postseason schedule, one where each club’s pitching depth will be tested by the best lineup they’ve faced all year without the grace of an off day for travel. Two teams, seven games, in seven days (if necessary).

Let’s touch on the narrative. This series pits an infamous-but-talented Houston Astros team, whose players are publicly engaged in cognitive dissonance as a means of self-motivation, against a Rays team sometimes incorrectly billed as an underdog because of its sparse, owner-imposed payroll, even though Tampa was the AL’s top seed. There’s the intrigue of longtime Rays employee (and new Astros GM) James Click facing his old club while he and manager Dusty Baker try to shepherd the franchise through a PR hell that’s probably going to last longer than the pandemic. Houston’s young pitchers (a well that never seems to run dry) led by breakout third-year lefty Framber Valdez and a slew of great rookies who can go multiple innings in relief, face a dynamic group of Rays hitters who run 12 or 13 deep, and punish opponents by creating tough, mid-game matchups.

Let’s get down to brass tacks. Yesterday the Astros announced Valdez would start Game 1 on the usual four days rest, while ALDS Game 1 starter Lance McCullers Jr. will go in Game 2 on extended rest. Both work heavily off their sinkers and curveballs, especially Valdez, whose changeup usage dwindled throughout the regular season before totally evaporating in the playoffs. He threw no cambios in the Wild Card round, and tossed just four of them in his ALDS start against the A’s, throwing one to Ramón Laureano and Chad Pinder each time he faced them.

Blake Snell will take the ball for Tampa Bay in Game 1, and while they haven’t announced it yet, it’s fair to anticipate former Astro Charlie Morton going in Game 2 and Tyler Glasnow in Game 3, though that’s more an educated guess than a certainty. In Friday’s ALDS Game 5, Glasnow threw on two days rest, his bullpen day, meaning Sunday’s Game 1 would be his scheduled day to start if the Rays just replaced his routine bullpen with his Game 5 outing. I think the structure of the Championship Series (seven games in as many days) means we’re unlikely to see an extended outing from Glasnow early in this series (he threw 93 pitches in his first ALDS start) since there’s an old-school style importance to starting pitchers going deep into games, forcing Tampa Bay to start and get bulk innings from Glasnow rather than piggybacking him. Read the rest of this entry »

For a little while there, everything was going the way the A’s drew it up. Thanks to — you guessed it — a homer, they had a 3-0 lead entering the bottom of the fourth. Zack Greinke, though generally effective, had allowed consecutive singles to Matt Olson and Mark Canha in the top of third; he hung a 3-2 slider to Ramón Laureano, and the A’s jumped out ahead. Meanwhile, Frankie Montas had managed to face the minimum through his three frames, outside of Yuli Gurriel reaching base on an Olson error. After the Laureano homer, the A’s win expectancy jumped to 76.4%. It wasn’t just that they had a chance to win, to stay alive and push this ALDS to a winner-take-all fifth game; they had a good chance.

It was all the more astonishing, then, how quickly the wheels fell off for Oakland, how quickly the Astros swung the game in their favor, taking it to a point of no return. Though the A’s offense did their best to rally, the scale of the thumping the Astros lineup put on Montas and a desperate, ineffective succession of A’s relievers was, in the end, too much for them to overcome. With a final score of 11-6, the Astros make their way into their fourth consecutive ALCS, while the A’s make their way home after yet another postseason heartbreak.

Read the rest of this entry »

After their regular season dustup — not to mention Houston’s jawing leading into the ALDS — it seemed as if the Astros and the Athletics might come to postseason blows. Instead, they’ve settled for a barrage of long balls. Wednesday’s Game 3 featured seven more home runs, including five from the eventually triumphant Oakland, tying a postseason franchise record set during the Jose Canseco era. The A’s avoided a sweep and pushed the series to a fourth game while the combined home run count in the series climbed to 18.

For the first time in the postseason, the grind of a five-game series without an off day had a clear impact on which pitchers were deployed and how they performed. With electric rookie reliever Enoli Paredes unavailable after pitching in the first two games, and the other Astros starters unavailable to piggyback due to the Division Series schedule and the smoldering questions surrounding Zack Greinke’s health, the soft underbelly of the Astros bullpen was exposed late in the game as the Athletics scored five combined runs to take the lead.

Most of Oakland’s damage, as well as both the most significant narrative and literal swing in the game, came against reliever Josh James, who entered the game with a two-run lead. After pitching a scoreless, double play-aided sixth inning, James returned for the seventh and surrendered singles to Marcus Semien and Tommy La Stella before Chad Pinder, who had been in a strict left/right platoon with Jake Lamb leading up to the game, was left in to face the same-handed James. He sent a first-pitch breaking ball over the right field wall, tying the game at seven. Read the rest of this entry »

I, personally, have never hit a home run in Dodgers Stadium. After the past two days, however, I might be one of the few baseball-adjacent people who can’t say that. The A’s and Astros engaged in another slugfest in the early innings today, launching five home runs in the first five frames of Game 2 of the ALDS. Combine those with the six they hit yesterday, and it’s a bad time to be a cardboard cutout in the Chavez Ravine outfield.

Khris Davis got the party started in the second by pouncing on a hanging curveball. He got under it a bit, and George Springer camped where he expected the ball to land. That worked out like this:

He needn’t have worried, however, because Dodgers Stadium gave to both sides today. With a runner aboard in the top of the next inning, Springer got a belt-high curveball of his own and didn’t miss:

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If you’d been asked, before this postseason, to name as many Astros relievers as you could, how many would you have rattled off before you had to stop? Many fans could probably recall Ryan Pressly, the closer with the high-spin curveball who’s been an integral part of Houston’s bullpen the last three seasons. Maybe Josh James is a familiar face if you’d paid enough attention, a young right-hander with a powerful fastball and questionable command who’s bounced between the rotation and bullpen.

After that, though, it’s likely a lot of blank stares and silence. The relief corps that the Astros turned to throughout the 2020 season was as anonymous as it was unexceptional. Houston’s bullpen ranked 16th in the majors in WAR and ERA and 18th in strikeout rate. By Win Probability Added, they were a miserable 26th. The only stat they were near the top of the league in was walk rate — 12.4%, second-highest in the league. None of that should have come as a surprise: The Astros lost two of their better relievers from 2019 in Will Harris and Joe Smith to free agency, then they saw closer Roberto Osuna throw all of 4.1 innings this year before blowing out his elbow.

The bullpen then became a carousel, spinning constantly as new bodies jumped on seemingly every day. Twenty-two different pitchers trotted out in relief for the Astros, most of them rookies, trying their best to fill what increasingly looked like a bottomless hole. Some of the names cycled through were downright Pynchon-esque: Cy Sneed, Nivaldo Rodriguez, Humberto Castellanos. Some players were barely there for a few days before disappearing while others stuck. And although the bullpen on the whole was never anything more than average, a few of those pitchers managed to secure a spot in Dusty Baker’s circle of trust. Read the rest of this entry »