The only “stain” is the one on the souls of these clowns like Verducci and Jomboy. I hope it never does go away. I hope the 2017 World Series Champion Houston Astros is burned into their collective consciousness like a bad tattoo they can never remove.
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Everyone coming off the field was excited after that play.
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Brent Strom
If ever you were going to retire the number worn by a coach and hang his name in the rafters, it would be Strom. If this does end up being his final season, we, and the pitchers who have had the pleasure of working with him, were truly blessed to watch him work his magic.
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Agreed. I don’t give two rats’ asses about them and their opinions. They are making excuses because their team lost.
LOL, playing LA will resurrect the animus with a vengeance
I really don’t care. Not even a little.
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All that other stuff is the crap people who don’t really care about baseball talk about.
Whoever the Astros play I just want them to keep playing their brand of ball.
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Well said. I want the Astros to win because they are my team. I love that they’ve played well despite the animosity hurled at them, and I will be disappointed if they do not win the World Series, but for no other reason than they are my team. Everyone else can choke on their anger.
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That was the play of the game for me. Graveman on the brink of disaster overthrowing his FB, Maldy calling a pitch he had not thrown in three months, KG backing off a couple of times and talking to Maldy, then throwing a beautiful changeup for strike two.
I knew Verdugo was going to run to avoid a DP. I knew it and called the result before the pitch, but alas only Kaiser was here to hear me. What a perfect throw, and kudos to Graveman for the gutsy strike two and the good high FB for strike three.
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Watching MLB Tonight last night, and Matt V led off a segment with: “There was a scandal, but what did we learn on this night?” And then, over a clip of Rally Nun Sister Mary Catherine Do throwing out the first pitch and doing Correa’s watch tap, he said “what we learned: it is time to forgive. God has forgiven the Houston Astros.”
Now, I don’t much care what the national media thinks of my team, but I would much prefer Matt V’s redemption arc story line to the inevitable lazyass good-vs.-evil, out for revenge story line if the Dodgers advance.
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Bassitt’s interview is what the media should have learned yesterday, but the talking heads are avoiding it like the plague.
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Shwarber says he regrets not coming straight home on the dp.
Made me think of Bregman’s play at home in 2017.
He anticipated it and knew where he was going with the ball before the pitch.
Here’s a great quote from Strom about the adjustment the Astros’ pitching staff made in game 4. (It comes from the SI article written by Verducci after last night’s win, but I still love it anyway)
“Yeah, very much so,” Strom said. “Basically, the Red Sox were spitting on so many non-competitive breaking balls in the first couple of games. We were falling behind [counts]. I basically told the group, ‘If you’re going to get beat, throw your best stuff over the plate, then you can sleep at night. Rather than dancing around the strike zone.’ Young pitchers start dancing, and you can’t do that.”
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Here’s another great excerpt about how Strom helped Garcia:
Garcia lasted only eight batters in Game 2, departing with a sore knee and a 91-mph fastball after getting only three outs. The knee injury forced Strom to study Garcia’s delivery to see if something was causing the pain. The old pitcher whisperer found it and put Garcia on the mound the next day for a bullpen session. He showed Garcia that he was creating stress on his knee by having his right foot (the plant foot by the rubber for the righthander) slightly angled, with the ball of his foot a bit closer to the plate than his heel. That caused his knee to be turned slightly inward as he lifted his front leg in the load phase.
Strom told Garcia to place his right foot directly parallel with the rubber. With a straight plant foot, Garcia would keep his knee (and thus his weight upon leg lift) over the foot.
Voila! Garcia hit 97 mph seven times in the first three innings after throwing one pitch that hard the entire season out of 1,118 four-seamers.
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Cora said in his postgame interview in response to a “What happened?” question: “We could not catch up to the fastball.” He said it twice.
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He can take some solace in that run made no difference in the outcome of the game. He should be more upset at how his team’s hitters, including himself, were rendered impotent for the last 2 and 2/3 games.
Yep. He gave high praise to Maldonado for switching the gameplan on them during game 4 in his post game interview.
Correa thought it was a caught line drive and tried to get back at first. Then he decided to run. He distracted Schwarber just long enough. I do not believe Schwarber even thought about going home until too late. He looked at Alvarez (who was not running yet) briefly then occupied himself with the two runners around first base.
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The MLB tonight highlights showed that it was not a run on contact play for Alvarez. Schwarber looked at Alvarez, who stayed put, and who then took off once Schwarber turned. Not sure throwing home right away would have accomplished anything other than loading the bases.
Whether it was intentional or not, Correa dancing away from Schwarber and making him go after him, and Alvarez’s speed, were key to the play. If Schwarber had touched first and kept looking at Alvarez, he would have kept the run from scoring.
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I hope Strom sticks around for at least 2 more years. Next year along with Dusty and then for Maldy’s first year as manager in 2023.
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