I legitimately do not know how to open this blog because I am so lost as to how the Astros are so comprehensively blowing the AL West. I was going to start with something like: “I think the Astros pitchers really want an October off for once,” “Dusty Baker was happy with one ring, now he wants to go back to looking like he’s working a shift at Terry Black’s cutting brisket in October.” Hell, I was even going to mention how this is somehow the fault of Willy Tavares and those “invisible” braces that were anything but.
To be fair to Willy that seemed like an unnecessary shot that was there just because I wanted to flex my immaculate grid knowledge.
But realistically the entire month of September has been nothing but a bloviation by the Astros in hopes that the Texas Rangers actually win the West and then fail spectacularly in the World Series again (something something one strike). The irony being that there is no way the Rangers would get that far, because they should all be wearing goth girl dog collars with how hard they’re out here choking.
This isn’t some smart blog that will take a deep dive into baseball reference and discuss the WAR of each player’s September. This is a purely reactionary blog putting JP France on notice that he was playing the Royals and there is no reason, other than season ending injury, for you to be pulled in the 5th inning. This is a notice to Ryan Pressly that the Brad Lidge impersonation is no longer that cute and to not give up three run homers in the ninth. (On this subject I’d also like to petition the Astros to take away Ryan’s Johnny Cash privileges until he can get it together again; Johnny Cash is for winners).
To be fair to Pressly he hasn’t been horrible and an 83 percent save percentage on the season isn’t the worst, but goddamn it how are we blowing this. I also want to blame Maldanado somehow and the clique of catching with him, but everyone is to blame here.
Like Jose Urquidy what the fuck a 6 in the ERA world should get you stapled to the MMP train tracks vaudeville music plays in the background and the old bunny mascot dons a mustache crushing you while carrying coal. Hunter Brown, I get you are 25 years old but Alexander the Great was King of Persia by 25; you can at least get that ERA down to the 3’s for the million you’re getting paid. I can go through the entire list but these are just the people I thought of off the top of my head.
I could come for the batters too, but I know they’d miss that too with how many runners they’re leaving on. And I know I shouldn’t be mad at a probable 90+ win season by a team that used to be nicknamed the Disastros and won TWO World Series in five years. But when you fire the GM and just don’t have a replacement lined up someone should yell at this team and the Lastro pitching staff.
