2024 Season | Series #10 | Guardians @ Astros | Apri 30 - May 2, 2024

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Kwan with an All-Star performance but the bigger story may be Triston McKenzie with seven superb innings against one of the best hitting teams in baseball. Stix looks like he's all the way back, or very close, and that is huge.

No excuse for those pathetic at-bats by Jose and Josh Naylor in the 10th. Rocchio walked, Kwan doubled, Gimenez walked on five pitches to load the bases. At this point 10 of the 16 pitches had been balls. Jose takes ball one. 11 for 17. You have to make him throw a strike, but Jose chases two pitches out of the zone and takes a fastball down the middle for strike three. Worst at-bat of the year.

Jose is chasing over 37% of bad pitches this year; in 2018 it was 20%. I don't know what's going on with him but he's become an undisciplined hacker.

Then Josh Naylor swings at the first pitch, a breaking ball down and away, and grounds into a double play.

In his first at-bat Naylor got up 2-0 and then chased a Verlander fastball above the zone and flied out. In his second at-bat he swung at a first pitch changeup and flied out to center. Third at-bat he again swings at the first pitch and flies out. Fourth at-bat he chases a first pitch change-up on the outside corner at the knees and rolls it to second. 10th inning, same as the last at-bat, he swings at a first pitch changeup down and away and grounds into a double play.

Four at-bats in a row Naylor swung at the first pitch and made an out. And in the other at-bat he chased a 2-0 pitch out of the zone and got himself out. In five at-bats he saw seven pitches and made six outs. Never had a strike on him the entire night. Worst game at the plate I've ever seen him have. It honestly looked like he didn't want to be playing. Every at-bat, just swing at the first pitch no matter where it is. Get yourself out on the first pitch four times in a row.

Sorry for the rant, but Naylor looked like he had no interest in competing tonight. He looked like he just wanted to get the at-bats over with ASAP.

Yeah, Kwan saved everybody's butt tonight. But we got lucky in that the Astros ran out of good relief pitchers. That last guy came in with an ERA of 8.10.

Great win and a great job by McKenzie and the bullpen, although Cade Smith lucked out. With the game winning run on second in the bottom of the 9th (thanks to a Gimenez throwing error) and last night's hero Caratini at the plate, Smith fell behind 2-0. The rookie Loperfido was up next. I figured they would intentionally walk Caratini since his run meant nothing and it would set up a force at any base and bring a rookie to the plate.

But down 2-0 Smith threw a splitter right down the middle and Caratini ripped a line drive to right. Fortunately Florial was well-positioned and made a running catch. It was still a horrible pitch.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Kwan now hitting .360 and Altuve .341. Salvadore Perez is at .355. What the heck? He'll be 34 in nine days. The last two years he hit .254 and .255. He's a lifetime .268 hitter. He's a right-handed hitting catcher with no speed. This is crazy.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Nice job by Vogt on the bullpen tonight. He brought Herrin in at the right time and avoided using Gaddis.

Shout out to Rocchio; in his last three games he's 3-for-8 with four walks and two stolen bases (but caught once). That's a .583 OBP.

 

[Otsego Mar]

Kwan now hitting .360 and Altuve .341. Salvadore Perez is at .355. What the heck? He'll be 34 in nine days. The last two years he hit .254 and .255. He's a lifetime .268 hitter. He's a right-handed hitting catcher with no speed. This is crazy.

He also already has 10 BBs on the year in 30 games.

He had 19 and 18 BBs in each of the last 2 years in 140 and 114 games.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Game 3 preview:

Rubber game and it's Logan Allen going against 24-year-old right-hander Spencer Arrighetti. Spencer is 0-3 with a 10.97 ERA and a 2.34 WHIP. This is his rookie year and he has started three games so far in his career, pitching 10.2 innings and allowing 18 hits and 7 walks. The odd thing is he's struck out 15 so he has some stuff.

Right-handed hitters are hitting .429/1.091 against him. He's been better against lefties (.286/.741). Batters are 7-for-11 off him with RISP. Overall opponents are hitting .367/.938.

Obviously he would not be pitching in the majors if not for the injuries to multiple Houston starters.

Logan Allen is 3-1 with a 5.46 ERA. In his last four starts he pitched 19.2 innings allowing 16 earned runs for a 7.32 ERA. Now he faces one of the best batting orders in baseball. Current members of the Astros are hitting a mind-boggling .438/1.188 off him. That was in one start last year where he allowed 5 runs and 9 hits in 6 innings in Cleveland.

This looks like it could be a repeat of the 10-9 game on Tuesday.

Kwan is 5-for-7 with two walks and two RBI's in the first two games, not to mention a game-saving catch in the 10th inning. The Astros will be very happy to see Mr. Kwan leaving town, but hopefully not before he sticks it to them one more time.

Jose is 0-for-8 with a pair of walks. Time for him to check in. Or maybe get a day off.

 

[MattyFos.]

Jose and Josh have been skidding lately and we're still playing .500 ball against good teams. The Asstros record is what it is but their offense is one of the best in baseball. Hopefully Allen can provide a decent outing. Repeat what Triston did and head back to Cleveland with a win.

 

[KilgoreTrout]

Feeling much better this morning, after pulling that out.

Doesn’t make up for the 2 choke jobs before that.

 

[KilgoreTrout]

I am considering having a uterus implanted, so that I can have The Kwanimal’s babies.

 

[Wham with the Right Hand]

Clase has pitched four of the last five days so I expect he will be down tonight. Beede hasn't pitched in four days so he'll probably get the first call and hopefully can go two innings. Herrin has pitched two days in a row but they'll probably use him on Yordan Alvarez again if the game is close late.

I don't expect Allen to get past the 4th inning, TBH. In his last 19.2 innings he's allowed 23 hits and 8 walks.

Opponents are hitting .343 against Allen with the bases empty and .182 with runners on base. That's crazy. He's been so much better from the stretch maybe he should pitch that way all the time. Or maybe he's just so competitive that he focuses better with runners on.

Here are more concerning numbers for Allen:

1st time facing a batter: .184/.497
2nd time: .286/1.066
3rd time: .417/1.090

Once they've seen his pitches once they hit him hard. After seeing them twice they hit him harder. IMO, he should be a relief pitcher.

 

[jjvors]

Game highlights:

 

[jmilo]

What a game

And what a Kwan!

 

[Otsego Mar]

Feeling much better this morning, after pulling that out.

Doesn’t make up for the 2 choke jobs before that.

 

[CATS44]

A few thoughts:

1) TMac looked like 2022 TMac. He never threw extreme heat averaging 92.4. He is getting close to that now. IF his elbow remains healthy and we get 28 or so starts from him, he somewhat balances out the loss of Bieber...or more than balances out the loss of Williams.

Since it is something that nobody should have expected, it would be a big plus for the weakest link on this team.

2) Getting thrown out at second, like Fry,, getting thrown out on a SB attempt at second, like Rocchio, or getting thrown at home, like JRAM, is not a mistake. Its the cost of doing business for a team that relies on aggressive base running to compete. If we only ran on sure things, we would never run

Base running is a gamble, but with this team its a gamble in which the overall odds are well in our favor.

3) After an inconsistent start to the season, Rocchio has settled in defensively. I have no idea how he has negative defensive value.

There are 24 shortstops that have played at least 200 innings.

Rocchio ranks 7th in FP.
5th (T) in DRS.
6th (T) in fewest errors.
13th (T) in DPs started.
6th (T) in DPs turned.
1st (T) in DPR (DP runs above average)
6th (T) in RngR (Range runs above ave)

UZR doesn't like him, but it doesnt like Gimenez, either.

4) Arrighetti has given up over 6BB/9 since jumping to AAA last season. He is very into analytics, and fangraphs has an interesting interview with him. Being into analytics is an understatement.

Nothing is his arsenal stands out, but nothing is really bad either. At some point, he will probably end up as a fastball-slider reliever.

 

[BimboColesHair]

3) After an inconsistent start to the season, Rocchio has settled in defensively. I have no idea how he has negative defensive value.

There are 24 shortstops that have played at least 200 innings.

Rocchio ranks 7th in FP.
5th (T) in DRS.
6th (T) in fewest errors.
13th (T) in DPs started.
6th (T) in DPs turned.
1st (T) in DPR (DP runs above average)
6th (T) in RngR (Range runs above ave)

UZR doesn't like him, but it doesnt like Gimenez, either.

Fangraphs Defensive Rating incorporates UZR and DRS and adjusts by league average per position being played. So if UZR doesn't like him, but likes the rest of the SS's in baseball, there is your answer.

UZR doesn't like him. OAA doesn't like him. FRV doesn't like him. I still don't see a plus defensive SS when watching him myself. But different strokes for different folks I guess.

This is like the Amed discussion from a few years ago where he had a handful of nice-looking defensive counting stats and wasn't committing errors so we were acting like he was a good defensive SS all of a sudden, but the under the hood tracking numbers compared to other SS's were brutal and he came back down to reality shortly after.

We are now quickly approaching the point where Rocchio has played as much MLB SS as Arias had prior to the start of this year and the production from him is so much worse to this point. Some signs of life, but nothing widely meaningful to this point.

The occasional BB and single with nothing else being provided is a tough ask to hold onto a position long enough as valuable as SS is to develop meaningful skills.

He needs to be better.

 

[Kiddo]

Fangraphs Defensive Rating incorporates UZR and DRS and adjusts by league average per position being played. So if UZR doesn't like him, but likes the rest of the SS's in baseball, there is your answer.

UZR doesn't like him. OAA doesn't like him. FRV doesn't like him. I still don't see a plus defensive SS when watching him myself. But different strokes for different folks I guess.

This is like the Amed discussion from a few years ago where he had a handful of nice-looking defensive counting stats and wasn't committing errors so we were acting like he was a good defensive SS all of a sudden, but the under the hood tracking numbers compared to other SS's were brutal and he came back down to reality shortly after.

We are now quickly approaching the point where Rocchio has played as much MLB SS as Arias had prior to the start of this year and the production from him is so much worse to this point. Some signs of life, but nothing widely meaningful to this point.

The occasional BB and single with nothing else being provided is a tough ask to hold onto a position long enough as valuable as SS is to develop meaningful skills.

He needs to be better.

Yeah. Rocchio is not passing the eye test at the plate or in the field. His game is so boring and the weak contact is gross. Dammit Arias just take the job away from him!