Thursday, June 2, 2016

Thursday Morning Hot Links

*The Masked Marvel has the recap from a 5-4 Astros 11th inning win that Luke Gregerson made way more interesting than necessary, but George Springer's walk-off homer saved.


*That's the Astros' eighth win in their last nine games. The A's won, but the Rangers, Mariners, and Angels all finally lost. So Houston is half a game up on Anaheim, tied with Oakland, 6.0 behind Seattle, and 6.5 behind the Rangers.

*Thanks to their recent play, FanGraphs now gives the Astros a 22.5% chance of winning the division and a 39.6% chance of making the postseason. Baseball Prospectus now has the Astros with a 31.2% chance of making the postseason. FiveThirtyEight still lags behind with a 23% chance of making the postseason.

*Arizona manager Chip Hale:
It was a great baseball game. They just had a bit more firepower and got us in the end...I can't be more proud of our guys' effort coming back in that game.

*Marisnick, on the defensive wizardry of all three outfielders:
We were feeding off each other and having fun. We can all go get it. It's a fun group to play with and nothing they do surprises me.

*Evan Gattis threw out two baserunners last night and is making significant progress behind the plate.  Hinch, who said that Jason Castro is battling the flu, said it's not a platoon system but:
We win when he catches, I like that part. And he's hit the ball very well when he catches, as well.

The Astros are 4-1 when Gattis is behind the plate, and have won the last four Catchis starts.

*Altuve got his 900th career hit last night in his 722nd career game. The last player to reach 900 hits as quickly was Albert Pujols, who needed five fewer games to hit 900.

*Springer made a wicked good play:


*Towards the bottom of this Ken Rosenthal piece, Rosenthal notes that only the Dodgers have gotten less production out of 3B than the Astros, and Alex Bregman could be a late-season option.

*An executive with the Padres called his team "miserable failures."

*What it's like to be Joe Buck.

*Baylor isn't letting incoming freshmen out of their LOIs. Trash.