Wednesday Morning Hot Links

It defies logic. There's no reason a team can lose this many games - this many one run games - to another single team over the course of a season. I don't know how to explain it, so at this point I'm not even going to try. But if you had "Tying run gets on 1st because of a Ken Giles Strikeout/Wild Pitch (cough passed ball cough) followed by RBI triple" then you are a sadist because there is no way to plan for that kind of heartbreak.

Giles:
It was my responsibility to shut the guys down and I didn't do my job today. I take full responsibility for that. I didn't make the pitches when I needed to.

Hinch, on waiting for disaster when playing the Rangers:
We have a lot of intensity in our competitiveness. We have a lot of winning players. To follow the narrative of 'There's doomsday coming' is just not going to be accepted, it's not going to be how it is. They came out and beat us by putting together a really good ninth inning against a really good pitcher and no more than that. We can't replay the games that we've faced these guys, but to concede or to think that something bad is going to happen is garbage.

And that's where you're wrong, A.J. Hinch. Something bad is going to happen. To not be at least aware of it is to fix your fence and hope that a gaggle of ghosts think your house looks nice. If you're not willing to concede that there is some sort of spell at work here between Euless and Houston, then you're missing something.

Hinch:
I've seen and been in some tough ones. This one's pretty hard. We had every chance to win the game and obviously strange things happen when we play these guys.

*This guy was escorted out of Minute Maid, saying in very NSFW terms what we're all thinking.

Hey but Altuve busted out of his slump with a three-hit night. Considering the Astros only had four hits, that's pretty good.

You know who hasn't busted out of a slump yet? George Springer, who is 1x14 with 5K:3BB on this home stand.

WC1/2: Toronto/Baltimore
Detroit: -2
New York: -2
Seattle: -2.5
Houston: -4.5

*FanGraphs: 4.5%.

*Lourdes Gurriuel, Yulieski's younger brother, will hold a showcase today in Panama. And Yuli wants Lourdes in Houston:
Of course I would love for him to sign here. But there's a lot of variables that go into it and a lot of things can change. But yeah, selfishly, I would love for him to sign here. 

*That'll do it for Lancaster's season. The JetHawks were eliminated last night in a 7-2 loss to High Desert...the...Rangers affiliate. /throws computer out the window.

*Here's Ken Hoffman with an update on an actually-viable Astrodome reclamation proposal.

*For the 7th straight year the Hooks' umpires locker room was named the best in the Texas League.

*These two Astros fans...