Well folks the Astros won again. They're 28-12 - 14-6 both at home and on the road - after beating the piss out of the Marlins last night, 12-2. If the Astros win today (11:10am in the series finale against Miami) they'll be 17 games over .500 for the first time since the end of the 2004 season.
*Matt Young notes that the Astros are the first AL team since the 2007 Boston Red Sox, and the 18th AL team in the last 50 years, to start 28-12.
*Keuchel was pulled after 5IP and 70 pitches thrown, with a 10-2 lead. Keuchel:
I don't like to pitch five innings, but if there's a big lead and I've got a chance to get a win, I'll take that. I'm on pace for a lot of innings, so today was a good chance to save a few bullets.
*Hinch:
I've been looking for a time to get him out of there. We've had him out there so deep into games. We had a comfortable lead, I had a couple of guys that were really ready to pitch.
*Jake Marisnick had his first 2HR game and Marlins Park becomes the stadium with his 2nd-highest career HR total, with three (one as a Marlin, two last night). His first career home run came on July 31, 2013 as a Marlin, against the Mets. Marisnick:
I hadn't been feeling great, so to go out there and slow things down, get a good pitch to hit, put a good swing on it, it felt good.
*Lance McCullers will get the start today as the Astros look to get their first three-game sweep of the season. McCullers was good friends with late Marlins ace Jose Fernandez:
It was always our goal, always our dream to make it. So it's a little bit surreal being here and him not being here. I don't know what it'll be like when I pitch. But I have to do my job at the same time.
*Charlie Morton is trying to figure out what's going wrong as he gets deep into games. Jake Kaplan notes that 14 of the 20 runs Morton has allowed have come against hitters seeing him for the 3rd time in the game. Morton:
It's like you go from one extreme to the other. It's frustrating.
*James Hoyt has struck out 18 of the 32 batters he has faced this season. Hoyt:
Last year in the taste of big league action I had I still had more strikeouts than innings pitched (28K, 22IP), so there was a sign there. I just knew I could do better.
*The Astros released Fresno's Keegan Yuhl and Corpus' Michael Freeman. Yuhl was the Astros' 35th Round pick in the 2014 draft, but had allowed 38H/34ER, with 13K:15BB in 19.2IP. Freeman is a little more surprising - he was the Astros' 7th Round pick in 2015 - and in 20IP had allowed 21H/7ER, with 14K:16BB for Corpus.
*The Astros are #1 in MLB.com's Power Rankings
*ESPN: Astros have a chance at the best double-play combo ever
*Men's Fitness: How Carlos Correa became baseball's fittest shortstop
*Ken Rosenthal, who shed many a tear and fretted oh-so-many times over the Astros' rebuilding, now says the Marlins need to do the same thing.
*Jeff Sullivan: It's kind of amazing the Rangers are where they are.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
