Monday Morning Hot Links

Everyone is - rightly - going to focus on the obstruction call that 3B umpire Mike DiMuro made on Alex Bregman, automatically scoring Pollock to provide what would be the go-ahead run. But for God's sake score some runs. It's the 11th time in 36 games (30.6%) that the Astros have been held to 0-1 run.

*Houston was 1x10 w/RISP.

4th inning: Correa on 2nd, one out. Reddick lined out, Bregman popped out.
5th inning: Marwin on 3rd, two out. Springer grounded out to short
6th inning: Altuve at 3rd after a leadoff triple, Correa at 1st after an HBP. Nobody out. Reddick struck out, Bregman GIDPd.
7th inning: Marwin on 2nd, Gurriel on 1st, one out. Gattis struck out, Springer flied out.
9th inning: McCann on 2nd, Gurriel on 1st, one out. Stassi struck out, Springer struck out.

*The Astros outscored Arizona 12-7 and lost two of three. The Astros outhit Arizona 28-12 and lost two of three.

*Houston is hitting .229/.283/.333 in May. They're hitting, as a team, .249/.329/.397 w/RISP.

*On the controversial interference call...

Verlander:
Pollock sold it pretty good. You see this in basketball all the time. Can you call it a flop in baseball? 

Bregman, on Pollock:
Good acting job.

Hinch:
I saw it as a horseshit rule and bad interpretation. You can call obstruction - you have a free pass as an umpire to call obstruction when there's contact. The contact initiated by the baserunner doesn't really do the defender any good. It looked like, to me, everything is happening right on the base. And when the ball got past, they both jump up and Pollock sticks his arm out and hits Bregman and gets a free run.

*Arizona bench coach Jerry Narron held a Spring Training meeting to discuss what to do in this exact instance. Pollock:
It was definitely made a point that this is important, that we need to know the rules and if it comes up we need to be able to execute and do it the right way. It certainly factored into what I was doing, the fact that we had that meeting.

"Do it the right way." "What I was doing." Pollock knows what's up.

*Check out Jexas' Arizona series recap.

*Verlander's 8Ks now move him to 33rd on MLB's all-time strikeout list, tied with Don Drysdale.

*Evan Gattis is hitting .186/.263/.279. Since going 3x4 on April 1 he's 11x71 with two extra-base hits, 24K:5BB, a .155/.221/.211 slash line on a .217 BABIP.

Gattis has caught 231 Major League games and is a lifetime .270/.322/.537 hitter when he's behind the place. He has been the DH in 263 Major League games and is a lifetime .233/.285/.414 hitter - a 160-point OPS difference. I think, for Gattis to be a productive hitter, he needs to be catching and keep his head in the game. I don't think he's getting enough PAs regularly to find a rhythm, but there's nowhere for him to get regular PAs, other than DH.

*The Ringer: The entire Astros rotation deserves the Cy Young.

*JJ Matijevic has a dog named Jeter and is a huge Lebron fan.

*Bloomberg: The gambler who cracked the horse-racing code.