Tuesday Morning Hot Links

The Astros sure are tipping their cap to an awful lot of mediocre pitchers this season. The Astros drop another one to the Angels to open the series, 2-1, because they have collectively forgotten how to hit the ball and then make stupid plays on the base path. For example, last night I couldn't watch the game because of an Event, but Bregman's "flies into a double play in foul territory" makes absolutely no sense. Houston is 26-17.

*Record in series-opening games: 8-5. The Astros are 1-3 against Anaheim.

*Lance threw well enough to win, but is still looking for his curve:
That's how it's been so far this year - haven't hit my strike and been grinding. It's frustrating to feel like my other two pitches are so good and the pitch I need and rely on a lot of times is not there, but it started showing up towards the end of the game.

*Jake Kaplan wrote up the silver lining to McCullers' missing curveball.

*The Astros scattered six hits across nine innings, went 1x5 w/RISP, and grounded into two double plays. Top of the 9th:

Springer singled, Bregman flied out to right field foul territory and Springer got aggressive and was thrown out (on a pretty good throw by Kole Calhoun, who is rising at an impressive pace on my most-hated current player list), Altuve singled, then made it to 2nd on a passed ball. Correa was intentionally walked to get to Gurriel, who grounded out to end the game.

Hinch, on Calhoun's throw:
It's not just a good play by Calhoun, it's a great play. He's diving into the stands or at least leaning into the stands, and he was able to clear himself from the fence enough to make a full throw, which is probably why he leads the league in assists in the outfield. He had to make a perfect throw to get him out, and he did.

*Angels starter Andrew Heaney threw a career-high 8IP, 4H/1ER, career-high 10K:1BB. Heaney:
It's good to get a win to start a series against a divisional team, and a team that we think we're going to be fighting tooth and nail with to the end...I think we want to establish that it's not a (surprise) we just won that game. It's (saying) we can beat those guys. We're just as good, if not better than these guys.

"Just as good, if not better than these guys."

*Houston is 4-8 in 1-run games, 0-4 in their last four 1-run games.

*The Astros are still trying to figure out how to pitch to Shohei Ohtani, and will have Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander work on it. Hinch:
He's dangerous for a couple of reasons: One, he can leave the ballpark in any direction and he also has speed. How he's going to handle velocity or how he's going to handle all areas of the strike zone where our guys go will be determined, I guess, over the next couple days.

*Gerrit Cole goes tonight against rookie Jaime Barria, and we'll just see how the Astros have to tip their cap to him later on tonight.

*Rather than holding their draft operations at Union Station, the Astros are moving the War Room to West Palm Beach.

*My computer is being stupid and I gotta get The Heiress' lunch ready, so I'll just tip my cap to the internet and get ready for tomorrow.