Thursday Morning Hot Links

I know you're upset. I'm not happy. But in trying times like these, meaning "a team who has lost four games in a row for the first time in a season in which they have played 75 games" and "a team that has played most of the last month without Altuve, Springer, and Correa, and Altuve and Correa's backup and still has a lead that could hold up if they lost for another week straight, provided the Ramgers also won every game for the next week" it brings me solace to remember the following dates:

August 8-10, 2017.
September 8-10, 2017.

On August 8-10, 2017 the Astros got swept by the White Sox, who would go on to lose 95 games. On September 8-10, 2017 the Astros got swept by the A's, who would go on to lose 87 games. That was the last time the Astros got swept on the road, by the by. We've seen the Houston Astros have a few bad days in a row. It is June. Altuve just came back. Springer is on his way. Correa's dumbass broke head ass rib is still dumb and broke.

Let's chill out a little bit. The Reds are Not Terrible. Run Differential says they should actually be well over .500. They are expected to be a 79-80 win team this year, and the NL Central is competitive.

*The Astros are in their first four game losing streak since the 2018 ALCS. Before that, it was an L5 from August 9-14, 2018. Houston has now lost three 1-run games in a row, something they had not done since May 19-21, 2016.

*Houston got seven hits and one walk. Their three walks in the last two games are the fewest in a two-game stretch since May 22-23, when they walked three times against the White Sox...and lost both of those games.

*The Astros lost their first game of the season when they were leading after eight innings, moving now to 45-1. Hinch:
If you do enough things wrong or don't do enough, you're going to lose at this level, and we did a lot of both. Today's game was very winnable. I've said that a couple of times in a row now, so very disappointing, yeah.

Way to go, guys. You disappointed Cool Uncle A.J. Nick Senzel, who had the game-winning run, on Osuna:
Thank God [Osuna] had no clue what was going on when the throw was made. I think he thought the game was over or something. I don't know what was going on...It was a bad throw, the catcher's glove came off, Osuna - I don't know what he was doing.

Osuna "didn't see it."

*Gerrit Cole threw 6IP, 6H/1ER, 8K:3BB. Cole:
We're trying not to get swept here. It's a pretty important game from that standpoint. I was just doing everything I could to hold it where it was at and just try to give us the best chance. We made a lot of good pitches today for the most part. They were able to put the ball in play a few times, and it went their way. 

It's the 6th time in 16 starts in 2019 that Cole has allowed 0-1 earned runs. Houston is 4-2 in those games.

*Roberto Osuna allowed 3H/2R (1ER) and blew his fourth save opportunity of the season, in 31 appearances.

*This very current/present Astros offense let Reds SP Tyler F. Mahle throw 7IP, 4H/2ER, 7K:1BB. He had never recorded 21 outs in a single start before yesterday. This series is the literal dumbest series of the year. He had a 4.33 ERA / 4.20 FIP coming into the game. The Astros were 3x16 w/RISP in this series.

*Jose Altuve was 0x4 with a GIDP in his first MLB game since May 10. It's his 10th 0x4 of the 2019 season. He had 20 0x4 games in 2018.

*Very Costly Error aside, Michael Brantley was 3x4. It's his 5th 3-hit game of 2019. The Astros are 3-2 in those games, and you have to go back to Tuesday to find the last game the Astros lost when Brantley had three hits. It's his first back-to-back 3-hit games since August 2015, when he did it three times in a row. He had seven of the Astros' twenty hits in this God-forsaken series.

*Tyler White was 1x3 with a walk. His OPS has gone from .581 to .695 in the last two weeks. A .695 OPS is not what you want in a DH/1B/MLB Player, but he's had a decent couple of weeks. Hi, RB.

*Chandler Rome has the takeaways from the Reds series. There's also this article from Rome on the seven-man bullpen and possible position player configurations in the next week.

*George Springer and Joe Smith officially begin their rehab assignments in Corpus today.

*Jake Kaplan: What to make of the lack of production from 1B.

*The Yankees are looking for some revenge as the Astros come to town for a four-game set. Luke Voit:
That's one of the powerhouses in baseball. I'm excited to face those guys again after losing and getting swept by them earlier in the year. It will be a playoff atmosphere. 

*Max Scherzer balled out with a broken nose and a black eye.

*The Attorney General of the Dominican Republic says the Ortiz shooting was a case of "mistaken identity" because no one in the DR knows who David Ortiz is.

*Fear, Texts, and Bodyguards: What It's Like to be a Venezuelan MLB Player with family back home.

*SBNation has an NBA Draft Scouting Report Generator that is very fun. Regarding my own scouting report, I have "the wingspan to be the Number One pick, but scouts say trash tweets could be an issue." This cuts me deeply.

*A Musical Selection: