Tuesday Morning Hot Links

Playoff baseball starts tomorrow! You can tell because engagement on the hot links are very high at the moment. Yesterday's post had the most engagement I've ever gotten, so let's build on that and keep it rolling.

Let's kick off today's post with I have a lot of playoff prediction links that have been released very recently:

ESPN experts (30)
CBS (5)
SI (8)
FiveThirtyEight (1 Computer's Opinion)

And for fun, here are USAToday's predictions of how things go at the start of the season.

In case you didn't have the internet or friends who like baseball, and now you have the internet or still have not found a friend who likes baseball, here is the start times for all the DS games for the weekend.

What you may not have heard is the ump crew for the ALDS, which you can find in *this* link.

Here are 8 "bold predictions" for the playoffs this year, which of course means just say something ridiculous and then if people call you out on it after the fact, you can just say you were just kidding.

The Astros are going into October as the favorites to win it all again.

The Astros are relying on their aces to bring home the hardware this season.

Here is an Astros County original™ about the case for extending Gerrit Cole.

A lot of front office promotions have been happening in the Astros org lately. Read about them here.

Is the window closing for the Astros reign of terror in the American League?

Here are some updates on notable Astros players in the Fall League, including Forrest Whitley.

Carlos Correa met with the family of fallen police officer Sandeep Dhaliwal and offered their family $10,000.

A man donated his ALDS Game 1 tickets he bought to the family of deceased Astros superfan Harold Westfall to try and make their day a little brighter.

Mattress Mack once again has a ton of money on the Houston Astros, and he thinks it's going to pay off.

How does the Astros Director of Player Development Pete Putila handle the stress that comes with the expectations of the team? ($)

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, here is a piece from MLBNetwork talking to Jose Altuve about what his home county of Venezuela means to him.

We all know why we should root for the Astros this year, but here's why we should root for the rematch with the Dodgers.

Pennsylvania is currently infested with large "nightmare bugs" that are attracted to humans and apparently drop a clear and sticky "honeydew" as they fly around. This is making me uneasy just typing this.