August 21, 2018: The Houston Astros defeated the Seattle Mariners in Seattle, 3-2. They did it in spite of setting a club all time record by hitting into six (6) double plays in a nine inning game.
Ode to The 2018 Astros
(singable to the tune of an ancient
Doublement Gum commercial)
Double your pleasure!
Double your fun!
But don’t watch ~ their ballgames,
If YOU ~ have “the runs”! 😦
********************
Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
August 22, 2018 at 1:12 pm |
Means they have a lot of baserunners and they also make a lot of contact and a lot of hard contact at that.
August 22, 2018 at 1:46 pm |
Granted, but it also means that in last night’s game, on a record six different occasions, the Astros couldn’t take advantage of major scoring opportunities because one hitter or another in each instance could not do more than hit the ball into tailor-made double play chance-killing conclusions to any big scoring frames. We were lucky to eek out a win in a game that could have been an Astros runaway. Credit to the Ms for making wins over them beyond tough, Last night was our first over Seattle in the last six tries.
August 23, 2018 at 1:29 pm |
When you have a low strikeout rate and you put the ball in play a lot, and you hit the ball hard, you’re going to hit into more double-plays. It’s just a fact of life that goes with being good at making contact.
The Astros are 77-50, but their Pythagorean expected W-L record is 87-40. The best analytics in the world can’t compensate for the the ultimate imponderables of baseball between the lines, which is why Yogi’s observation that “In baseball, you never know”, is timeless.