Posts Tagged ‘Panic Optional’

Coolness Preferred, Panic Optional, Reality Rules

August 10, 2017

Astros drop 2nd straight to White Sox in Chicago
August 9, 2017

 

Look! Most of us in Astros Nation still cling to the notion that we’ve got the best team in the American League right here in the Bayou City. For the moment, however, here on the morning of August 10, 2017, we simply do not have a Cy Young quality ace, a dynamic duo one-two punch, or anything resembling baseball’s version of the three musketeers heading up the frontal assault of our five-man starting rotation.

The Astros just lost their second straight in this three game series with the Chicago White Sox, ending the young club’s own six-game losing streak, but still leaving them with a 43-68 season record, but with sweeter dreams of better days to come in the seasons that lay ahead. The Sox are a bad team with some excellent prospects for a brighter future beyond 2017.

Remember those days?

The Astros, on the other hand, are still an excellent club, with some great in-their-best-moments-now players, but they also are a team on the ropes from injury, exhaustion, and, perhaps, the weight of greater expectations that come to teams that grab the mountaintop early in the season.

Keep cool. This series in Chicago is not the here-and-now last hand of the evening. We can do it, if our recovering injured boys can get well – and rested – and back on top of their mechanics for great performance. Panic by them – or any of us – isn’t going to help a damn thing in any positive way. Panic leads to bad decision-making and sometimes to efforts on the field that set up a greater risk for extended performance mediocrity or re-injury of a still-healing wound. And nobody needs that

Our Astros day – the one that some of us have been waiting for since the start of MLB in Houston – is coming, but the one we’re in right now belongs to us too. And we don’t even have to win a World Series to celebrate the joy of the only day that’s ever guaranteed, at least, in some partial beginning form. – And that’s the one we awaken to each morning.

As the famous oldster saying goes, “Every day I awaken with my head above the sunny side of the grass is a blessing.”

And you shouldn’t wait until you are “old” (whatever you think that is) to find and appreciate that gratitude. Nobody – at any age – has a guarantee.

Enjoy!

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AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST STANDINGS

THRU GAMES OF WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017

RANK AL WEST W L PCT. GB
1 ASTROS 71 42 .628  
2 MARINERS 59 56 .513 13.0
3 ANGELS 57 58 .496 15.0
4 RANGERS 54 59 .478 17.0
5 ATHLETICS 50 64 .439 21.5

 

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST GAME SCORES

THRU GAMES OF WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017

WHITE SOX 7 – ASTROS 1.

MARINERS 6 – ATHLETICS 3.

ANGELS 5 – ORIOLES 1.

RANGERS 5 – Mets 1.

 

AMERICAN LEAGUE BATTING AVERAGE LEADERS

THRU GAMES OF WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 2017

RANK PLAYER TEAM AB H 2B 3B HR BA
1 JOSE ALTUVE HOU 431 157 34 3 17 .364
2 CARLOS CORREA HOU 325 104 18 1 20 .320
3 ERIC HOSMER KC 436 137 22 1 18 .314
4 JOSE RAMERIZ CLE 426 133 34 5 18 .312
5 DIDI GREGORIUS NYY 350 109 17 0 18 .311
6 MARWIN GONZALES HOU 306 95 19 0 20 .310
7 GEORGE SPRINGER HOU 372 115 22 0 27 .309
8 JEAN SEGURA SEA 353 109 20 1 6 .309
9 BEN GAMEL SEA 355 108 20 4 6 .304
10 ANDRELTON SIMMONS LAA 421 128 27 2 11 .304
12 JOSH REDDICK HOU 347 105 25 3 11 .303
19 YULI GURRIEL HOU 388 114 30 0 15 .294
33 ALEX BREGMAN HOU 370 102 29 4 13 .276

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle