Thread 57: Minnesota Twins vs. Houston Astros

Scheduled start time: 7:10 a.m. Central

Weather: It may rain, They have a roof, departure temperature 82°

Opponent’s SB site: The Crawfish Boxes

TV: BS Nord (if available). Radio: It wasn’t a DJ, it was a hazy cosmic jive

Houston starter Ronel Blanco of the Dominican signed with the Astros at age 22. He made his debut in 2022 at age 28 and became a full-time starter last year. He was fine. This year he has been incredible, especially with his slider and changeup.

López, as you know, has been striking out people instead of making them work, but the home run bug is biting him right now. Let’s trade it to Colorado! Cumulative figures:

On August 4, 2017, last-place Toronto began a three-game series at Houston. Trailing by five in the fourth inning, the Blue Jays summoned fringe reliever Mike Bolsinger to get the final out. He did it – after three walks and four hits, including a home run. After the match, he told reporters: “It was like they knew what was going to happen. » The team subsequently released him and he never played in MLB again.

This is the first scene from PBS First line documentary The Astros Edge, broadcast last October and available on YouTube. The title refers to former Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow, who had a favorite phrase “cutting edge” to describe how he thought any organization should be run. Not just at the “limit,” not just by thinking differently, but “at the edge.” A world where high achievers should do anything, and to anyone, to win.

(Luhnow had a background in “management consulting”. Now you are surprised!)

At first The Astros Edge, journalist Ben Reiter (who wrote a book about the scandal) asks Luhnow how he can claim to know nothing. Luhnow says, “I didn’t start it, I didn’t create it, I didn’t approve it, I didn’t budget for it, I didn’t do it, I didn’t do anything, I didn’t raise a budget. finger to make this happen.

This is what those of us who love history call a “foolish response.”

One fascinating moment is Danny Farquhar of the White Sox describing how, in 2017, he heard the can bang, knew something was happening, and quickly summoned the catcher to change his signs. It worked – the clicking stopped. But Houston had already clinched its division at that point and would go on to win the championship.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting you watch all 84 minutes of this RIGHT NOW. But put it on your YouTube “saved for later” list, or bookmark the episode page on PBS.

It’s very good, even if sometimes a little TOO First line-y because of the scandals he describes. After all, the Astros cheated in baseball and didn’t invent Agent Orange. (Although the company that invented Agent Orange also invented…AstroTurf.)

I think it’s worth considering both how this happened and what MLB’s reaction was. Since we’re apparently stuck with the game now, that’s going to lead to cheating scandals. It’s just a matter of time.

As you know, MLB has not punished any Astros players. The team was fined a pittance and forfeited two years of high draft picks. Only Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch were disciplined, each with a one-year suspension. (This is hardly fair, in my opinion, since Hinch hated cheating and destroyed the monitor used on several occasions.)

There is a very interesting, although short, interview in The Astros Edge with former commissioner Fay Vincent, who claims that if he had been in charge, every Astros player would have been banned for life.

Would that have been fair? Or suspensions? This is something each of you will have to decide. (Here’s what Zach decided.)

Mike Bolsinger would eventually sue the Astros for personal damages (he had to play baseball in Japan, where he and his pregnant wife had no friends or family). His case didn’t stand a chance, because there was no way to prove that a guy coming into this game with a 5.49 ERA on the season wouldn’t have been out anyway.

The most interesting part of the lawsuit was demanding that Astros players donate their $31 million in playoff bonuses to charity. Even though this case was also dismissed, it makes a lot more sense to me.

Some season ticket holders sued the Astros because the team’s success had driven up ticket prices. That seems low — although the Astros retaliated against one of them by taking away his minor league tickets that he regularly donated to charity.

Jeff Luhnow sued the Astros for refusing to pay the remainder of his contract. Three months later, both parties would “resolve their differences,” meaning whether they paid him more to leave or simply threatened to sue him, we’ll never know.

At least the scandal probably stopped the Astros from complaining about the need for a new stadium, as teams typically do when their existing stadium is more than 20 years old. Minute Maid Park (I think you all remember what it is used to call) opened in 2000 and cost area taxpayers $250 million (or $442 million in modern dollars). That almost seems cheap, compared to what some teams are charging these days.

Maybe not so cheap for Houstonians, who face a $450 million budget shortfall in the school system. But hey, at least they got a few baseball championships for their money. Or should I say, championships*.

Today’s Musick is inspired by this comment made recently by BH-Baseball:

So many players have been caught cheating and gone unpunished, some going all the way to a world championship (e.g. Astros)…..yet someone like Rose was completely kicked out of MLB for betting on the victory of his own team. Yes, he was arrogant and unlikable, but he didn’t do worse than the Astros or others did. Tim Raines was elected to the HOF, even though he admitted to using cocaine during games and slipping headfirst so as not to break the vial in his back pocket. Steve Howe has been banned for life more than once and allowed to return. And then there’s the whole HOF rejecting players who have never tested positive for a PED, but there is “hearsay evidence” against them.

The song is about the fact that no matter how dirty, mean, just plain horrible, or downright evil he is, every baseball player has SOMEONE who has his back. For example, not every Twin has had a completely perfect record. And I love Matt Stairs’ lyrics.