Astros right-hander Jose Urquidy will start Game 3 of the American League Championship Series against the Rays, manager Dusty Baker told Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle and other reporters Monday. Urquidy will follow Lance McCullers Jr., who will get the ball in this afternoon’s second game.
Zack Greinke, the Astros’ ace, seems likely to be their choice in Game 4, but Baker’s not quite willing to make that commitment yet, as Mark Berman of Fox 26 tweets. Greinke last pitched Oct. 8, and though he struggled in that game against the Athletics, the Astros still won to close out the ALDS. Greinke battled arm troubles leading up to that contest, but he’s not dealing with any structural damage. With Greinke unavailable Sunday, the Astros turned to Framber Valdez, who pitched well in a 2-1 loss.
Regardless of Monday’s outcome, the Astros will soon lean on the 25-year-old Urquidy, who has been effective during a 14-appearance, 12-start career that began in 2019. While Urquidy missed the first month-plus of this season because of COVID-19, he returned in early September to make five starts and put up 29 2/3 innings of 2.73 ERA/4.71 FIP ball. Urquidy had a difficult outing against the A’s last Wednesday, though, as he yielded four earned runs in 4 1/3 innings.
I hate the Astros bullpen, but they have a nice 1-4 rotation with Javier to piggy-back off of anybody having a down day (which I think will happen to McCullers today). Valdez was the better pitcher yesterday, he was just un-lucky at some points (and Snell was lucky too). Valdez is definatley making up for the loss of Cole and Verlander right now though.
Astros are living on borrowed time right now, thanks in large part to guys like Valdez and Javier stepping up. Outlasted the Yankees, even if they didn’t do the deed themselves. All in all, great season regardless of what happens the next three to four games.
At least the Yankees showed up to do some damage, looks like the Astros ran into a competitive team.
Tampa sweeps. Houston had it easy with Twins / A’s
doesn’t matter, tampa will sweep this the astros. rays win world series in 6
Small sample size, but damn that is a sizeable gap between ERA and FIP for Urquidy.
I think the Devil Rays are the better team but I have to take the Astros seriously now. They played the Twins and nobody thought the Astros would win. When they did, what was your response? Oh man maybe the Twins weren’t that good after all? But I’m sure we all thought the A’s would get them, right? And when that didn’t happen, what do you say? I guess the A’s weren’t that good either? If they WERE to beat the Rays, would we say the same thing as we did with the Twins and then the A’s?
We all laughed and cheered as the Astros looked like pure mediocrity during the regular season because it confirmed the view we all wanted to believe; that the Astros were only good as they were because they cheated to get there but now we are being forced to reevaluate that view because the immediate evidence is to the contrary.
It could just be a quick little hot streak at the right time and if the Devil Rays win in 4 or 5, I’m sure most of us will go back to the comfortable view that we all prefer, but right now, the Astros are making our preferred view a little uncomfortable.
Well, its looking like the Rays have the Astros number.. they’re up 4-1 in the 8th.. Still more games to play, but if the Rays win tomorrow, the Astros will have to pull a BoSox, and i doubt that’ll happen.
Certainly a good start. Let’s go Devil Rays.