Astros need to treat next 3 games like a regular 3 game series. Go get 2 out of 3. Nats have to come back to earth right? They're due a clunker right?
Yes. We all knew Cole would lose a game eventually. We also know Washington will lose a game eventually. It better be Friday.
With eight wins in a row, yes, they are due...even their fans (presuming they have some capable of rational thought) would agree with the notion.
If the Nats win game 3 I will accept them as the team of destiny. If its the will of the Gods it will be done.
If that isn't bulletin board material capable of motivating a team behind in the series, I don't know what is...
If AJ is just now discovering that Will Harris the the star of our bullpen, he's just not paying attention. I have never been a fan of his bullpen management anyway, he should just turn it over to Strom.
Here is a stat that I find interesting. The Nats started off in the first 50 games going 19-31 (pretty amazing that they made the WS, but not my point). That means that over the last 112 games, they went 74-38 which is a winning percentage of .661. If you extrapolate that percentage to an entire 162 game season, you get 107 wins which is exactly what the Astros did. Maybe the Astros should not have been such an overwhelming favorite.
Soooo, something like this tonight? Urquidy: 4 Peacock(maybe): 1 Harris: 1 Smith: 1 Osuna: 1 Possibly even multiple innings Harris again since the entire season quite possibly rests on this one game
Whew! At least we know they are not a team of destiny... And there is STILL no team that has won nine straight in the playoffs... Tonight is a bullpen game for the 'stros, so we need both Pressley AND Devo to be sharp. Urquidy should get the start and hopefully can go four innings...James has the potential to eat a couple of innings and Peacock can hopefully eat a solid inning, although two would be better. Harris and Osuna for the 8th and 9th and hopefully this becomes a best of three...
What the Nats did is very similar to the 2005 Astros...the local media even had the tombstone printed when the Astros started 15-30 that season. Instead of being dead, they went on to go 74-43 to finish the season before laying an egg against the White Sox. Of course, I still believe they got hosed by the ruling from the Commissioner that the games in Houston HAD to be played with the roof open, which negated what was a HUGE home-field advantage... I said before the New York series was even over this year that the Nationals were going to be a challenge regardless of who they were playing in the World Series. The constant chatter about the Astros-Yankees being the 'real' World Series was not only annoying, but demonstrably wrong...
Really impressed by Urquidy. Reminds me of some of the great unexpected pitching in 2017. Edit: Wow! Eligible for the win.
