McCullers of the Wind

The Astros are losing games. Isn't it great?

The Astros had already lost Yordan Alvarez and Jose Urquidy to injuries, and now George Springer, Justin Verlander, Roberto Osuna and Aledmys Diaz are all hurt. McCullers and Greinke are left in the rotation, and neither is  at peak form. And now the Astros are just trying anything  that works. Framber Valdez? Sure. A rookie pitcher like Cristian Javier? Give him a shot.

The puzzling thing is that Houston  is beginning to give the next generation a shot as the majority of the old guard, Altuve and Bregman and Correa, are still there. It's similar to the Cubs bringing up Contreras in 2016, but...this has more of an age disparity. It's nice  that most of the bullpen arms this year have been rookies, and some have been pretty good, like Blake Taylor and Enoli Paredes, but the fact that the Astros are going to this method this soon, while a lot of its core players are still here and in their prime...is suspect.

A rejection of the core is kind of expected in 2020, as a lot of the core Astros, like Altuve, Josh Reddick and Yuli Gurriel were key players in the sign-stealing year, and so it's at least nice that  the Astros want to put  that behind  them...but doing  this now, while all these guys are still with the team and still hitting, is odd. I don't think it's a complete attempt to move on, as these guys  aren't really in  danger of losing their jobs, but the bullpen might be the first step of a team revamp, especially if this team doesn't do well this year. And so far, the A's are doing great, and the Astros are 6-6 in 2nd place.

Could this be one of the last  hurrahs of the great Astros team? Or will this team continue to be clueless about  how to punish its players fo cheating?

Coming Tomorrow- It is 2020, and the Rockies rotation isn't terrible. Nor is the guy I was worried would be a fluke after his 2019 season tanked.