For the past 7 years, two of the constants of postseason baseball have been the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers. They've been there every year, in good form, roaring down the stretch. Some of them have even found a way in despite worse records, only to propel themselves further than better teams. This is the value of a great organization, and great managing- all you need to do is get close enough and inevitability will do the rest.
But as these 2024 iterations of these teams have all but secured firm spots in the playoffs, there's questions surrounding both of them, especially their durability. Both the Astros and Dodgers have serious injury concerns at the moment.
The Astros were just dealt a very big loss, with an injury to Yordan Alvarez, as well as the reveal that Justin Verlander's poor performance was the result of being rushed back from his IL stint as well. And putting things further into perspective, you realize that this is the sort of thing they've been doing a lot. Earlier this year the Astros came under fire for downplaying Kyle Tucker's injury, which he's now back from but trying his best to make up for lost time from as well. They also probably didn't give the idea that all of Kendall Graveman, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers would be missing the whole season, in addition to, cumulatively, J.P. France and Cristian Javier. If this team had started the season saying 'these six guys are off the table, temper your expectations', then maybe some of the team's terrible April would have been more understandable.
They're very lucky the organizational makeup is so strong, though. Being able to have all those guys hurt and still have Spencer Arrighetti, who had time to come up, struggle and then figure it out, is a luxury most clubs do not have. Even as a rare Houston starter with a negative W/L ratio, he still has 167 Ks, and a number of truly dominant starts, under his belt. This team could have truly struggled without their top starters, and they've still made the playoffs with Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco, Arrighetti and Yusei Kikuchi all stepping up. The Alvarez thing, however big, could end similarly, with the DH role not being a sure black hole on the lineup and the offensive production still coming.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, have even worse rotation injury issues. It's looking like their postseason rotation will consist of Walker Buehler, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Jack Flaherty and Landon Knack. They're...SO LUCKY that those four weren't injured right now. Yamamoto just came off the IL and has been looking very good. Buehler...clearly this is not his best year, he's 1-6 with a 5.63 ERA in 15 starts. The injuries have leveled him a bit, and he's still honestly playing catch-up. And Knack is fine, but he's the untested option comparatively. So between those four guys, I'm not given the same kind of confidence that the 2010s rotations gave. Y'know, Kershaw was still in his prime, Ryu and Greinke were around, Buehler was just coming up. This just feels like 'well hopefully this works', and...I dunno if that's the best way for a 1st place, possibly 1st-seeded team to go about things.
The lineup has been the difference-maker, and between Ohtani, Freeman, Betts, Hernandez and Muncy there hasn't been a ton of issues there. You're now seeing Tommy Edman get a ton more playing time, he's hitting .265 now with 19 RBIs and 6 homers. Somebody like that as a utility bat is an upgrade from Kiké Hernandez and Chris Taylor, who are both having down years. And look, considering that Ohtani's never seen a playoff game before, and he's as hot as he is, there's definitely a possibility that this Dodgers team still overperforms. I just see the limits of the rotation, and the pitching in general, and I'm just not sure.
Both the Astros and the Dodgers could still go far into this playoff season, or they could let their injury issues stop them. Neither team wants this to be a particularly simple October, and they're gonna try and get as much out of this season as possible. It's just a matter of is there gonna be a team that is ready to exploit these flaws?
Coming Tomorrow- Star outfielder for a team that's seriously cooled down in the past two months.
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