How Lance McCuller Jrs strong season IMPACTS the Houston Astros playoff plans?

Should Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers be the Astros #2 starter in the ALDS? ESPN Houston’s Jake Asman and Cody Stoots discuss on The Wheelhouse…

Oh that’s a good outside corner larry vanover calls it a strike but colors dots it up there is a strikeout number three getting rhys hoskins to start inning number six and he gets him all of a sudden the swings and misses are piling up here and what could be lance’s final inning got him what a way to finish lance mccullers jr has people standing on his way off the

Mound he strikes down hoskins harper real muto six innings a one-run baseball for lance tonight stros at four right here on the wheelhouse astros get a great performance from lance mccullers last night they didn’t win the game but the game means nothing for the astros i meant everything for the phillies who wanted clinched a playoff spot for the first time since

2011 they had the longest drought in baseball because the mariners of course also clinched the playoff spot over the weekend so the phillies are in the story here though cody is lance mccullers what’d you think of lance last night he went out there and he rebounded from a first inning solo shot and had a spectacular performance in front of the fans at minute maid

Park and this guy this guy threw one bad pitch basically that was it and his whole start like lance mccullers has had a fantastic return from injury i know that the opponents have not been of the utmost incredible quality but for lance to put together what he has put together over the course of this season he checks in right at eight starts which is what we talked

About uh that he would get to uh based on when he was coming back and he’s displayed basically everything i need to see from lance mccullers the guy has looked a lot like the lance mccullers from last year and maybe even better in some of those different spots his season era is lower than it was last year when he was the second lowest dra in the american league he’s

Put together some nice strikeout numbers he still has walks which that’s part of the lance mccullers experience he’s going to walk people but when you look at his season to this point i know it’s only eight starts and i know it’s not the most impressive opponents that he’s taken care of but he has the second highest era plus of any of the starters on the team an

Era plus takes out ballpark factors and just basically how did the pitcher perform when you take out the ballpark and it’s only behind justin verlander as far as era plus on this team it’s a really solid season or literally saw a regular season from lansing mccullers and now it sets up for him to be a key aspect of this team come playoff time so he was sales again

Last night he’s been excellent since returning to the rotation given his performance given his playoff track record should he be the number two starter in the postseason i do believe he should be number two and i talked about this with the killer bees earlier today in the broadcast showed it last night in the game lance mcculler says the second best home era of

Any pitcher that is called minute maid park home ever verlander has the best and then mccullers has the second best including playoffs and this year alone his era at home is much better than his era on the road and when you factor that in with robert valdez’s success on the road compared to home there’s a solid argument to be had that justin verlander should be the

First starter that goes out there lancel color should be the second starter and farmer valdez should be the third starter in this upcoming playoff rotation that’s a again if you want to play to exactly what those guys do best last record pitch is better at home farmer pitch is better on the road the 2-3 swap it avoids the two guys that are least economical with

Their pitches of the four starters with mccullers and and christian javier being split up by fromber valdez gives you the off day after mccullers is sec uh start in game two in case you do need to go to the bullpen after lance in that game i really like the idea of lance being the number two starter and i like the idea of if verlander has success as sort of that

Power pitcher you go power pitcher again at home and then they get the change up that is from bur you know the very much the ground ball guy the curveball guy it’ll beat you with a surprising fastball if you let him i like that that swap and then they gotta go beat fromber when he’s better on the road whatever their ballparking i think because of how significant

The home road splits are you play kate to your guy’s strengths if you can and the idea of going verlander in game one but colors in game two and i always believe and i think joe torrey hall of fame manager said this before as well game three you could argue is the most important game of any series it’s the swing game in the series for down02 you’re saving your

Season if you’re up 2-0 it could be the closeout game this is specifically talking about the alds in this case yep if you’re tied 1-1 statistically i think the winner of game three wins the series like 70 of the time so i like the idea of having fromber who’s been nails in big games in big road games kind of being the guy you could give the ball to in that spot

And since lion’s pitch is better at home i kind of think it is a no-brainer verlander mccullers thrombos should be one two and three in the rotation throw javier there and four if you need game four and if you need game five oh look who’s ready look who’s ready to go it’s justin verlander if you need game five it makes a lot of sense to me i i would be interested

To know um if that is something that is of intense focus by the pitching staff and the pitching coaches of miller and murphy to see if that is something that they desperately want to do look if you want to make the argument hey farmer valdez has earned every opportunity to be the number two starter i would listen to it but just if this is not some small sample size

This is not just some small data point like we’re talking about a full point of era for lance mccullers and we’re talking about i think one and a half points of era for thrombo valdez in the home road splits it’s a significant element of what they are successful doing so maximize that and let’s see what the astros can do now does it shoehorn you into making sure

That that’s exactly how you do it in the next series you know certainly that affects part of the conversation that you would have or that you need to have is hey we want to do it this way for the ds does doing it this way for the ds make us have to do it this way for the cs when we get there that’s a conversation that has to but there’s a really good argument for

Lance to go too especially with playoff success that he’s had it’s a really good argument for lance to go to and then fromer on the road for game three and really square it away that way so justin verlander is on the mound tonight and we’re in the middle of strolls at four here on the wheelhouse no bk today he is off for the jewish holidays of yom kippur and he’ll

Be back with us on thursday you look at the lineup tonight cody with verlander on the bump something i noticed you know who’s in center field tonight it’s not mauricio dubai it is not dubon it’s chaz mccormick i believe tonight is game one’s lineup altuve leading off playing second pena batting second playing short jordan in the three spot dh bregman in the four

Spot a third tucker batting fifth and right julie batting sixth at first diaz in left batting seventh mccormick batting eighth playing center field and martin maldonado catching batting knife behind the plate this very well could be the game one lineup i believe this is the lineup you will see in game one of the alds with justin verlander on the mound and chaz

Mccormick getting the start in center field he’s a much better offensive player than mauricio dubon the defensive metrics are not that different jasmine mccormick actually last year was one of the better defensive center fielders and certainly that was a a plus that he had so i believe the lineup we’re seeing tonight is the lineup we will see in the alds maldonado

Is going to start julie’s going to start and diaz is my preference in left field over train mancini right now what do you think of jordan in the three spot protecting jeremy pena in the two spot i like jordan in the in the three spot i really do you you talk about this all the time some of the best sitters in baseball it’s not it’s you used to be just throw that guy

Four and it’s not what you do anymore you move that guy up in the lineup well you don’t want to bat yordon too that doesn’t make a lot of sense but batting in three with two guys in front of him and jeremy payne has been red hot over the past week i think he’s hitting over 300 in the past week he’s had a really solid month of offensive production as well if that

Guy’s going to be a solid offensive contributor from that two spot without tuve leading off you should have plenty of ducks on the pond for yard on alvarez and then alex bregman’s ability to drive those guys in if they’re going to pitch around yardan that’s you okay pitch around jordan you got alex pregnant coming up behind him then you got the power behind kyle

Tucker right there behind bregman i really like that that setup obviously if there was a chance you could find something else at first base besides julie gariel that’d be great it doesn’t seem like there’s a guy that they trust to play first base besides julie gariel so look he’s going to be that guy and then let miss diaz after julie should yuli have one of those

Zombie weeks or zombie two-week stretches where he’s old yuli for a little while um then yeah like i like this lineup a lot i believe this will be the lineup for the majority the majority 30 of the playoffs as well 713-780 espn is the phone number if you want in on the conversation verlander i think is already going to be the american league cy young award as long

As he doesn’t give up like 10 earned runs tonight i think it’s it’s already locked up so joel was saying that uh here’s a chance to finish under the 1.86 era mark that hadn’t happened in a in a long time uh in major league baseball it’s i guess it’s been a few years or something like that since somebody’s had that that type of era mark where they finish real low

Where verlander has the chance to go his era right now is 1.80 yeah so a 10 run outing would be very bad for the 1.80 era well like from her had that brutal outing that really inflated his hero right from like a 2-3 to was it like a 2-9 now yep something like that so not gonna get to 20 wins has a chance to put 18 on here and 18 18 wins and a 1.80 era yeah that

That’ll win you the cy young most years that’ll win you that’s not young most years and he easily would have eclipsed 20 wins if they didn’t go to the six-man rotation there you go the sixth man and he didn’t have two weeks off for his first calf as well which i truly believe will end up being a blessing in disguise yeah come back and just look just as good if

Not better yep and he got that rest when he’s coming up tommy john as great as he’s been you’re still keeping him fresh for the playoffs i think that will end up being a blessing in disguise in 2019 he was not regular season verlander in the world series and the latter part of the playoffs so a little break there to have him fresh for the entire playoff run fresh

For everything there you go cody with the c tweeted us not to be confused with cody stoots who spells it with a a c actually this doesn’t make any sense because the guy spelled to cody with a c yet his name is spelled with a cat i don’t know anyhow this is a tweet it seems like he’s done this on purpose to confuse people like you and it’s worked yep i used to

Call him good job c roger kroger’s h-town but you guys yelled at me for that one c rogers he tweet of those hasn’t been discussed much in any circles i’m in but correa’s absence now feels more significant with the playoffs about the start what do you all think look i mean jeremy payne just going to obviously be compared to carlos correa but i don’t think if the

Astros fail to win a championship it’s gonna be because oh carlos correa is not here i think they have enough around the rest of the team besides pena where this team doesn’t win i don’t think we’re gonna be sitting here being like oh it’s because they didn’t bring back carlos correa jeremy pena’s last 15 days or so last month or so of baseball if he does that

And continues to have a solid glove at shortstop that’ll be more than enough production from jeremy pena more than enough from jeremy pena i gave this stat last week jeremy pena defensive runs saved above average 15 as a rookie korea’s best season ever was 20 in that same statistic pain has been phenomenal with the leather this year and over the past month or so

He’s been hitting much better as well in october which has only been a couple days he’s in 400. like if this guy’s going to be a contributor on offense there was long stretches where he wasn’t he was an issue on offense if he’s going to contribute at an average level on offense that is a huge addition to what the astros are hoping to accomplish those playoffs

Are different for everyone we’ll see how pain you handles it but i think at this point it’s fair to say this team has not miss carlos correa at least in the regular season here they are with the best record in the american league now you know jeremy pena comes up with a bunch of guys in scoring position can’t get a big hit all right then there’s a conversation that

The uh the postseason king that carlos correa seemed to be on a regular occasion uh you’d be missing him but right now i’m not missing carlos correa he’s too busy trying to figure out uh what team’s gonna pay on the worthiness of a dior store yeah who’s gonna go shopping at the dior off-season for carlos correa 713-780 espn’s the numbers going to weigh in on the

Astros conversation he’s cody stutes my name is jake aspen with a wheelhouse here taking you till seven congratulations you did it you made it through another one of my videos look if you’re a houston sports fan what are you waiting for subscribe to my channel right now like this video plus listen to the wheelhouse the show that you just watched on youtube you can

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How Lance McCuller Jr's strong season IMPACTS the Houston Astros playoff plans!? By Jake Asman