Wednesday May 2nd

After watching Verlander look so good, our ace gave a dominant performance as well.  Severino threw fastballs at 97-100 mph all night (including hitting 100 in the 9^th), throwing a lot of quality and well-placed sliders at 89-90 and probably about 10 changeups, Luis had the first complete game of his roughly 60 starts!  I also thought the ump favored Houston as Keuchel got calls Severino didn’t.  I thought Severino got 3 calls outside the zone and Houston had 11.  For awhile Severino was throwing more sliders than fastballs, but later on, threw more fastballs.  Not sure what the total breakdown was but I would think that out of the 110 pitches 55 were fastballs and 45 were sliders and 10 were changeups.  I still think his changeup at 89-90 is a little fast, but it worked.  What also worked was that he threw 83 strikes and 27 balls, striking out 10 and walking one on a 3-2 pitch.

Stanton had a great game offensively, hitting an outside fastball the other way for a line drive HR, pulling a slider to left (and yes it was a slider even though Flash called it a cutter twice) on a bullet HR and then hitting another fastball that was a ball outside, the other way for a double.  It was great to see a guy who was just pulling off the ball make that adjustment and have a dominant game.

Torres got a great jump on a broken bat hit over 2^nd base to make a nice running catch.  He has shown excellent range (getting a quick jump) and a strong arm.  He did get picked off on a running catch by Reddick in RF which was not a good baserunning play, but it was a decent catch and great throw to just nab him.  He needs to get a little more patient at the plate, but he is a player.\

Unfortunately, Montgomery is out 6-8 weeks with a strained elbow.  German will take his place in the rotation.

The Houston rotation is pretty darn good.  While Keuchel is 1-5, everything he throws has movement and in different directions.  He also uses all parts of the plate well.  The Houston view from the camera is a cool one where it is as close to directly behind a pitcher as I have seen and it is slightly to the left (most are to the right or 3^rd base side).

20-10 - .667 baseball equates to 108 games.  I would sign up for that!