Hyperbolic and reactionary? Perhaps. It’s incredibly difficult to assess trades generally, and particularly challenging to do so during the season in which they were carried out. Often times there are piles of money, long-term contracts, teenage hopefuls, and other such butterfly wing flaps standing in the way of a swift assessment.
But on this night, with just 29 games (30, if you’re the Astros) remaining in the regular season, I feel okay calling this one for Seattle.
Kendall Graveman’s contract will expire at the end of this year. Abraham Toro isn’t arb eligible until 2023, and won’t be a free agent until 2026. Presently, the two of them have perfectly mirrored fWAR for the season.
Abraham Toro’s split-season fWAR as of 8/31
Kendall Graveman’s split-season fWAR as of 8/31
I know this isn’t how fWAR works, but personally I feel like Toro added another full win to his 2021 tally tonight on the merits of, well, literally winning this game for his team. At the same time, with tonight’s victory, the Mariners handed Graveman his first official loss of the year, and are now responsible for five of the nine earned runs he’s given up throughout this entire season.
Perhaps Graveman will be a world-beater for the Astros in their inevitable postseason appearance. Maybe, if the fates are particularly cruel and the NL West inexplicably lackluster, he’ll get the save to seal a World Series victory. It’ll sting for Mariners fans, but then Graveman will be a free agent. Meanwhile, Seattle has years of quality at-bats like this to look forward to:
Not to be lost in the Grand Salami fixin’s was Yusei Kikuchi’s transcendent start this evening. Seven innings, four hits, no runs, two walks and four strikeouts. The key? First pitch strikes (duh) and quasi-banishing his pesky cutter in favor of an otherworldly fastball.
Yusei Kikuchi puts the finishing touch on his sixth scoreless inning by dialing up some speed to cover first in time with Yuli Gurriel charging.
He’s faced 23 batters and thrown 20 first-pitch strikes. pic.twitter.com/bJLdqNvjww
— Daniel Kramer (@DKramer_) September 1, 2021
Kikuchi said he knew there was something different with his fastball the first pitch of the game. He’s been working on a lot of things regarding mechanics, timing and balance and said it all clicked today.
— Jen Mueller (@JenTalksSports) September 1, 2021
That cutter did make a few appearances tonight, but looked markedly different than it had in previous starts with unexpected arm-side movement that resident pitching analyst Mikey Ajeto chalked up to “idk its [sic] spin direction has just shifted”. Whatever the case – and hopefully others more knowledgeable than I will dig deeper into these changes – it makes Kikuchi’s next start a can’t-miss event.
Though at this point, with the team just 3.5 games back from a Wild Card spot, on the very cusp of September, and with the near-constant threat of Chaos Ball, each Mariners game is a can’t-miss event. And that’s pretty darn neat.
LOS ANGELES — The cheers kept getting louder, more exuberant, more prolonged. And so Clayton Kershaw turned to Max Scherzer and told him what had quickly become obvious.
“Give ’em what they want.”
Throughout his 14-year major league career — a career that includes three Cy Young Awards, two no-hitters and one World Series championship — Scherzer had never received a curtain call. Not one he could remember, at least. But he got one on Wednesday night, in his Los Angeles Dodgers debut, after limiting the formidable and abhorred Houston Astros to two runs over seven sterling innings in a 7-5 victory.
At the behest of Kershaw, another three-time Cy Young Award winner, Scherzer spilled out of the third-base dugout, tapped the front of his new cap and saluted a sold-out crowd of 52,274 with an extended right arm, a fitting apex to a superlative first impression.
“You live for this,” Scherzer said. “You live to pitch in front of 50,000 people going nuts.”
Scherzer scattered five hits, walked one batter and accumulated 10 strikeouts — three of which came against Jose Altuve, delighting what registered as the largest crowd to watch a 2021 baseball game for the second straight night.
The 37-year-old right-hander threw his fastball an average of 95.2 mph, a full tick faster than his previous high this season. The adrenaline coaxed from a raucous atmosphere certainly helped spark that, but Scherzer also attributed the increase to fully recovering from the triceps injury that prompted him to skip a start leading up to the trade deadline.
Scherzer generated 10 swings and misses with that fastball, but it was an effective curveball, he said, that opened everything up.
“From the moment I got to the ballpark, we got to the ballpark, you could just see that elevation, anticipation from our guys,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “The buzz in the crowd from the first pitch, him taking the mound, donning the Dodger [home uniforms] for the first time — he delivered. He delivered. Just the intensity. It was so much fun. And it was just really cool to see the crowd smell it and want him to finish that seventh inning.”
Scherzer returned to the dugout in the middle of the sixth inning after having thrown 89 pitches, but Roberts offered up only encouragement at that point. Scherzer had retired 17 of 20 batters since giving up a first-inning home run to Michael Brantley and Roberts didn’t necessarily think twice about letting Scherzer come back out for the seventh, even though the Dodgers will heavily rely on him over these next couple months.
Scherzer began the seventh with a leadoff walk to Kyle Tucker, who later cut the Astros’ deficit in half with a ninth-inning two-run homer off Kenley Jansen. But Scherzer made quick work of Robel Garcia and Jason Castro. On his 109th pitch, which matched his season high, Scherzer got pinch-hitter Chas McCormick, his last batter, to swing through a 96-mph fastball, completing seven innings for the seventh time this season and dropping his ERA to 2.75.
“With everything on the line, the way the crowd was — that was a high-adrenaline start, coming here,” Scherzer said. “Try not to do too much. Just pitch my game, go out there and do what I can do, and just try to navigate the lineup. The offense tonight went off.”
Scherzer benefited from two home runs by Mookie Betts and another from AJ Pollock, but it was his outing that spoke volumes about what he can contribute moving forward.
The Dodgers — 65-44 but still 3 1/2 games behind the first-place San Francisco Giants in the National League West — are suddenly in a bind with their starting pitching. Trevor Bauer is fighting sexual-assault charges that have seemingly left his season — and, thusly, his Dodgers career — in jeopardy. Kershaw is nursing forearm inflammation that has kept him out since early July and is not currently throwing. Neither is Tony Gonsolin, who is on the injured list with shoulder inflammation. And Danny Duffy, acquired from the Kansas City Royals last week, might not be available until September.
Those concerns were at the crux of the motivation behind sending an impressive package of prospects to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Scherzer and All-Star shortstop Trea Turner last week. The Dodgers’ desperate need for starting-pitching depth was illustrated earlier on Wednesday with the signing of four-time All-Star Cole Hamels, who has made only one start since the beginning of the 2020 season and is still in the process of building arm strength.
But Scherzer is the one the Dodgers will rely on in October.
“We need to get there first,” Roberts pointed out, “and he’s a very big part of that process.”
Houston police identified the suspect in a road rage shooting incident that left a teenager dead more than three weeks ago after a Houston Astros game.
“That’s the face of the man who right now police believe killed my son,” Paul Castro said of Gerald Wayne Williams, 31, who is accused of shooting and killing his son, 17-year-old David Castro on July 6. “It just hurts.”
HOUSTON ASTROS FAN, 17, SHOT IN HEAD WHILE RIDING HOME FROM GAME, HAS DIED, FATHER SAYS
The Houston Police Department identified Williams Friday, releasing a photo of him on Twitter and offering an up to $10,000 reward for tips that lead to his arrest.
He is accused of shooting 17-year-old David Castro in the head as he sat in the passenger’s seat of his father’s pickup truck while leaving an Astros game the evening of July 6.
Williams allegedly followed the pickup truck after he and David Castro’s father exchanged gestures that traffic was not moving following the game.
HOUSTON TEEN ON LIFE SUPPORT WITH HEAD GUNSHOT WOUND FOLLOWING ROAD RAGE INCIDENT
“Whatever offense he took to me or my vehicle, was murdering my son and possibly spending the rest of his life in jail, was that worth it?” Paul Castro asked after his son’s death.
Paul Castro called 911 shortly after the shooting, and David Castro was taken to the hospital where he succumbed to the injuries.
“I found out after they murdered my son, he kept chasing us. After he murdered my son, he continued the chase. I was driving 100 miles an hour to get away from them and it wasn’t good enough. That person is dangerous,” Paul Castro said earlier this month.
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“There’s the David-sized hole in my heart and there’s a David-size hole in this world,” he added. “David was a giver. He’s a son of Houston. He was born and raised here.”
Paul Castro has praised the police for their handling of the investigation and characterized Williams’s alleged violence towards his son as cowardly.
“Right now, he’s in hiding,” Paul Castro said. “He should go ahead and man up. He shot my son in the back of the head. That’s not exactly manly behavior. He should man up now, turn himself in, so nobody else gets injured.”
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Houston police have charged a suspect after a road rage shooting killed a 17-year-old following an Astros game earlier this month.
Police said 34-year-old Gerald Wayne Williams is charged with murder in the shooting death of David Castro during a road rage incident on July 6.
As of Friday, Williams has not been arrested, and Crime Stoppers are offering a $10,000 reward leading to his arrest.
A records search by Eyewitness News showed Williams was convicted in 2008 of two counts of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, resulting in a 13-year prison sentence. He was released in last October.
Before the 2008 conviction, Williams was charged for robbery in three hold-ups of Family Dollar stores, documents state.
In a statement shortly after HPD’s publicly identified the suspect, Paul Castro, David’s father, applauded investigators, but acknowledged that the work isn’t finished.
“Our family is thankful for Chief (Troy) Finner and his detectives who have worked tirelessly to identify this suspect,” Paul said. “We ask Houston and the community to help in finding the suspect so he can be brought to justice.”
Just last week, police released a new video showing the suspected gunman’s vehicle in the streets of downtown Houston, in their effort to track down David Castro’s killer.
SEE ALSO: 13 Investigates increase in game day crime near Astros stadium
According to police, the vehicle is 2011-2013, white, four-door Buick LaCrosse CXL premium with round fog lights and 7-spoke rims.
SEE ALSO: Dad to wanted gunman: Does hand gesture ‘require you to execute’ my son?
One video from police showed the suspect’s vehicle downtown on Rusk and Chartres, while a second angle showed him driving through the intersection of Chartres and Commerce.
An ABC13 viewer said they ran across an online sales advertisement for a car that looked like the same one in the video.
After flagging the ad, our reporters helped that viewer turn the tip over to authorities.
ABC13 reporter Mycah Hatfield said, “It’s not to any credit of Steve [Campion] or mine. It’s 100% credit to viewers watching our newscasts who are engaged and who want to help reaching out with this information.”
Court documents show that the tip may have led investigators to the seller who then helped lead them to Gerald Williams.
Williams matches the physical description that the 17-year-old’s father gave sketch artist Lois Gibson.
“I’ve been doing this 39 years,” Gibson said. “I’m the best person to talk to if you’ve been through something terrible, and Paul realized it.”
Gibson was traveling when she heard the news about police identifying a suspect. She said her skill plus Paul’s determination made a perfect match.
“I have witnesses that want to get justice, and Paul was gut ripped,” she said. “He wanted to get this guy caught so bad. More than most people. I don’t blame him.”
Paul and his two sons were leaving the Astros game when they encountered the suspect on Chartres near Preston, police said.
RELATED: 17-year-old dies after being shot in the head while driving home from Astros game
The father said the driver tried to get in front of him in traffic.
“This guy, he was so close to me that he was almost chipping the paint on my truck,” Paul recalled. “I kept moving forward and that’s when he leaned out [of his car,] I was like, ‘I’ve already let three people in.’ That’s my hand gesture. That hand gesture got my son executed and that’s not fair.”
The suspect followed the family onto I-10 East and took the Wayside exit along with them. Detectives said the man fired several times at the Castro family’s truck as they made a U-turn under the East Freeway. He continued following them onto I-10 headed west but veered away at some point.
Paul’s son, 17-year-old David, was shot in the head. The father and his other son were not injured. David died just a few days after he was put on life support following the shooting.
SEE ALSO: Father donates teenage son’s organs after deadly road rage shooting
For developments on this story, follow Mycah Hatfield on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Saturday night at Minute Maid Park, the New York Yankees and Houston Astros continued their three-game series wrapping up the first half of the season. The Yankees won Friday’s opener behind spot starter Nestor Cortes Jr. (NYY 4, HOU 0).
There is no love lost between these two clubs, who have been frequent postseason opponents in recent years. The Astros eliminated the Yankees in the 2015 AL Wild Card Game, the 2017 ALCS, and the 2019 ALCS. Yankees fans booed Houston relentlessly in response to the sign-stealing scandal when they visited New York in May.
Saturday’s game was a riveting pitcher’s duel and one of the most entertaining games of the 2021 season. The Yankees won the game 1-0 to clinch the series victory (box score). Here are four takeaways from Saturday’s game.
Judge appeared to mock Altuve
Aaron Judge drove in Saturday’s only run with a solo home run onto the train tracks in left field in the third inning, and as he rounded third base, and he made a tugging motion with his jersey that sure looked to be a reference to Jose Altuve not wanting to remove his jersey following his ALCS walk-off home run in 2019. Here’s the home run and Judge rounding third:
Yeah, it’s hard to look at that as anything other than Judge mocking Altuve. Judge played it cool after the game though, rather than admit his true intentions.
“Whenever they keep the roof closed here, it’s a little chilly. I was just telling my teammates to button up a little bit,” Judge told reporters, including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch.
Fair or not, there has been speculation the Astros used buzzers to steal signs in 2019, and Altuve not wanting to remove his jersey following the ALCS walk-off home run has been cited as evidence. He has denied it vehemently, saying he was “too shy” to remove his jersey.
Many players around the league were outspoken after news of the sign-stealing scandal broke, including Judge. He said, “I just don’t think (their 2017 World Series title) holds any value. You cheated and you didn’t earn it,” when asked about it last spring training.
In MLB’s report detailing its investigation into the sign-stealing scandal, commissioner Rob Manfred said the league uncovered no evidence the Astros stole signs illegally in 2019. In the court of public opinion, Houston gets no benefit of the doubt, and clearly Judge (and surely other players) still feel wronged. Hard to blame them.
Judge finished second behind Altuve in the 2017 MVP voting. Saturday’s home run was his 21st this season. Judge took a .286/.377/.526 batting line into the game and was voted into the All-Star Game as a starting outfielder. Altuve and all other Astros have pulled out of the All-Star Game.
Cole was lights out
The last few weeks have not gone well for Gerrit Cole. Coincidentally or not, his performance has cratered since word got out MLB would crack down on foreign substances last month. Cole had a 1.78 ERA in 11 starts in April and May. In June and July, it was a 5.24 ERA in six starts going into Saturday, and his spin rates were down significantly.
On Saturday, April and May Cole showed up. He held the Astros, his former team, to three singles and two walks in the 1-0 complete game shutout. Cole struck out 12, his highest strikeout total in nine starts. Houston’s lineup is depleted with Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa injured, though Cole still had to del with Altuve, Michael Brantley, Yuli Gurriel, Yordan Alvarez, and others.
Cole threw a season-high 112 pitches through eight innings Saturday, but with Aroldis Chapman struggling and top setup men Chad Green (workload) and Jonathan Loaisiga (COVID list) unavailable, Yankees skipper Aaron Boone sent Cole back out for the ninth. When Altuve led off the inning with a single, it looked like things were about to go downhill for the Yankees.
Soon thereafter Boone went out to the mound to chat with his starter — Chapman was warming in the bullpen at the time — and Cole talked his skipper into leaving him in the game. The conversation was animated, to say the least.
“I said the F word a lot and then I just kind of blacked out. I don’t remember what I told him,” Boone told reporters, including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, about his conversation with Boone.
Following the Altuve single, Cole rebounded to get Brantley to fly out, and to strike out Gurriel and Alvarez to end the game. He threw 129 pitches — his final pitch was 99 mph — the most by any pitcher since former Astro Mike Fiers threw 131 pitches in his no-hitter on May 7, 2019. The 129 pitches are the most by a Yankee since Hall of Famer Randy Johnson threw 129 on July 19, 2006.
Following the game Boone revealed Cole was “under the weather and getting IVs” during the club’s previous series in Seattle, according to NJ.com’s Brendan Kuty. It was unclear whether Cole would even make Saturday’s start. Make the start he did, and it was a brilliant performance to give the Yankees a series win against a hated rival.
Greinke exited with an injury
If the loss and getting shut down by a former teammate wasn’t bad enough, the Astros also lost starter Zack Greinke to an injury. He exited the game after three innings and 65 pitches with right shoulder soreness, manager Dusky Baker told reporters, including Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle. It’s unclear whether he will go for any tests.
Greinke, now 37, took a league-leading 111 1/3 innings into Saturday’s game. He allowed Judge’s solo home run before exiting and the Yankees worked him hard, pushing him into several deep counts despite not breaking through with a big inning. The good news is the All-Star break is coming up, so the Astros can easily give Greinke extra rest without placing him on the injured list.
“It’s always possible (I’ll miss time) but it’s not the worst thing that I’ve dealt with,” Greinke told Rome.
José Urquidy is currently on the injured list with a shoulder issue and of course Justin Verlander is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Should Greinke miss time, Houston would likely return righty Cristian Javier to the rotation. Javier recently moved into the bullpen and threw three scoreless innings Saturday night.
The Astros were shut out again
Going into Saturday’s game the Astros led baseball in runs (488), batting average (.270), on-base percentage (.340), OPS (.785), and OPS+ (115). They’ve been the best hitting team in baseball by no small margin in 2021.
Despite that, the Yankees have shut Houston out in the first two games of their weekend series, holding them to six hits total in the two games. It is the first time the Astros have been shut out in back-to-back games since May 1-2, 2018, also against the Yankees. Several Astros hitters were riding long 0-fors in the middle innings.
There’s no shame in getting shut down by Cole the way he was throwing Saturday, plus Bregman and Correa are injured, so the Astros don’t have their full lineup at the moment. They’re way too good for this offensive malaise to continue, however. The Yankees have pitched them well the last two days and credit to them. Houston will take it out on some poor team soon enough, maybe even the Yankees on Sunday. They’re too good to keep down too long.
A teenager was shot in the head while returning home from a Houston Astros game, authorities said.
On Wednesday morning, Houston police said the victim, who his family identified as David Xavier Castro, died from his injury, but later corrected their initial statement saying he was still alive and on life support.
“We have learned the victim is not deceased & sincerely apologize to his family. The teen is currently on life-support. Please join us in praying for this young man and his family,” the Houston Police Department tweeted.
CORRECTION UPDATE: We have learned the victim is not deceased & sincerely apologize to his family. The teen is currently on life-support. Please join us in praying for this young man and his family.
We’ll be releasing a clearer photo of the wanted vehicle later today. #hounews https://t.co/HiFesNtPlT
— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) July 7, 2021
A father and his two sons left an Astros game about 11 p.m. on Tuesday when the father said the group encountered a suspect in a white sedan, police said. The white sedan followed the group after the father said he and the other driver “exchanged hand gestures.”
David Xavier Castro.Courtesy / Paul Castro
After following the group, police said the suspect fired “several shots at the father’s truck, striking one of the male passengers at least one time.” The father told police he drove to an area at the intersection of Highway 59 and McGowen Street before calling 911.
The 17-year-old victim was taken to the hospital in critical condition, police said.
Investigators have not yet identified the suspect, but they released photos of the shooter’s vehicle on Wednesday, describing it as a white, four-door Buick sedan with a sunroof.
Wilson Wong is a breaking news reporter with NBC News.
Astros pitching prospect Forrest Whitley has been advised to undergo Tommy John surgery, according to Mark Berman of KRIV Fox 26 (Twitter link). Whitley has been battling arm soreness that has now been diagnosed as a right UCL sprain, the team told Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle (Twitter link) and other reporters. No decision has yet been made about Whitley’s next step, as the right-hander is seeking a second opinion.
A 14-15 month layoff for TJ rehab would be the biggest setback yet in a career that has been hampered by injuries. Whitley also had an forearm problem last season that led to an early shutdown at the Astros’ alternate training site, and he has been sidelined with shoulder and oblique injuries in past years. Beyond just health woes, Whitley was also issued a 50-game drug suspension in 2018.
Despite all of these issues, Whitley’s potential is still so highly regarded that he has continued to remain a fixture on top-100 prospect lists over the last four years. Selected with the 17th overall pick of the 2016 draft, Whitley is still only 23 years old, as the Astros took the San Antonio native as a high schooler. Between the injuries and the suspension, however, Whitley has thrown only 197 innings as a professional from 2016-19, and just 24 1/3 frames at the Triple-A level. That brief stint at Triple-Round Rock didn’t pan out, as Whitley was torched for a 12.21 ERA with nine home runs allowed.
In the short term, the Astros were hoping Whitley would rebound from his lost season and look good enough to receive consideration for a MLB promotion at some point in 2021. Over the longer term, Whitley was seen as a bridge to the next generation of the Houston rotation, as Zack Greinke, Justin Verlander, and Lance McCullers Jr. can all be free agents after the season (and Verlander will already miss all of 2021 due to his own Tommy John procedure). Framber Valdez’s season may also be in question thanks to a broken finger, which is why the Astros added some veteran stability through at least the 2022 campaign by signing Jake Odorizzi yesterday.
