Cole is pretty much out of gas and couldn't pitch anymore if he wanted to and I think Verlander's at the same stage. It's unfortunate. You have to remember these pitchers are approaching 300 innings for the season. And don't forget the colossal mistake of having Verlander pitch on short rest in the Tampa series that was just so utterly f****** stupid and it just may have cost Hinch the World Series. Verlander was never the same since.
Really sad about this loss, Seriously all road win World Series, and not even a single close game TBH.
Astros all the way up until the 7th inning of last night feeling privileged like the World Series was owed to them. At least from the batter's standpoint that's what it looked like to me. This reminded me so much of that painful loss to the St Louis Cardinals in 2004 game 7, Roger Clemens pitching a gem but the Astros bats couldn't get more than two runs across and you just felt like there was no way we were going to hold on to a scant 2-1 lead. Clemens imploded in the bottom of the sixth inning. You can also go back to game four against the royals in 2015. Again not enough Runs put up and allowing the royals to hang around and the bullpen got destroyed in the seventh inning as well. Astros were up two games to one looking to put it away. The royals went on to win the World Series. The chance of a dynasty wasted. You could argue the Astros are even lucky to have won a World Series, thanks to the choke job by Peyton Kershaw in game 5 and tipped pitches in game 7 that allowed us to score 5 runs in the first two innings.
The decision to pull Greinke was definitely questionable, but I put more blame on the offense. The Astros just left way too many runners on base. Not just in Game 7, but throughout the playoffs. I also didn't like the fact that people were talking about an Astros dynasty prior to this year's World Series. Bad juju. The word "dynasty" should not even be mentioned until you win multiple championships.
As talented as the Astros are they have no fight in them and that's a reflection of their manager AJ Hinch. how do you explain losing all three games at home against Boston last year after splitting with them in Boston giving you a path to the World Series? And then this year losing all 4 at home after going 65-22 before the WS started.
As was usually the case in the regular season they just couldn't get hit that three-run bomb last night that would have put this game away.
