Happy Easter, everyone!
Spring has sprung. The birds are singing. The Astros are hitting. The Imai’s are dealing. The Teng puns are pouring out (It’s Kai-Wei or the highway!)
And in the spirit of resurrection, the Buffalo Sabres have ended pro sports’ longest active postseason drought1 by clinching a spot in the NHL playoff for the first time since the 2010-11 season.
Alright, so maybe that last bit of news doesn’t register with most of you in the Launch Angle community the way it does with me, but with all due respect to Artemis II, it’s Buffalo Sabres fans who are over the moon right now.
Just to be relevant again.
It’s what a lot of Astros fans forget. For a decade, going to the postseason was a given. Even going to the ALCS was near automatic. My kids can’t remember a time when the Astros weren’t relevant.
From 2015 to today, many things have changed. Three managers. Three general managers. Four opening day starting pitchers.
Only Jose Altuve and one other person were Astros through it all: Lance McCullers, Jr.
Before his first start of the season, I wrote about how we had no idea what 2026 Lance McCullers would be like. 2025 Lance little resembled the Lance we knew before his injuries.
But through one start, 2026 Lance looks like he has found a way to get that Delorean up to 88 miles per hour. 2017 All-Star Lance. 2021 Cy Young vote getter Lance. 2022 World Champion Lance.
So now the question is: can he keep doing this? Hunter Brown, Mike Burrows, and Tatsuya Imai turned in much better performances the second time through the starting rotation, quelling some early worries about the starting pitching. But with concerns growing about Cristian Javier’s ability to give the team effective innings every fifth day, Lance being able to hold his own becomes much more important.
So let’s run it back, Lance.
For an incredible sixth time in the first ten games, the Astros face another lefty in Jacob Lopez. Altuve’s first day off will probably have to wait a little longer. (Although to be fair he did sit for the second halves of the blowout loss and the blowout win against the A’s. Two halves make a whole, don’t they?) Joey Loperfido likely sees the bench today, no doubt drawing the ire of Astros fans who just saw him go 3 for 4 with 2 walks and a double yesterday.
Calm down, folks. To paraphrase Larry Dierker: Joey’s an important guy, but it’s not like Yordan’s sitting.2
This piece will be updated with starting lineups as they become available.
Update: Well, well, well., what do you know? Loperfido gets a start against a lefty! Time to see if he can handle more than platoon duties.
The game will be broadcast at 3:05 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been fantastic on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.
Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .
Here’s an example from yesterday’s jubilee (a day after Friday’s funeral… albeit a well-attended one):
If you’ve participated in gamethreads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)
Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link.
It’s game time! 1 inning in the books.
You can post and comment here or you can join us in the TLA Discord Server: https://launch-angle.com/discord
Good chance for Lance to prove hes back for real and his first game wasn’t a fluke against a struggling Boston team.
As offense is loaded with talent as we saw in game 1.
Will game 1 Lance please make another showing?!
A W on the back of a strong performance by LMJ would be big. With all the questions surrounding Javier, being able to count on Lance, or at least bet on him with reasonable probability, makes the rotation a lot more solid. Even in the event that Javier isn’t workable, it’s easier to replace one struggling starter with our depth than to juggle two.
The A’s offense is gettable but they’re a gauntlet. I’ll feel pretty good about LMJ going forward if he makes it through 5 or 6 with minimal damage. Next start for him would be game one in Seattle with the current rotation so that’d be nice to know.
Kinda crazy that A’s keep throwing LH starting pitchers at the Astros. The Astros offense is much better against LHP than RHP. That has been true for a number of years–primarily because the Astros have so few LHBs and the main LHB (Yordan) hits LHP unusually well.
What is like to see: LMJ hit 95 mph today. He had full command of his arsenal last start, and I’m not convinced he does it again. But if he can sustain velo, he may be able to mix his pitches enough that location perfection won’t be a necessity as much. Fingers crossed, but hope is a dangerous thing.
Lopeheads get their wish. Joey is starting against a lefty today. Post updated.