The Launch Angle

The Astros head into Sunday tied one apiece with the Rays in their 3 game series. The franchise stars have played like stars: Yordan Alvarez, an MVP candidate chasing the triple crown, and Junior Caminero, the Rays third baseman who’s entered the MVP conversation himself with 11 home runs in the last 11 games.

On Friday, Alvarez hit a solo shot n in the 6th inning to tie the game. A half inning later, Caminero hit one of his own to take the lead en route to a 3-1 Rays win.

Point, Junior.

Yesterday, Caminero drilled another solo home run in the top of the first. A half inning later, Alvarez responded with a 2 run bomb to take the lead. Caminero would later add another single and score another run to help the Rays take a 7-2 lead, but it was Alvarez who would even the score, putting the team on his back, with a 5th inning RBI single, a 7th inning sac fly and finally a 2 run walkoff home run in a 10-8 Astros win.

All the while, Daikin Park, chanted “M.V.P.! M.V.P.!”, as if to let Caminero know that he may have entered the MVP conversation, but it’s still Alvarez who’s dominating the debate stage.

Exclamation Point, Yordan.

Caminero is 3 for 8 with 2 HR, 3 R and 2 RBI in these 2 games. Alvarez is 4 for 8 with 3 HR, 3 R and 7 RBI.

How will Part 3 go? It’s hard to imagine it won’t again come down to Caminero and Alvarez, who were just yesterday named the starting third baseman and designated hitter respectively for the AL All-Star Game.

Caminero, with 26 home runs, has already declared for the Home Run Derby. Alvarez, the only player in the AL with more dingers (29), has already indicated he won’t participate in the derby. This series is the closest we’ll get to a head-to-head home run contest between the two, at least this year.

(Side note: If a Rays fan hasn’t already made a parody of the Simpsons’ “Canyonero” song, but with “Caminero”, then I have no idea what that fan base is doing.)¹

Will Alvarez hit another home run today? It would be the 200th of his career.

Peter Lambert starts for the Astros. The shine is starting to come off of Lambert’s Cinderella season. After a start against the Jays where he allowed just 2 runs, but also only lasted 4.2 innings, he turned in a lackluster performance against the Twins his last time out, going 5.2 innings, but allowing 4 runs. Lambert will look to turn it back around today, and now sit 6-5 in 13 starts with a 3.51 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 8.2 K/9 and 3.8 BB/9.

For the Rays, it’s all hands on deck, as Tampa Bay is going with a bullpen game.

Rays @ Astros Game Information and Gamethread Details

The game will be broadcast at 2:30 p.m. CT on Peacock with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.

This post will be updated with starting lineup as they are made available.

Update: Mason Englert will start, called up from AAA. He’s been a reliever when he’s been up with the Rays, but down in AAA he’s been a regular starting pitcher.

We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing 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 .

For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.

If you’ve participated in game threads 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 (cropped).

1. Okay I’ll do it:
   
   Can you name the Ray who hits line drives,
   With a wRC+ of one fifty-five?
   Caminero! Caminero!
   He stuns everybody with his super bat speed,
   He’s a ball crushing, screw smacking, dinger machine!
   Caminero! Caminero!
   
   (I’d have liked to have done one for Alvarez, but there’s no Simpsons song that rhymes with “Yordan”. Maybe there’s one that rhymes with “You’re done” though…) ↩︎