Kuzul

Elvis Andrus…that man is fast.

The Texas Rangers speedster stole home like it was routine during the team’s contest against the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night.

Andrus was eyeing Padres pitcher Kevin Quackenbush before he jetted home to give the Rangers an 8-4 lead in the top of the seventh inning. It appeared Quackenbush was in deep thought during his windup, giving Andrus a humongous head start. After Quackenbush realized what was happening, his throw was just a bit off, leaving Andrus safe at the plate.

The Rangers hadn’t seen a straight steal of home in a while, as the last time it happened, the movie Gladiator was in theaters.

The Rangers held on to win, 8-6. 

[MLB, h/t CBS Sports, Twitter]

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There will be a great many stories to tell about the 2015 MLB season, including the one of how the Houston Astros at last settled into their new home.

It was in 2013 when the Astros jumped from the National League Central to the American League West, thus bringing about an overdue balance between the two leagues. But beyond that, there really wasn’t much to say about the move.

The Astros were, after all, fresh off two straight 100-loss seasons and in the middle of a complicated and intentionally hard-to-look-at rebuilding process. They surprised nobody in losing 203 more games in 2013 and 2014. Given how poorly they were playing ball, where they were playing ball was immaterial.

But now? Yeah, suddenly that matters.

As they embark on the final month of 2015, it’s clear the Astros rebuild is a thing of the past now. Their 73-60 record is the best in the AL West, putting them on the fast track to end a 10-year postseason drought. Whereas it was immaterial the last two years, the Astros’ status as an AL West team is therefore as much a part of their success story as anything they’re doing on the field.

But that’s our cue for a Dun-Dun-Dunny thought experiment: What if the Astros were still in the NL Central?

If nothing else, it’s an intriguing proposal on paper. Putting the Astros back in the NL Central alongside the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs would give the division four of MLB’s nine best teams, an arrangement for a playoff race for the ages.

And as Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote in June, such a playoff race would be rich with narratives:

Imagine how much fun the National League Central would be if they were still around. This “Hackgate” hoo-hah could have kept an Astros-Cardinals rivalry simmering for years.

…

The division would have also featured [Astros general manager Jeff] Luhnow fighting for attention against Theo Epstein, the Chicago Cubs president who earned his “genius” label from the Eastern Media during his successful run in Boston.

Imagine an Astros-Cubs rivalry: two franchises furiously rebuilding with prospects after swapping veterans for prospects and tanking multiple seasons in the process.

And imagine the rising Astros and Cubs stars trying to gain ground on the Pittsburgh Pirates, a resurgent franchise featuring strong hitting, speed, pitching and defense.

This would have been a heck of show.

A heck of a show, indeed. It would be the Mad Max: Fury Road of division races, all shiny and chrome.

But this is assuming, of course, that what’s worked for the Astros in the AL West would also work for them in the NL Central. And given the particulars, that’s no sure thing.

Now, let’s not diminish what the Astros have done in 2015. They’re not leading the AL West because they’ve overachieved. In fact, the 78-54 Pythagorean record they began Tuesday argued they’ve actually underachieved. And that’s not so hard to believe. 

Combining talented arms with the league’s most efficient defense, per Baseball Prospectus, has led the Astros to the AL’s best ERA at 3.34. Backing this strong pitching is an explosive offense, as the Astros rank second in the AL in homers and first in the AL in stolen bases. Short version: The Astros are legitimately really good! 

But at the same time, anyone who’s even taken so much as a cursory glance at the Astros will know that they have something of a fatal flaw.

As dangerous as the Astros offense has been, it sure does love to swing and miss. It owns a 23.6 strikeout percentage that ranks atop the American League. That’s been a collective effort, as Chris Carter (33.5) and Colby Rasmus (32.4) lead a group of 11 Astros regulars who have struck out in over 20 percent of their plate appearances.

Obviously, this bad habit hasn’t hindered Houston’s offense that much. Especially not against the competition that matters the most, as the Astros entered Tuesday with a reasonable 21.8 K% and a more-than-reasonable .745 OPS in 52 games against AL West clubs. In racking up their 29-24 record within the division, they’ve been an offensive kingpin.

But there’s a reason for that. The pitching staffs of the Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Angels, Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s entered Tuesday ranked in the bottom 17 of MLB in strikeout percentage. When the Astros go up against them, they’re not going up against clubs that are equipped to exploit their fatal flaw. 

As such, it’s no surprise the Astros have run into more trouble outside of the AL West. Against everyone else, they own a 24.8 K% and essentially a league-average .719 OPS. They’ve been even worse against clubs that rank in the top 12 in MLB in strikeout rate, posting a 26.3 K% and a .663 OPS.

And now’s the point where we get to the point: Struggling to this degree against power-pitching teams would likely hurt the Astros a hell of a lot more within the NL Central than it has within the AL West.

Whereas none of Houston’s four AL West opponents rank in the top 12 of MLB in strikeout percentage, the only NL Central team that doesn’t is the Cincinnati Reds. So, you can use your imagination. The Astros regularly going up against the Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers would mean regular action against the kind of pitching that has killed their offense this season.

Would that keep the Astros from making progress after four years of futility? Maybe not. But would it get in the way? Yeah. And probably in a big way, at that.

But given this possibility, the natural question is whether the Astros front office would have crafted a roster of a different flavor.

Case in point: Instead of taking a lineup that already had high-strikeout guys like Carter, Jason Castro and George Springer, and adding more high-strikeout guys like Rasmus, Luis Valbuena and Evan Gattis this past winter, maybe the Astros would have prioritized finding more contact hitters. The effect could have been a less volatile offense.

Maybe so…Or, you know, not.

For one, relative to finding power hitters with holes in their swings, it’s a lot harder to find quality contact hitters in MLB’s current whiff-happy environment. For two, taking the bad (strikeouts) with the good (homers) regarding power hitters sounds like a philosophy the Astros are committed to regardless.

As Astros assistant GM David Stearns told ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark in March, “Clearly, if they’re strikeouts without power, we’re not going to score as many runs as we would like. But our expectation is, we’re going to hit a lot of home runs and we’re going to score plenty of runs. If we do that, then we’ll take the strikeouts that come with it.”

Luhnow largely echoed those remarks in an interview with Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle and added that a lineup loaded with power threats is “good for our ballpark.” He’s on point there, as ESPN.com can vouch Minute Maid Park is once again one of the top power-friendly parks in MLB.

So instead of a different offense, perhaps Houston’s mission would have been to build an even better pitching staff, with the idea being to beat the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs at their own game.

In addition to shoring up their bullpen with Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek, maybe this would have entailed going hard after big rotation upgrades. Perhaps that would have meant a blockbuster trade for Cole Hamels, or maybe topping the Cubs’ offer for Jon Lester and/or signing Francisco Liriano away from the Pirates.

But looking at things now, you wonder how much better such efforts possibly could have made Houston’s pitching. The Astros’ 3.34 ERA is already competitive with the ERAs of the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs, and it so happens only the Cardinals have the Astros beat in adjusted ERA.

The Astros thus could have done nothing differently and would still have the kind of pitching staff that could go toe to toe with those in the rest of the division. That could have been their excuse to turn their attention back to their offense, which may have led them right back to the whiffs-for-power conundrum.

In so many words, exactly how different the 2015 Astros would look if they still played in the NL Central is a damn good question. There’s a real chance, however, that they’d have put the same team on the field only to be met with drastically different results than the ones they’re enjoying in the AL West. In which case, we might not be talking about their rebuild needing a bit more work rather than them being on the cusp of the postseason.

But this is where the thought experiment ends, and where the only path available is the one that leads back to the bright side.

That’s the reality that all of the above has indeed been a mere thought experiment. The fact is the Astros are not members of the NL Central, nor were they ever going to be this season. They’re not on the cusp of October because they’ve dodged a bullet. They’re on the cusp of October because they spent years building a foundation for a contender, and because they hit all the right notes in taking the next step in recent months.

After doing all that, the Astros being in the right place at the right time is nothing to hold against them. It’s just another part of their story to appreciate.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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The results just were not there under Jack Zduriencik’s watch.

Plain. Simple. Telling.

It was not for a lack of preparation and effort on his part. With Zduriencik as the general manager, the Seattle Mariners attempted to sign big-time free agents, develop stars from within and trade for what they didn’t have, but nothing done by the man nicknamed “Jack Z” produced nearly enough wins in any of the seven seasons during which he was in charge of the roster.

Because of that, the Mariners unsurprisingly fired Zduriencik on Friday as the team, not an abnormal World Series pick entering the spring, started the day 10 games under .500 and seven games out of the lead in the American League West, gingerly flirting with last place. They never finished higher than third and never made the playoffs under Zduriencik.

He did not leave the cupboard bare, though, which is part of the reason the team was a disappointment. The Mariners won 87 games a year ago and appeared to be a better club in 2015, but the rotation has not lived up to expectations and neither have Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager, Austin Jackson and Mike Zunino, who was demoted to Triple-A Tacoma shortly after Zduriencik was canned.

The fact that the Mariners, with a core of promising young pitchers, an ace already in place with Felix Hernandez, some potentially productive hitters and a legitimate power hitter in Nelson Cruz, had those expectations in the first place means Seattle’s new front office vacancy should be a desirable one.

ESPN analyst Tim Kurkjian said on Dan Le Batard’s radio show that many people are going to want the job:

There’s going to be a long list of general managers that want that job, Frank Wren, Jerry Dipoto. All sorts of guys are going to be lining up for that job because that team has good young pitching. It’s got a really good base of players. They should have been way better than this, and they weren’t. I like where the Mariners are going long term. I can’t believe they played this poorly this year, but the pieces are in place for them to be good someday and for quite a while. They’re not going to have any trouble finding a GM.

That is because Zduriencik, who was a significant part of a front office that returned the Milwaukee Brewers to the postseason in 2008, brought in stars (Cano and Cruz) and retained the one he inherited (Hernandez). His regime drafted the likes of Seager, Zunino, Taijuan Walker and James Paxton while signing gems like Hisashi Iwakuma. Zduriencik did a good job of putting together a major league roster mixed with veterans, players in their primes and those with massive upside. That is why the Mariners extended Zduriencik for multiple years almost exactly a year prior to his firing.

The team just did not win enough, and if the next GM does, he will likely be doing it with a group of players cobbled together by his predecessor.

Kevin Mather says the nucleus is there for the #Mariners to win now, and would lean towards an experienced GM.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 28, 2015

Zduriencik told reporters (h/t the Seattle Times) his time as GM didn’t work out the way he hoped it would:

You have to be realistic about everything. You have to look at things the way they are. When things don’t work out and the performances aren’t what you hoped they would be, then things happen and there’s consequences that must be paid. When you take a job as a general manager, you take a job as a manager or you take a job as whatever, you’re accountable. At the end of the day, if it doesn’t work, there’s no excuses. You’re the guy as the general manager that is responsible for the club, no matter what. It just didn’t work out like we hoped it would.

Zduriencik did have his share of ugly misses in free agency—the sheer size and length of Cano’s contract falls under that category—and in the draft, which has left the farm system weak, though part of the reason is recently graduated prospects like Walker and Paxton. So there will be some work to do for the future GM, whom the organization wants in place before free agency, per Nightengale.

As to whom that might be, there is already a group of names being speculated. Wren and Dipoto are among them, as are Chicago White Sox executive vice president Kenny Williams, Philadelphia Phillies president Pat Gillick and recently resigned Boston Red Sox GM Ben Cherington.

With an established core and a payroll that is not completely outrageous at $121.7 million, an old-school GM could work as well as a new-age analytical one. What is known is the team wants experience in that chair, per MLB.com’s Greg Johns, and all of the mentioned names would fit.

Whoever might take the job will walk into a rebuild where much of the work has been laid. The only thing left to do, aside from some tweaking, is to win.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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After announcing Jack Zduriencik was relieved of his duties as general manager, the Seattle Mariners will need to secure the long-term future of their front office to make a playoff push for the first time since 2001. 

Continue for updates. 

Mather Discusses Mariners’ Plan for Next GM

Saturday, Aug. 29

“I want to avoid the, ‘You can talk to him after the postseason,'” Mariners club president Kevin Mather said, per Bob Dutton of the News Tribune. “Sorry, we’re going to miss him. He’s not going to make my list. I’m not going to wait until November on this. I’d like to move this along sometime in late September to mid-October, so we can hit the ground running when the postseason ends.”

According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today on Aug. 28, the Mariners plan to hire a general manager who has previous experience in the role:

Nightengale added on Twitter that the Mariners will have a “slew” of top general manager candidates available to them, noting the team wants to hire someone before the regular season ends. 

Seattle’s roster is in an interesting spot for the new GM, whomever that ends up being. Jonah Keri of Grantland pointed out recently that the team has been bad at developing players, citing examples like Dustin Ackley, Nick Franklin, Jesus Montero, Justin Smoak and Mike Zunino. 

Because of the inability to bring up impact young players, Zduriencik and his staff spent a franchise-record $123 million on a roster in 2015 that’s 10 games under .500 and in fourth place in the American League West. 

The good news is that with expiring contracts, Seattle’s projected payroll for next season is $78.86 million.

As long as the next general manager hires a scouting and coaching staff able to develop major league-caliber players and the front office remains willing to spend money on free agents, the Mariners should be an attractive destination for many GM candidates. 

Contract information via Cot’s Baseball Contracts.

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After seven seasons at the helm and no playoff appearances to show for it, longtime Seattle Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik was fired Friday.

Bob Dutton of the News Tribune was among the first to report Zduriencik’s dismissal. According to Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com, assistant general manager Jeff Kingston will serve as the interim GM for the remainder of the 2015 campaign.

Per Steve Adams of MLBTradeRumors.com, M’s president Kevin Mather released a statement regarding the decision to part ways with Zduriencik:

We have reached the point when change of leadership of our baseball operations is needed for the Seattle Mariners to reach our goal of winning championships. We are very disappointed with the results this season, and are not satisfied with the current operation. The search for a permanent general manager will begin immediately, and while there is no deadline, we expect to have a new GM in place as soon as practical. We have great respect for Jack and his work ethic. He was an excellent representative of the Mariners both within the game of baseball and in the community. On behalf of the entire organization, I wish him and (his wife) Debbie all the best, and thank him for all his efforts.

According to Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller, Mather also provided some information with regard to the organization’s search for a permanent general manager:

After Seattle posted an 87-75 record last season, which was its best mark since 2007, many expected it to be a top contender in the AL West in 2015.

The Mariners bolstered those expectations with the offseason signing of slugging outfielder Nelson Cruz one year after inking six-time All-Star second baseman Robinson Cano.

Unfortunately for Zduriencik, those moves didn’t pay off in the manner he hoped, as the Mariners entered play Friday with a disappointing 59-69 record.

Per Jon Morosi of FoxSports.com, the 2015 season is essentially a microcosm of Zduriencik’s entire tenure with the Mariners:

Doug Farrar of Sports Illustrated is among those who believe the M’s waited far too long to move on from the much-maligned GM:

The 64-year-old Zduriencik gained a reputation as a great baseball mind during his nine years with the Milwaukee Brewers as a scout and assistant general manager. Many credited him with helping build the teams that made the playoffs in both 2008 and 2011.

That same magic was never present in Seattle, and even though he received every opportunity to turn things around, he was never able to build a winning program.

Zduriencik figures to catch on somewhere in a front-office role due to his experience and past success in Milwaukee, but he may never receive another shot at being a GM.

As for the Mariners, they haven’t made the postseason since 2001, which means the fanbase is starved for a contender.

Because of that, ownership cannot afford to swing and miss when it comes to making its next GM choice.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Normally, a young fan catching a foul ball isn’t too big of a deal, but this kid jumped up and down like he opened an N64 on Christmas morning.

During the eighth inning of the Texas Rangers–Toronto Blue Jays game on Thursday night, this Rangers fan’s reaction to his new souvenir was priceless. After the sweet, no-bounce snag, you can see him holding the ball like it was a brick of gold while he re-enacted the catch to his family.

This is a moment that kid will never forget. All the feels are happening here.

[MLB]

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Houston Astros All-Star pitcher Dallas Keuchel has expressed his desire to remain with the club and is already engaging in talks for a new multiyear contract.  

Continue for updates.

Keuchel, Astros Working on New Deal

Monday, August 24

Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle provides an extensive report about Keuchel’s future. The southpaw emphasizes the importance of winning in describing his optimism about the team before getting into the specifics of the contract negotiations:

There have been some talks, but nothing major, and the feeling is mutual between my party and the team. So that’s nice. It’s always a nice feeling when the team wants you to be here longer than just the base and that’s what we’re going on right now. Hopefully something will get done. I know at the end of the day I can sleep well because I love the city of Houston, I love the Astros.

Keuchel will be eligible for arbitration for the next three seasons after giving three full years of service to Houston. He can take his salary demands to an arbitrator if his side cannot strike an agreement with the front office, but all indications are Keuchel would rather avoid any controversy and work something out.

The Houston Chronicle‘s Reid Laymance weighed in on Keuchel’s contract situation:

Keuchel has been instrumental to the Astros’ stunning success in 2015. The 27-year-old ace has posted a 14-6 record with a 2.37 ERA and 1.02 WHIP and has a career-best strikeout rate of 7.86 Ks per nine innings.

An exceptional sinker and biting slider allow Keuchel to stymie the opposition and yield very few home runs. His ground-ball percentage of 63.1 is second in all of baseball, per FanGraphs.

The Astros have a promising young nucleus that has Keuchel rightly excited about what’s in store in the coming years. Although he isn’t trying to “break the bank,” to use his own words from Monday’s news, Keuchel has earned the right to make gaudier demands with his play over the past two seasons.

What often determines success in the postseason is the quality of starting pitching. Keuchel has been a class act and doesn’t appear keen on demanding a paycheck. If he can maintain that mindset and his current level of play, Houston ought to invest what it can to keep him around for the long haul.

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It is time to take these guys quite seriously.

Most of the numbers say we probably shouldn’t. Their run differential says they should be well under .500. Their offense is not entirely intimidating and could be seen as a liability. Their overall pitching is about the worst in Major League Baseball, and their rotation has not been much better.

Based on all of that, this is a club that should be falling back for a top draft position: not holding onto a playoff position.

That is exactly what the Texas Rangers are doing, though. With less than 40 games to play, they are in sole possession of the second wild-card spot, having won nine of their last 11 games while stunning the baseball world a season after losing 95 games and their ace in spring training. 

For the Rangers, this is no longer about what they can do next year. This is about becoming legitimate World Series contenders in a season that they were once eight games under .500.

“We definitely believe in that,” designated hitter Prince Fielder told Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News on Saturday. “We’re trying to stay focused and not let it get away from us.”

When the Rangers pulled off the blockbuster trade deadline deal for Cole Hamels last month, they finished that day 50-52 and three games out of the second wild-card spot, with four teams ahead of them. For those reasons, the trade for Hamels was seen as an aggressive move to become contenders in 2016 when they could pair him with Yu Darvish, their incumbent ace who had Tommy John surgery in March.

Since firing a no-hitter in his last start with the Philadelphia Phillies, Hamels had not been much of an ace for the Rangers in his first three starts—12 earned runs in 20.2 innings for a 5.23 ERA to go with a 1.45 WHIP. He was solid on Sunday, giving the Rangers six innings of two-run ball to get his first win with the team.

While Hamels has yet to look great with Texas aside from giving them plenty of innings, he is still one of the game’s aces. Because of that, he gives the Rangers a serious chance to win a one-game wild-card matchup against anybody the team might face.

His trade might have been viewed publicly as a move for next season, but given the team’s surge, he is now very much part of the team’s hope to reach the postseason and advance.

The Rangers staff has been brutally ineffective for most of the season. Entering Sunday, their 6.2 Fangraphs WAR is 13^th in the American League, as was their 4.39 ERA. The rotation’s 6.0 WAR is also 14^th, its ERA (4.34) is 13^th and its Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) (4.45) is dead last. It also strikes out just 6.01 hitters per nine innings, the second-lowest mark in the league.

Obviously, Hamels taking the ball in a must-win kind of game is a huge boost.

“No matter what kind of condition I have or what I’m going through, I have to be able to go out there and put up zeros on the board,” Hamels told reporters last week. “The expectations that I have are to be able to burn innings, make quality pitches and work quick enough so the defense is able to stay in the game and make great plays.” 

The offense, which has picked up a tick during this hot stretch, also has been disappointing. Its overall Fangraphs offensive mark was minus-21.2 through Saturday, and it ranked 13^th in the league in Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) while being about middle-of-the-pack in several other categories like OBP, OPS and Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA).

Shin-Soo Choo, who has been a disappointment since signing with the Rangers before last season, has been one of their hotter hitters lately with a 147 wRC+ over his previous 13 games going into Sunday. And with Fielder having a strong season, even with his power numbers a bit down, along with Mitch Moreland and Rougned Odor being well above league average offensively, they give the Rangers a lineup capable of supporting a playoff push down the stretch. 

Also, power-hitting prospect Joey Gallo could be called up and be eligible for the postseason roster, giving the team another power threat in the final month, and possibly in the playoffs.

These Rangers might not look like a playoff team, or even a legitimate threat to contend, on the data sheets. They don’t pitch well, they are just an OK hitting team in a hitter-friendly yard and their newly acquired No. 1 starter has yet to be dominant for them.

But they are winning, and doing it often enough that a postseason berth could be only about a month away if they don’t slump. The Rangers’ current position might be surprising, but if they end up in the playoffs, making some noise should not surprise anyone considering the pieces they possess.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Talk about drumming up drama where there is none. 

In what might have easily erupted into a full-blown baseball scandal, a shiny substance that may have been anything from sunscreen to sweat was pictured on Houston Astros right-hander Mike Fiers’ glove during his historic performance against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night. 

Fiers’ no-hitter was the 11th in Astros franchise history and the first since 1973 to be thrown by a guy who had been traded in the same season. It was also the first complete game of his career and easily his greatest performance in the major leagues.

But as it’s known to do from time to time, Twitter turned a great event into a potential disgrace when people started tweeting screenshots of the inside of Fiers’ glove, which had some sort of shiny substance on the upper thumb. Cries of cheating followed, attempting to drown Fiers’ shining moment as a professional.

Did Fiers pitch a no hitter with pine tar on his glove ? pic.twitter.com/liVUGBZpuu

— Baseball Serious (@BaseballSerious) August 22, 2015

“Last night was about Mike Fiers being a really good major league pitcher, and he had a great accomplishment,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch told reporters Saturday. “Anything that takes away from that is unfortunate, unless there’s this massive proof.”

There was not. The proof was weak at best, and all the pictures did was mildly take away from Fiers’ 134-pitch performance that featured a devastating curveball, aided by a foreign substance or not:

.@Fiers64 rode his devastating hook to no-hit glory. #DomiNoNO pic.twitter.com/dxbTueHhyT

— MLB GIFS (@MLBGIFs) August 22, 2015

Because of the pictures, Fiers was faced with questions about what exactly was on his glove. He rightfully brushed off the inquiries, ones he shouldn’t have to answer, though the reporters confronting him were forced into the situation by the shots on the Internet.

“I mean, you can try to pick out a lot of things through a lot of games,” Fiers told reporters Saturday. “I don’t know what they are talking about. It could be a different lighting or camera angle or a lot of things. I don’t know.”

Neither did anyone watching at home, which made the tweets reek of hate. They were attempts to knock down a guy who had just reached a personal pedestal.

Thankfully, the Dodgers did not take part in that. Approached with the topic on Saturday, the Dodgers players did not say they believed Fiers cheated. They claimed making that implication would take away from Fiers’ performance. And they were right. The proof did not exist to do so, and it certainly would have cast darkness on the most outstanding night of Fiers’ career.

“I don’t want to take anything away from his night,” Dodgers left fielder Carl Crawford told reporters.

Crawford did add that pitchers using substances on the ball was commonplace in the major league. According to him, it is basically one of the game’s accepted illegal practices.

“I know when I was back in Tampa, I used to see pitchers putting stuff on balls all the time,” Crawford told reporters. “I don’t know how many guys around the league are doing it, but on my team, I used to see them doing stuff all the time, so I just figured it was normal. I’d just be like, ‘Yo, I’m going to tell on you if I ever got to face you,’ just joking around, but I just figure it’s not that big of a deal.

“I don’t know if it’s an advantage. You still have to throw the ball over the plate, but at the same time, there’s a reason why they do it and they know they’re going to get in trouble for it and they still do it.”

Even if the opposing team suspects a pitcher might be using a substance for grip purposes or any other reason, they are unlikely to bring it to an umpire’s attention unless the pitcher scoffs at common sense and makes the violation obvious. Had Fiers put anything on his glove Friday, it would have qualified as blatantly obvious because it was in plain sight, much the same way New York Yankees starter Michael Pineda used a substance last year, drawing himself a 10-game suspension.

But the Dodgers never noticed anything strange on Fiers’ glove. Therefore there was no need to alert the game’s authorities.

“I think if you talk about stuff like that, it seems like you’re whining,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told reporters Saturday. “I think a lot of guys use it. It’s kind of accepted unless it’s just blatantly obvious that somebody’s doing it. I had no idea during the game; nobody said anything to us.”

And nobody should say anything about it again. Friday night belonged to Fiers, and believing anything different unfairly clouds one of the most memorable nights of his life to date.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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However things turn out, 2015 will go down as a magical season for the Houston Astros. On Friday night, Mike Fiers added a pretty neat trick of his own.

For nine innings and a career-high 134 pitches, Fiers held the Los Angeles Dodgers hitless, scattering three walks and striking out 10. It was the fifth no-hitter thrown in MLB this year and the 11th in Astros franchise history.

Most strikingly, it was the first shutout and the first complete game of Fiers’ career. He’d never even pitched into the ninth inning in a big league contest.

Quite simply, the 30-year-old right-hander elevated his game to a place no one knew it could go.

It may have been uncharted territory, but Fiers never doubted he could get it done, as he explained after the game.

“Obviously everybody wants to throw a no-hitter and do everything you can to do that as a pitcher,” he said, per Jose de Jesus Ortiz of the Houston Chronicle. “I told [manager A.J. Hinch] I wasn’t going to come out of the game. He was literally going to have to throw me in the clubhouse, lock me somewhere. This doesn’t happen often.”

Speaking of things that don’t happen often, at least lately, the ‘Stros have been giving their fans reasons to cheer all season.

A perennially lousy, small-budget club virtually no one picked as a postseason contender, Houston has set the pace in the AL West and holds a 3.5-game division lead over the Los Angeles Angels entering play Saturday.

That’s quite a turnaround after three consecutive 100-loss campaigns between 2011 and 2013 and a 92-loss “rebound” in 2014.

As Jacob B. Lourim of USA Today noted Aug. 4, “There are tangible reasons for the turnaround, from a revamped bullpen…to prospects emerging from a fertile farm system, to new blood coming from winning clubhouses and raising expectations to fit their new potential.”

Still, it’s been an eye-opening about-face.

Now, as if the Astros’ impressive, unexpected rise needed another punctuation mark, here comes Fiers.

Acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers as the “other guy” in the July 30 deal that netted All-Star center fielder Carlos Gomez, Fiers seemed like a decent addition at best, a serviceable arm that wouldn’t make or break the Astros’ October dreams.

On Friday at hitter-friendly Minute Maid Park, against a powerful Dodgers lineup, Fiers convincingly played the role of genuine world-beater.

Yes, it’s only one game. And, impressive as they are, no-hitters are becoming more commonplace in today’s pitching-dominated MLB, as I recently outlined.

More than a harbinger of things to come, though, Fiers’ no-no represents another triumph in a charmed season in East Texas. And all the better that it came against Los Angeles, owner of baseball’s gaudiest payroll.

ESPN Stats & Info broke down the disparity between the thrifty ‘Stros and free-spending Dodgers:

The Astros haven’t won anything yet, other than respect. But, as Fiers’ dominance further solidified, they look like a club with momentum and the wind at their backs. 

They have a leading candidate for AL Rookie of the Year honors in shortstop Carlos Correa. They have a lineup that leads the AL in dingers. They have first place in the West.

And now they have Mike Fiers, unexpected no-hitter thrower.

Add it to the growing pile of magical moments. And don’t be surprised if they have more tricks up their sleeves for the stretch run. 

All statistics and standings current as of Aug. 21 and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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