



AJ Hinch, former manager of the Astros gave an interview to Tom Verducci on the 7th of February, talking about the sign stealing scandal and all the ramifications of it. The part that jumped out to me and a lot of people was when he basically avoided a straight answer after being asked if he could assure us that no player used a buzzer to know what pitch was coming, saying that Rob Manfred and the Commissioner's office did a meticulous investigation and nothing of that nature was found.





Considering all of the answers he could've given this one just adds more fuel to the speculation that they indeed went up to bat with buzzers on them. If anybody wants to claim that what can be said to argue against them.





With all of this fresh in my mind I decided to look back at the 2017 postseason and more specifically at the performance of the best pitchers that the Astros faced. Their champion's run went through the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers. Which means the Astros went up to bat against Chris Sale, Luis Severino and Clayton Kershaw.





Let's look at the numbers:





ALDS Chris Sale:





Game 1 @ HOU: 5 IP. 9 H 7 R. 7 ER. 1 BB 6 K. 3 HR





Game 4 (Relief appearance) @ BOS: 4 IP. 4 H. 2 R. 2 ER. 0 BB. 6 K. 1 HR









Game 2 @ HOU: 4 IP. 2 H. 1 R. 1 ER. 2 BB 0 K. 1 HRGame 6 @ HOU: 4 IP 3 H. 3 R. 3 ER 4 BB 3 K. 0 HRSeverino didn't pitch in any of the games at home but we will compare his performance during his 2 outings to what he did in the regular season.Game 1 @ LAD: 7 IP. 3 H. 1 R. 1 ER. 0 BB. 11 K 1 HRGame 5 @ HOU: 4.2 IP. 4 H. 6 R. 6 ER. 3 BB. 2 K 1 HRGame 7 @ LAD (Relief appearance): 4 IP 2 H. 0 R. 0 ER. 2 BB. 4 K. 0 HRThe reason why I chose to focus on the aces is because they were likely to give the Astros the most trouble and that's probably when the extra help would be more important. Nothing here proves anything, but it is obvious that every single ace Houston faced at home in the 2017 postseason had a subpar performance against them and that's putting it lightly.All three are very small sample sizes but is the postseason and small sample sizes is all we get so let's dive in.A disastrous outingQuite bad compared to his standards but nowhere near what happened in Game 1 and we give him a little discount because he came in as a reliever.Interestingly enough the same ERA as Sale had at home, but Severino was starting and he had two opportunities to play to the level he is capable of and ultimately didn't.For a pitcher with more than his fair share of postseason struggles this might be the worst performance of his career.Vintage Kershaw at Dodger Stadium.I reiterate that none of this proves anything, but it's important to point out that Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale were both atrocious at Houston and showed significant improvement at home, especially Kershaw that actually got the chance to start a game in his home ballpark. Luis Severino wasn't awful in his two road starts, he was just below average.As always feel free to comment and subscribe at the top in order to receive daily notifications Everytime a new post is out. Let me know what you think of the article and for any suggestions, business inquiries and if you are just looking for a place to chat:My email:estevaomaximo_23@hotmail.comMy Twitter