#Ace ventura bumpy road series#
The Astros’ AL Division Series foe, the Kansas City Royals, traded for a veteran ace in July to fill out their staff. Johnny Cueto, formerly of the Cincinnati Reds, hasn’t been quite the guaranteed winner the Royals expected him to be. After posting a 2.62 ERA in 19 starts for the Reds this season, Cueto put up a 4.76 ERA in 13 starts for the Royals. All in all, his struggles prompted manager Ned Yost to call on youngster Yordana Ventura to start game one of the ALDS instead of Cueto. But in Keuchel’s case, the home and away stats are so glaringly different that I get nervous thinking about him trying to win a road playoff game. I tend to chalk them up to “ESPN stats.” You know, the random, quirky stats that SportsCenter anchors put up on the screen on slow Tuesday afternoons that don’t actually show anything meaningful about an athlete’s performance. Normally I don’t place much importance on stats like home-away splits. In fact, his home-away splits are a source of worry for the Astros. He is living proof of the importance of patience and a strong farm system in MLB. Keuchel is having a historic season, especially at home, where he went 15-0 during the regular season. However, Luhnow’s Astros already had an ace, albeit a young and inexperienced one, in Dallas Keuchel. Keuchel’s development from a 7th round pick back in 2009 to one of the best pitchers in the game is incredible. Come October, there is nothing more valuable to a Major League Baseball team than having an ace-level starting pitcher on your staff. Of the four general managers with teams still in the American League playoffs, three decided in the middle of the season that they agreed with this assertion and wanted to acquire that veteran ace. Only Jeff Luhnow of the Houston Astros failed to secure his team a veteran ace midseason.
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