Astros Weekend Links

Hoping everyone had a happy and safe Fourth of July. Ready to continue the celebration through the weekend? We’ve got  you covered with links to some outstanding Astros content from around the internet. Enjoy.

Astros Turf

"As I watched Jason Castro hit a soft line drive to center field the other day, I began to wonder if 2013 was the anomaly or was this disastrous campaign the outlier? Hard to tell and I will not even try to give myself a headache looking at numbers to figure it out. What is not a difficult thing to figure out is that Castro has  far too often looked lost at the plate. The strikeouts are up and horrible at bats continue to mount."

The Crawfish Boxes

"Usually, when breaches like this occur, organizations are quick to point out that credit card or personal information had or had not been compromised. The Astros have indicated neither. Criminals in the digital world are for the most part motivated by one thing, money. Communications between the Astros and other teams isn’t valuable to a lot of people, but credit card information for million(s) of people that attend Minute Maid Park each year are."

Astros County

"This move offers protection in case Kazmir gets injured, or Chavez turns back into a waiver-wire pumpkin.  Thus far in 2014, Samardzija and Hammel have been worth 4.2 WAR between them, so this likely represents a significant upgrade."

CBS Sports

"But as of today, more than a week after the announcement that never happened, there’s no official word as to what happened, and while the sides hope to work it out before the July 18 deadline for a deal, at this point there’s no absolute certainty they will."

Tag’s Lines

"IF Conrad Gregor took home Lancaster’s June Player of the Month award after batting .396 (38-for-96) with 11 doubles, one triple, six homers, 25 RBIs, 28 runs scored and a 1.182 OPS (.464 on-base percentage/.719 slugging percentage) in 24 games in June."