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Astros Weekend Links
The Tri-City ValleyCats came up one game short of defending their New York – Penn League Championship and the Lancaster JetHawks are one game away from adding another title. Those stories and more in today’s edition of Astros Weekend Links.
Although they fell short of a league title, the defeat does not damper how successful the 2014 season was for the ValleyCats. Not only did Tri-City finish with the third-best record in franchise history at 48-28, but it also won a club-best 26 home games, and set a regular-season attendance record with 161,171 fans.
“Usually when I wake up in the morning and I’m going to start, I’m nervous and uneasy,” McCullers said. “Today was just a different mindset and I knew I was going to give my team a good start.”
“He has a lot of respect from his peer group because of the type of player he was and how he respects the game and for his work ethic. He’s a guy that’s there at the beginning of tournaments and at the end of them. There’s no corners cut with him.”
Hinch, Wakamatsu and some others in this group fit the need to hire someone sabremetrically inclined and could also fit with the intellectual Luhnow. Hinch, the former major-league catcher, is a Stanford product, which probably doesn’t hurt, either.