Astros Crawfish Boil: July 2nd, 2019

I’m going to do something a little unusual and lead with some non-Astros links. 27-year-old pitcher Tyler Skaggs of the Angels passed away suddenly at his hotel in Texas yesterday. I’ve decided that that should open the boil for what I feel are obvious reasons. Please keep his family in your prayers, especially his widow, who married him just this past offseason. His passing is truly a tragedy of the highest order for the baseball community and his family.

RIP Tyler Skaggs, 1991-2019 (MLB.com)
Here’s the official statement from the Angels (Twitter)
The baseball community mourns one of their own (MLB.com)
Our fellow SBN site Halos Heaven was stunned by the news (Halos Heaven)
And had a memorial thread in place of the cancelled game thread (Halos Heaven)
Here’s a complete rundown of Skaggs’ professional career, which has sadly drawn to a close much too soon (MLB.com)

Check out the rest of the Crawfish Boxes here

Astros News

Jose Urquidy will make his MLB debut tonight in the place of injured starter Brad Peacock (Houston Chronicle)
Though it’s a dream come true for Urquidy, it’s also a sign of how much the Astros’ pitching depth is being tested (The Athletic, $$$)
And here’s a profile of him that BA did back in May (Baseball America)
Brian McTaggart opened up his mailbag to answer some questions, starting with everyone’s favorite: the rotation (Astros.com)
Jordan Brewer has signed with the Astros, making it a clean sweep for the top-ten draft picks (Houston Chronicle)
This British Astros fan gave us a view of baseball life across the pond during the London Series (Astros County)
The Astros seem to be kicking the tires on a possible Matt Boyd trade (MLB Trade Rumors)
Collin McHugh sat down for a chat at Springer’s bowling charity event (Houston Culturemap)
It was Princess Day at MMP recently, so the Astros tried to name as many as they could in this video (Twitter)

Around the League

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the MLB record for homers in a month has been broken in consecutive months (ESPN)
The first day of the NBA draft highlighted just how different their model is from MLB (Sporting News)
Did the London Series prove that the Brits have some serious ball-calling skills? (CUT4)
Either way, it certainly got a boost with the literal royal treatment (Vanity Fair)
Yesterday was Bobby Bonilla Day, and here are the details for anyone not familiar (Yahoo Finance)
Are the Orioles on their way to being the worst team in baseball history? (The Ringer)
Here are the myriad lessons of that most noble of sports: Wiffleball (The Harball Times)