Astros vexed by what went wrong

HOUSTON — On Monday afternoon, an off- day between Games 2 and 3 of the American League Championship Series, a new Instagram story appeared under the account of Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman. Behind a caption saying “lil pregame video work” flashed clips of Bregman and two Astros teammates smashing back- to- back- to- back homers off right- hander Nathan Eovaldi, the Boston Red Sox’s designated Game 3 starter, during a game nearly four months earlier.

To watch those videos in private for motivation and/or a mental refresher was reasonable, even smart practice for a hitter about to face a semi-familiar pitcher. But to post them to more than 400,000 followers, including countless members of the media, said a couple of things about Bregman: that he was brash and cocky, and that he couldn’t fathom a scenario in which he would end up regretting the post - say, in the event the Astros lost and Bregman himself disappeared as an offensive factor.

And that, as it turns out, was a perfect description of Bregman, the face of the Astros this fall, in the stunned and sullen aftermath of their Game 5 loss to the Red Sox at Minute Maid Park on Thursday night, the one that sent them packing for the season and sent the Red Sox to the World Series: still brash, still cocky, still unable to fathom the end of the Astros’ hopes of defending their 2017 title.

“They beat us,” Bregman, 24, said through gritted teeth. “Do I think the better baseball team won? I don’t know. I wouldn’t have traded any of these guys for anybody over there.”

Many around the game, even many outside their own clubhouse, believed the Astros were the most dangerous, most flawlessly constructed and most formidable team in baseball right up until the moment, at 11:41 Central time Thursday night, when it was proved they weren’t. And even then, the Astros weren’t fully ready to admit what five games in October had settled.

“This team was better than last year’s team, I believe,” Bregman said. “But the ball’s gotta bounce your way in the postseason. We’ll learn from it, and everyone in here will have a little bit of an edge, a little bit of a chip on our shoulder, knowing that we believe we should have been back-to-back champions.”

As evidence of the sport’s capricious ways, the Astros could point to all sorts of plays made and unmade, and calls that could have gone their way, but didn’t: the controversial fan-interference call in right field in Wednesday night’s Game 4 loss that took away a potential home run from Jose Altuve. The diving, game-saving catch that same night by Red Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi, when a miss might have given the Astros the win. The high fly balls that seemed to die at the wall for the Astros, but sail over it for the Red Sox.

“I said it last year: To win the World Series, so much has to go your way,” Astros pitcher Lance McCullers said. “Whether that means the team [for whom] it goes their way is better, or whether they got lucky, just got the bounces - baseball’s so funny, man.”

But it is also true that the Astros, at the worst possible moment, suffered a series of system failures and individual stumbles that hadn’t happened in a long time, and that collectively led to four straight losses, including the last three at Minute Maid Park, a building in which they had gone 10-1 in four previous playoff series over the past two autumns.

In Games 2 through 4, the Astros pitching staff, which this season posted the lowest ERA (3.11) of any AL team since the introduction of the designated hitter, gave up 23 runs - more than in any other three-game stretch all season. Closer Roberto Osuna, who had pitched brilliantly since coming over in a July trade, gave up the pivotal grand slam to Boston’s Jackie Bradley Jr., the series’ MVP, that broke open Game 3. Right-hander Ryan Pressly, who hadn’t allowed a run since Aug. 10, gave up a critical one in the seventh inning of Game 4.

Collectively, Astros pitchers posted a WHIP of 1.099 in the regular season, the lowest of any team in more than 100 years. But in the ALCS, their WHIP shot up to 1.364.

In assessing some of those failures, the Astros justifiably gave credit to the Red Sox’s lineup. “They don’t concede any at-bats,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “They never got off our fastball. They laid off tough breaking balls. They do it right. [And] they never stopped coming at you. They’re a relentless group.”