Astros would provide tough test for both Mets, Yankees
NEW YORK — The naysayers can no longer complain about the Yankees beating up on a soft schedule.
As the team blitzed everything in sight on their way to a historic start, many people pointed out that their April and May schedules included a lot of Orioles, Tigers and Royals. The sentiment grew strong enough to become a bit of a meme on Yankees Twitter, adding fuel to the fire for a fanbase that somehow believes rooting for the most successful franchise in North American sports is some kind of hardship.
But the Yankees have dominated in June as well, handling several teams that are currently in playoff position or were when the Yankees stomped them out. The test continues this weekend, as the
Astros come to Yankee Stadium for a four-game series that also serves as the first meeting between these long-simmering rivals. Houston — a team currently hosting the Mets — will stick around in the Big Apple after their jaunt in the Bronx, not to see the tourist attractions, but for another quick two-gamer at the Mets’ place.
The Astros have undoubtedly been baseball’s biggest bully of the last five years. Most fans, even the casual ones, recognize Houston’s place in Major League Baseball’s hierarchy. The well-publicized cheating scandal helped with that, giving them much more haters than admirers, but people rarely waste their energy despising losing teams.
No American League team has won more games since 2017 than the Astros, who enter Tuesday with the AL’S second-best record (41-25) behind the Yankees and are poised for their sixth straight
postseason appearance. With the Angels’ star-studded roster and the Mariners retooling during the offseason, skeptics started to speculate about the end of the Astros’ reign of terror. Both the Angels and Mariners have been wildly disappointing in their own ways this year, and Houston has shown no signs of slowing down despite aging, injuries and losing one of the faces of their fabled but ongoing run at the top.
When Carlos Correa walked out the door in March, he opened it for Jeremy Pena, his 24-year-old replacement at shortstop. Pena and his .277/.333/.471 slash line with nine home runs makes him one of the early frontrunners for Rookie of the Year and, more importantly, extends the Astros’ championship window for what feels like an eternity. Not many teams could withstand a loss of Correa’s magnitude, brush it off, and win 41 of their first 66 games. As the last half decade has proved, though, most teams are not the Astros, who seem to grow elite talent on trees.
That’s what happened with Yordan Alvarez, the latest and greatest behemoth in the Astros’ lineup. Originally signed by the Dodgers, the Cuban slugger was traded to Houston before ever appearing in a minor league game for L.A. Alvarez went to Houston in a win-now move in 2016, as he was a fresh 19-year-old and the Dodgers wanted to win a World Series. The man he was traded for, reliever Josh Fields, did help them reach the Fall Classic in 2017. Unfortunately, he surrendered three hits (two of which left the yard) and two earned runs in that 2017 World Series without recording an out, posting the dreaded infinite ERA. The Dodgers’ opponent in that seven-game showdown? The Houston Astros.