DYNASTY PUT ON HOLD
Despite heartbreak, the Astros are built to contend for World Series championships
Huge, larger-than-life photographs line the walls of the hallway that leads to the front door of the Astros’ clubhouse. Wild celebrations.
Minute Maid Park in full roar. José Altuve on the verge of being joyously surrounded by shouting and smiling teammates.
The photos are from the American League Championship Series.
Not the World Series. Not Game 7 of the Fall Classic. Not the championship parade in downtown Houston that was supposed to follow another Astros triumph in October.
Winning cannot be questioned. The rebuild obviously worked.
A.J. Hinch, Jeff Luhnow, Jim Crane and Co. have constructed a baseball team that has won 101, 103 and 107 games the last three seasons. The quick math adds up to a staggering 311 wins since a world-championship 2017 season began. Add in 25 postseason victories, and the Astros’ 336 combined wins from 2017-19 are the most in MLB history during a three-year span.
World Series. ALCS. World Series.
Not bad, even in this golden championship-or-bust era.
But the dynasty we’ve been waiting for? The Alex Bregmanproclaimed back-to-back tour that was supposed to start in 2018? A second golden banner above the first in left field and another season filled with replica championship rings?
Thanks to the final three innings of Game 7 — and the forever unbelievable fact the Astros dropped all four of their 2019 World Series games at home — the baseball dynasty in Houston is on pause, and the next parade is at least 12 months away.
“You know what I wish we would have done, is win a home game. That would have changed everything,” Hinch said Friday at Minute Maid Park, as October turned into November and the slow march toward spring training began.
The Astros will recover.
The Astros have been here before.
A magical 2015 season also ended with stunning, shocking pain. Just ask Will Harris, who has been Hinch’s best and most trusted reliever since the Astros started winning again, but has also been in the middle of the team’s two toughest defeats this decade.
Harris in Game 4 of the 2015 AL Division Series against Kansas City, which flipped upside down during a chaotic eighth inning inside Minute Maid Park: four hits, four runs (three earned) in two-thirds of a frame.
Harris in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series: two hits, one run, one home run, loss, blown save in no official innings.
“Him describing it as a reliever’s worst nightmare is going to stay with me for a really long time,” said Hinch, who added that Harris made “his pitch” and “didn’t make a mistake.”
The 2016 season (84-78) was disappointing, and the only time Hinch’s club has failed to make the playoffs.
But 2018 and ’19 both were undone by collapses. The Astros took Game 1 of the ’18 ALCS at Fenway Park, then dropped the next four games, including the final three at Minute Maid Park. This season, 0-2 at home in the Fall Classic became 3-2 before leaving Washington. But the Astros were owned by the Nationals in their own park and dropped the final two games of the World Series by a combined 13-4 in Houston.
That’s seven huge losses at home. The three in 2018 prevented the Astros from returning to the World Series. The four in ’19 abruptly canceled a second parade.
“This is going to sting for a really long time,” said Hinch, who was feeling the lingering pain of it all less than 48 hours removed from Game 7.
Then Luhnow found the positive light. Then Hinch, as he so often does, put it all in perspective.
The Astros general manager praised the skipper whose name has been in the middle of about 200 (300?) messages I’ve received since the Nats celebrated on the Astros’ field.
“He’s the best manager in baseball. I think he has been since we hired him in 2015,” Luhnow said. “He hasn’t gotten all the recognition he deserves, but he’s done a tremendous job leading this team.”
Hinch spoke of 100-plus win campaigns, the awards certainly still to come (Cy Young, Rookie of the Year) and where the Astros are now compared to where they were not that long ago.
“I know where this franchise has come from and I know where it is right now, where the end goal is the only satisfying ending,” Hinch said. “And I want it to be that way.”
It is that way because the Astros made it that way.
The rebuild was more franchise-altering than Game 7. Since the Astros returned to the playoffs in 2015, they have green lighted three blockbuster trades ( Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Zack Greinke) that have led to the greatest three-year run in team history.
The young Core Four at the heart of 2017 still remains: George Springer, Carlos Correa, Altuve, Bregman. Yordan Álvarez, 22, just completed the Astros’ strongest rookie season at the plate since the organization began in 1962. Kyle Tucker, also 22, might be ready to lock down an outfield spot in 2020.
The pipeline isn’t overflowing like before. Then again, it shouldn’t be.
“We’re right where we expected to be and our expectations were always very high,” Luhnow said. “That we were going to consistently compete, while at the same time maintaining our eye on the future. And while we don’t have maybe a top-five farm system anymore like we did five years ago, we still have a lot of good players in the farm system that are going to come up and contribute.”
A different team has won the World Series the last six seasons: Nationals, Red Sox, Astros, Cubs, Royals, Giants.
The Giants won three world titles from 2010-14, but have finished below .500 three consecutive seasons and are still searching for a new manager to replace Bruce Bochy. The Red Sox followed up their 2018 world title with 84-78 — the same record the disappointing Astros posted under Hinch in 2016 — a third-place finish in the AL East and a major front-office shake up.
The Astros are set up to win big for years.
Even if Cole departs, Houston’s MLB team is loaded with instantly recognizable names that will keep bringing you to the ballpark daily and finding them on TV at 7 p.m. nightly.
The Astros enter November only missing one thing: A second trophy to start their dynasty case.