LEGENDS OF FALL
The best time of the year for Astros fans is here again.
Leaves are changing colors and beginning to fall.
The temperature, after months of surreal summer saturation, is finally dropping and becoming bearable again.
Morning sunlight looks different.
Early evening sunsets often glow, golden and red.
And you know what’s coming next.
Astros. Astros. Astros.
That special time of the year is almost here again for Houston’s Major League Baseball team.
That special time of the year has been a near-annual occurrence for the rebuilt, then remade Astros since 2015.
That special time of the year is the entire month of October
(and the start of November this season). Which means that in late September, we’re getting closer and closer to the Astros taking over our big city again.
I still don’t know exactly what to make of this year’s team.
They lose games they should win and fall to opponents they should clobber. They own a strong 87-61 record, recently won three road contests by a combined score of 34-4, and were victorious on Friday night via an old-fashioned walkoff hit by pitch in the 10th inning inside Minute Maid Park.
This team can frustrate, bewilder, fray your nerves and drive you crazy.
Dusty Baker’s 2021 Astros mostly just win, though, which is why they’re the second-best team in the American League and the AL West has never really been in question, despite everything that Baker’s Astros have been through in 2021.
We’re into figuring out the new, veteran-heavy Texans — for however long that flickering fascination lasts.
We’re electrified by the weekly pull of college football, even though the state’s two biggest teams are already having quarterback issues and the University of Houston hasn’t had a big win that mattered in years.
But this scene isn’t that far away in downtown Houston, with the buzzing view beamed to the suburbs and small towns throughout our huge state: Packed stands, orange shirts, waving towels and a roar so loud that you spend part of the game trying to compare it to previous playoff roars.
Was it this loud in 2019?
Was it louder than this in
2017?
Was 2015 peak MMP volume? I’ve missed that October roar since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series. We’re about three weeks away from finally getting it back.
If you’ve eaten at a restaurant or flown on a delayed airplane or tried to rent an overpriced rental car or made five phone calls in the attempt to complete a minor home project during the last 18 months, you already know that daily life can still be unstable and unpredictable.
The Astros alive and thriving in October has become clockwork. Take away the aberration that was 2016 – former manager A.J. Hinch used to say that was his only bad year, even though those Astros went 84-78 – and it’s gotten to the point that you can plan your fall calendar around the fact that your Astros will be in the playoffs.
Do they still need to win their second World Series?
Sure.
Of course.
Obviously.
But let’s just acknowledge for a moment how unique and instantly memorable this run has been.
What started in 2015 with Jeff Luhnow, Dallas Keuchel, Collin McHugh, Lance McCullers Jr., Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, George Springer, Chris Carter, Colby Rasmus and Hinch … is now being carried six long seasons later by James Click, Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, Jake Meyers, Chas McCormick, Jose Siri, McCullers, Correa, Altuve and Baker.
Times, stars, role players, GMs, managers and lineups change.
The Astros have ultimately remained the same, connecting the winning in 2015 with the winning in 2021, and finding a way through a fiery national controversy that still rings out whenever the Astros are on national TV again.
Justin Verlander has thrown six innings for the local orange and blue since Game 7 of the 2019 Fall Classic.
In many ways, it hasn’t mattered.
The Astros almost returned to the World Series last year. This squad holds the fourth-best winning percentage (.592) of any Astros team since the new millennium began.
Zack Greinke, who’s paid like a No. 1 starter, holds a 3.94 ERA and has been inconsistent all season.
The Astros still have one of the best pitching staffs in MLB and they’ve been one of the most dangerous teams at the plate since April.
This will likely be Correa’s final stand with the Astros.
This could be McCullers’ best shot to carry the starting staff, leaping into a role he first glimpsed as a rookie in 2015.
The Astros are only 32-24 since the All-Star break but they’ve remained near the top of MLB all season and will rival the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers for the most experienced playoff team this October. The leaves will keep falling. The temperature will keep dropping.
The sky will keep glowing. In Houston, the best time of the year is almost here again.