REASON TO WORRY?
Astros have flown high this year, but true test still in front of them
As Houstonians, we’re genetically programmed to expect the worst from our sports teams, even when they’re playing as well as the Astros have for most of this season. So, full disclosure, I’m worried about the Astros, which is to say I’m not following my own advice, freely dispensed on Twitter, about staying in the moment and celebrating what they have accomplished rather than needlessly fretting over the unknown.
My angst has nothing to do with their post All-Star Break doldrums, either. Considering the talent that hasn’t been at their disposal because of injuries, the middling results have been borderline commendable (although Dallas Keuchel’s dismal performance Tuesday night against the lowly White Sox could hardly be assessed as such). And how can you not love — or trust — a team with the kind of grit and moxie this one showed with that walk-off victory Sunday, when they were left with only three outs to overcome a 6-3 deficit against Toronto?
You see that happen against a top-drawer closer like the Blue Jays’ Roberto Osuna, whom they pummeled with five hits and four earned runs, and you want to believe something special, something truly unique and different, is happening here, with a 5½-decade-old organization that has never once tasted victory in a World Series game.
It’s no smoke-and-mirrors, little-engine-that-could deal, either. This is an excellent, even outstanding team. At full strength, with Carlos Correa, George Springer, Lance McCullers and Will Harris back healthy and Keuchel back on form — the latter seemed a when, not an if, until his alarming crackup in Chi-town — the Astros have as deep a roster as you’ll find. That’s not something we’ve been able to claim very often about any of our teams.
Too easy so far
The problem is the Astros got too good for their own good in a
season when they won’t have their spikes put to the fire until October. They long ago ran away and hid from their middling-to-mediocre American League West neighbors, against whom they have gone 31-14 with still 31 more games to be played. They haven’t been less than 10 games in the clear of the Mariners, Angels, Rangers and A’s since May 28. Heady stuff, to be sure, and unprecedented for the franchise, but it hasn’t tested their mettle, leaving them woefully unprepared for the postseason’s crucible.
This has been way too easy. Scary easy.
Also, save for beating up on the Yankees in five of seven meetings, the Astros haven’t fared particularly well against the other playoffcontending teams. Recalling the 2016 Texans and the 2016-17 Rockets, both playoff qualifiers but ultimately playoff failures, that becomes more than a niggling concern.
Only two of the Texans’ nine victories came at the expense of teams that also participated in the postseason. The 5527 Rockets, who chased the franchise record for regularseason victories before falling just a couple wins short, went 2-6 against their reference-standard rivals, the Warriors and the Spurs, after which the latter humiliated them in the Western Conference semifinals despite having lost the services of their two most important players.
Correspondingly, the Astros went 1-5 against the Indians and 3-4 against the Royals while dropping two of three at home with the Red Sox in mid-June. And they have yet to cross paths with any of the elite National League teams, although that finally changes with next week’s strange homeand-away “series” against Arizona — two games there, followed by two games here — and Washington’s Aug. 22-24 visit to Minute Maid Park.
Unfortunately, the Astros won’t cross paths at all with the high-flying Dodgers or the recently revived Cubs, the defending World Series champions. To be the best, you want beat to the best, so their measuring themselves against Los Angeles and Chicago would been instructive.
They do end the season with four games in Fenway Park, which shouldn’t mean much to them by then but could mean everything for the Red Sox. Given how the season has played out for A. J. Hinch’s bunch, that’s actually a scheduling plus because it should give the Astros a mouthful of what the playoffs are going to taste like.
Winning is imperative
In the interim? “They don’t call August the ‘dog days’ for nothing,” manager A. J. Hinch said. “You’ve got to create momentum for yourselves. We need to win games. We’re not playing out the season just to do it.”
Another unnerving pattern, which might just be a coincidence, is how average the Astros have been in front of their largest crowds, the kind they’ll experience in October and, if the planets align, November. In the nine home games that have drawn more than 40,000, they are 4-5. Despite building one of the best road records in baseball history, they are only 5-5 elsewhere when at least 40,000 came through the turnstiles.
But they have shown a resiliency in the face of adversity that will serve them well come the fall. Thirty of their first 71 victories required comebacks and the last-gasp Toronto triumph was the eighth claimed in their final at-bat. They’ve yet to lose more than three games in a row. They’d won 23 series of 32 series (splitting two) through Sunday.
And it has all been accomplished despite staff ace Keuchel’s two-month hiatus and subsequent issues plus a spate of recent injuries to other indispensable actors: McCullers (lower back), Correa (torn thumb ligament), Springer (sore thigh muscle), Harris (shoulder inflammation), Colin Moran (facial fracture) and Evan Gattis (concussion).
At least Springer, the man Hinch insists “sets the tone for this team with his energy, personality and enthusiasm,” was set to return this week.
Hinch admits, “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit concerned. I’ll feel better when we come back fully loaded.” But he’s quick to add, bragging on the Astros’ collective “character,” that “we’re not going to feel sorry for ourselves. We’re going to compete. We’re going to fight.”
OK. Fingers crossed.