Mistake to think team is in trouble
The Astros were no closer to repeating as World Series champions as they busted out of their slump in a big way Wednesday with a 12-1 victory than they would have been had they been no-hit by the Rockies.
As difficult as it is to accept, the 162-game major league baseball season is all but meaningless when it comes to deciding which team will win the World Series.
Because performance through the six-month grind is the lone factor in which teams make the playoffs, the summer can’t be completely dismissed, but the standard ebb-and-flow, ups-and-downs doesn’t merit a full-on panic.
Certainly not the “all is lost” mist emanating from Minute Maid Park these days.
The Astros are in first place in the American League West Division, with one of the best records the team has ever had.
Do the Astros look like a World Series team? Of course they do. Since MLB instituted the wild card system in 1995, only six of 23 World Series champions posted more
than 73 victories in their first 120 games. That list includes last year’s Astros, who were 74-46 three-fourths of the way through the season.
With the As and Mariners on their heels, the Astros’ performance of late shouldn’t be positioned as pointless. Houston could fall out of first place this weekend in Oakland.
This time a year ago, magic numbers were being calculated because the Astros were coasting with a double-digit lead in the division. The Angels have roughly the same record as they did in 2017, but instead of being in second place, they are in fourth.
No coasting this time
The Astros won’t have the luxury of coasting into the playoffs this season. But they’re still a good bet to get there.
You can search numbers and find some, good and bad, to support any declaration. But any case being made that the Astros aren’t championship worthy is a weak one. Before Wednesday’s game, only twice in team history had the Astros won more games through this point in the season, and each time by just one game.
So, it’s not their record, but how they have gotten there.
The recent slump — a 6-11 mark in their last 17 games, including a five-game skid before the bats came alive in the series finale win against the Rockies — would be devastating to most teams.
But the Astros were a seasonhigh 31 games over .500 when they began this stretch, having matched the ’68 Cardinals for the best record at that point of any defending World Series champion in the expansion era (since 1961).
If the Astros were a bad baseball team, they would be in huge trouble. If they had horrible starting pitching or a terrible bullpen, the postseason would be out of reach.
If the lineup they rolled out there Wednesday night — a group that posted seven runs in the first three innings — was the best of the team’s 40-man roster, the Astros would be a long shot to make the playoffs. None of that is the case. And, as much as they like to brag about their depth, the main reason the Astros haven’t been the Astros of late is the Astros are missing too many key pieces.
With six players on the disabled list, including five who have been All-Stars, a bit of a struggle is to be expected.
Help is on the way
Last season, the Astros added to the roster in a big way with the trade for Justin Verlander on the last day of August.
No such move is on the horizon this summer, but in-house reinforcements are on the way.
Jose Altuve (sore knee), who for the first time in his career has been on the shelf for an extended period, should be back in the next week. George Springer (sprained thumb) hasn’t played in eight games, but barring some odd setback, will be in the lineup on Friday.
Carlos Correa, who had a three-run double in the first inning on Wednesday, has been back less than a week after missing 36 games with a sore back.
While it is astonishing that the Astros’ home record is so pedestrian ( 33-29)they do have the best road mark (41-18) in all of baseball.
All these losses will mean nothing when the playoffs began. Houston might go 8-1 at Minute Maid in the postseason again.
One could say the Astros are built for the postseason, but history says teams that reach the division series all have an equal chance of winning the World Series.
The importance of getting everyone back and up to speed is about making the playoffs. After that, who knows? It is far more likely that the Astros will again become who they can be and advance to the postseason as the division champion. And when they get there, they’ll have as good a chance as any other team to win enough coin flips to bring home another title.
The unanswerable question is when will they become the team that they believe they are?
The upcoming trip to Oakland and Seattle would be as good a time as any; then all the sweating and fretting over a bad stretch will have been for naught.