AL West hopes alive as 6-game skid ends
OAKLAND, Calif. — Zack Greinke does not hide the truth. His raw remarks and colorful opinions are legendary across the league. Ask him a question and prepare for a nononsense response, one that might startle at first but — after a while — settle in as the unvarnished reality of the world around him.
Tuesday, when his team appeared at its lowest point, Greinke gave no reason to panic. He all but dismissed the Astros’ six consecutive losses and their place in the American
League West standings. He took a shot at baseball’s expanded postseason, although it now seems the sudden move to
16 teams is Houston’s saving grace.
“It doesn’t matter, everyone makes the playoffs,” Greinke said after his start in game one of the Astros’ doubleheader against the A’s. “We’ll be all right, still. If we don’t make the playoffs, we didn’t deserve to make the playoffs.”
Eight of the American League’s 16 teams will make the postseason. Even after a 1-5 start to this 11-game road trip, even after all the injuries and even with a record just one game above .500, the Astros have a 96.6 percent chance to be among them, according to FanGraphs.
Concern still grows after each loss or after each unsavory performance. Such is the nature of a nightly sport — and the reactionary ways of those who follow it. The Astros are clinging to faint hope for a fourth American League West title. A sweep on Tuesday in Oakland would have all but sealed their fate.
Yet the dream lives for one more day. The Astros ended their day in the same place they began — 4½ games behind the A’s for the American League West lead. They won the nightcap, 5-4, after dropping the day game 4-2.
Seventeen games remain, two of which are against Oakland. The team has played 43 games and, yet, must answer questions about a playoff picture.
“It is interesting,” George Springer said. “At this point in the year, in any other year, you’d be saying ‘I got 120 more games to go, we have to make sure we get this thing right.’ Not anymore. There is a little more of a sense of urgency. It’s a weird season and a weird year, but you have to take it in stride.”
After Tuesday’s action, Houston
has only a 5.8 percent chance to win the division, according to FanGraphs. Whether taking the division matters in a season like this is up for debate. Home-field advantage will be nonexistent during the playoffs.
Playing for a better seed is obviously beneficial. Pride comes from defending a division title and remaining the class of the five-team field. Most of the time, though, the Astros barely know what’s going on around them. Limited stadium workers during the pandemic has prevented one ballpark staple — the out-of-town scoreboard — from displaying.
“I think every game this year has been critical with it being 60 games,” closer Ryan Pressly said. “I don’t really think we could be scoreboard watching because there’s no scoreboard out there that’s being operated on. Everyone’s just kind of paying attention to the game. We’re trying to just control what we can control and wherever the chips fall, they’ll fall.”
The Astros do not seem to mind one way or the other. Their goal remains to win as many games as possible. Manager Dusty Baker speaks often about the division crown. He asked after Tuesday’s twinbill what the deficit was. He marveled that the team could be as close as 2½ games after Thursday. His players do not share the same outward expressions.
“I don’t know what it is, but I feel like if you take care of your business and you handle your job of winning baseball games, you don’t have to look at the standings or look forwards or backwards, it will all pan out at the end,” said outfielder Michael Brantley, who struck five hits in Tuesday’s two games.
“I let the guys tell me, the guys will tell me.”
Behind a two-hit game from Brantley in game two, Houston won a battle of bullpens, perhaps the most shocking sentence typed during this 2020 season. The A’s bullpen entered with a major-league low 2.17 ERA. Their 2.7 fWAR and 3.24 FIP are second in the sport.
Houston drew three walks against the four relievers they faced in the night game. George Springer hit an infield single to score the tying run in the fourth — a frame that featured two bases-loaded walks by Yusmeiro Petit.
“You have to take the gifts when you can take them,” Baker said. “That was a big victory for us and we’ll take it no matter how we can get it.”