Houston’s offense doing things it didn’t do before
LOS ANGELES — On Aug. 7 at Oakland Coliseum, Houston manager Dusty Baker made an odd decision.
The Astros and A’s were tied at one after nine innings. A runner started on second base in every extra inning during the shortened regular season, so to begin the 10th, Martin Maldonado bunted Myles Straw to third base. The top of Houston’s order loomed against lefthanded reliever Jake Diekman.
George Springer’s wrist injury had Kyle Tucker in the leadoff spot. Tucker is now a threat against anyone but, at the time, had not distinguished himself at the major league level. Baker was managing only his 13th game with a new team. He removed Tucker for what he believed was a better matchup — switch-hitter Abraham Toro. Toro struck out looking, the inning fizzled and the Astros endured their second of seven regular-season losses to Oakland.
The next day, Baker defended his decision. That was not a leftylefty matchup, he said. Diekman, according to Baker, was a “tough ass lefty.” The manager did not believe Tucker could handle Diekman’s high velocity. He wanted a litmus test for Toro, too, in a role the reserve may have to occupy in October. Two months passed. The 2020 hellscape made it feel like two years. The Astros struggled to produce vintage offensive performances. Yordan Alvarez’s anticipated return lasted eight plate appearances. Michael Brantley and Alex Bregman battled injury. Jose Altuve battled himself.
They ended the regular season with a .240 batting average, matching the 111-loss team from 2013.
The A’s overtook them for American League West supremacy while continuing to craft their terrifying bullpen. They deployed Diekman, Yusmeiro Petit and J.B. Wendelken ahead of animated closer Liam Hendriks.
The group entered October with a better ERA than any bullpen in baseball. It exited after a beating. The Astros, average for almost all of the regular season, came to life and broke the A’s prestigious pitching staff. Oakland’s one decided advantage during the American League Division Series was not one at all.
The Astros’ transformation from tepid to terrific in a four-day span appeared almost out of nowhere. They totaled two extrabase hits in 18 innings of the wildcard series against the Minnesota Twins. Three of their seven runs were unearned.
“I really don’t know,” Baker said. “It’s better late than never.”
Houston scored 33 runs in 35 innings to beat the A’s in four games and advance to the ALCS against the Tampa Bay Rays. Seventeen of them came against the A’s bullpen. The lineup launched a division series-record 12 home runs. The top of their order gave the sort of production Baker craved all season. The top six hitters in the skipper’s normal batting order each had six or more hits in the four games. Brantley, Altuve, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa combined for eight home runs. They struck 21 total during the 60-game regular season.
“You can’t judge an offense based on 60 games,” Correa said. “That’s two months. When you play 162 (games), you usually have one or two bad months and then you recover with the three or four that you have that are solid. I think that right now we are in the third month of the season and we’re getting hot at the plate.”
Correa’s sample size argument is one shared across the league.
During the Astros’ final regular-season series in Texas, Bregman used the same rationale to scoff at a question surrounding the club’s cratering slugging percentage. A truncated summer camp buildup threw off many tried and true routines, too.
The 2019 Astros had a bad June — slashing .253/.330/.431 with a .761 OPS — but had four other months to mask it. Their first 60 games featured a .480 slugging percentage and .827 OPS. Their last 60 had a .278 batting average, .595 slugging percentage and .885 OPS.
Excellent 60-game stretches are possible, but the Astros couldn’t create one this year. Injuries interrupted Brantley, Bregman and Springer’s seasons and disrupted their timing. They faced the A’s dominant pitching staff 10 times, too, only furthering their funk.
Houston took 333 plate appearances against A’s pitching during the regular season. It had 22 extra-base hits. In four games and 143 at-bats this week, the lineup delivered 15 extra-base knocks.
The Astros entered the ALDS with 77 regular-season plate appearances against the A’s four most valuable leverage relievers — Wendelken, Petit, Diekman and Hendriks. They struck 11 hits. Nine were singles. They scored one earned run. The familiarity seemed to help the Astros in the ALDS.
“You don’t have to do as much scouting because you know them and they know us,” Baker said. “We didn’t have to spy too much because they know us and we know them. It could be a little different in the next round because we haven’t played either the Yankees or Tampa Bay.”
They faced the quartet for nine innings. They scored eight earned runs and amassed 12 hits. Houston pummeled Petit in leverage spots during Games 2 and 3.
Wendelken was wrecked in Game 1 and Game 4, though Marcus Semien’s error betrayed him in Game 1.
Against them all, the Astros demonstrated their deadly approach for the last four seasons — a pass-the-baton style stringing together of patient, pesky plate appearances.
Big innings became the norm. Nine of the A’s home runs were solo shots. Just six of Houston’s homers came with empty bases, a testament to the carousel-like approach of their lineup.
It went 12-for-36 with runners in scoring position.