Title pursuit must wait after Astros earn victory No. 106
HOUSTON — Framber Valdez stacking up another round of zeros on the local Jumbotron.
The Astros winning another baseball game in October inside a buzzing Minute Maid Park.
Dusty Baker celebrating. Justin Verlander celebrating. Chas Mccormick and Yordan Alvarez doing the same while Kyle Tucker, Ryne Stanek and Valdez walk from green grass to red dirt to echoing applause.
Can we do all this again on Thursday? Friday? Saturday? Unfortunately, no. While MLB’S expanded playoffs begin, we must patiently (and anxiously) wait.
Tom Petty was ahead of the curve way back in 1981: The waiting really is the hardest part.
Especially when you just finished as the second-best team in Astros history and capped off game 162 with a 3-2 victory over the playoff-bound Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday.
“We’ve put ourselves, with home-field advantage, to have the best odds that you can have,” said Baker, who walked around the Astros’ clubhouse hugging and fistbumping players in front of their lockers after one more victory.
He also referenced an approaching full moon, one more reminder that a little good luck can go a long way during the final full month of baseball.
The 2019 Astros won 107 games. Baker’s current crew went 106-56 during the regular season, locking in home field through the American League Championship Series and overshadowing the New York Yankees during a recordsetting year for Aaron Judge.
And now the team that won the AL West by 16 games must wait.
Wait until Saturday evening, at the earliest, to learn whether George Springer’s Toronto Blue Jays or the Seattle Mariners, the West’s secondplace team, will be the latest opponent in yet another AL Division Series.
Then wait until Tuesday (start time TBD) to host Game 1 of the ALDS back inside a super-loud Minute Maid Park.
The Texans traded Deshaun Watson weeks before these Astros started 1-0. The Rockets drafted Jabari Smith Jr. while Baker’s team was beating the Yankees in the Bronx. Appalachian State upset Texas A&M at Kyle Field while the Astros were about to win 10 of 11 games.
On March 19, Carlos Correa left the Astros and signed a three-year deal with Minnesota, which failed to make the playoffs this season and could soon lose Correa to another round of free agency.
On Wednesday, one of the most impressive teams in Astros history finished with a whopping 106 victories.
Judge and his Yanks versus the Astros in Houston for Game 1 of the AL Championship Series?
The AL’S best team against the 111-win Dodgers in Los Angeles on
Oct. 28, with Game 1 of this year’s World Series becoming the topic in national sports and serving as a Hollywood-made sequel to the 2017 Fall Classic that Houston’s MLB team won?
“It’s been a hell of a ride so far, and I hope we’re the last ones to get off,” Verlander said.
First, these Astros must stay playoff-hot while four best-of-three wild card series play out in two countries.
“I’m confident,” Baker said. “We’re winning. We’re not really hot. But we’re winning, and we’re winning as a unit.”
His club was a dangerous 81-47 on Aug. 27, already proving their 2022 regular-season supremacy over the Yankees and New York Mets. The Astros finished 25-9, topped only by the Dodgers when the long 162 was complete.
Last year, the Astros were beating the Chicago White Sox in the ALDS on Oct. 7 and 8. In 2019, the Astros were up 2-0 against Tampa Bay in the ALDS before Oct. 5 was complete.
This year, Verlander and Valdez rolled through their final regular-season starts of 2022, throwing 10 combined innings of scoreless ball.
Baker has seen and been through everything MLB can offer, so his veteran wisdom should again guide the Astros during the six-day delay that bridges game 162 with a real Game 1.
For everyone who proudly believes in the Astros but doesn’t wear an orange-and-blue uniform, the abnormal wait will feel even longer.
A team that was a near lock to make the playoffs without Correa became better and better as the months fell off the calendar. James Click’s roster went 21-8 in May, 19-9 in July and 18-8 in September. Valdez’s career year paired with Verlander’s Cy Young-worthy campaign, while the rest of the Astros’ arms combined to form one of the best staffs in team history.
History.
That word keeps getting used over and over in this historic era.
Three of the four pennants attached to the left-field light tower in downtown Houston are from recent years: 2017, 2019, 2021. During those last two seasons, only three combined wins separated the Astros from two more world titles.
Where will 2022 end up? Where is this 106win year truly going?
Once again, anything less than four wins in the World Series will feel incomplete.
We suffered through a bitter and often absurd lockout while Correa Watch was paused. Then there was a sudden start in West Palm Beach, Fla., a 3-1 beginning against the supposedly improved Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim Calif., and an 8-9 record in late April.
Then the annual winners started winning almost everything again. You believed more and more in the ALCS and another Fall Classic, waiting for the return of October’s fire.
Now it’s finally that magical time of the year again.
You just have to wait five more days for another electric playoff game inside the Astros’ home park.