‘Why not us’ a mantra serving team well as pressure builds
The question would have been ridiculous in April. It would have been laughed at, mocked and trampled on a year ago. But with just two months remaining in a season that’s already defied baseball logic, it must now be asked.
Are the Astros the best team in the American League in 2015?
A.J. Hinch heard the words Saturday and didn’t flinch. He has seen everyone except Minnesota from the opposing dugout this year. His club has been tested and dissected for 105 games.
The Astros have gone with-
out George Springer and Jed Lowrie for extended stretches. They’ve added reinforcements in Scott Kazmir and Carlos Gomez. They’ve survived every just-wait-for-them-to-fall prediction and are still clinging to first place in the AL West on Aug. 2.
Hinch is smart enough to see Kansas City, Toronto, the Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees, and not get any crazy ideas with two long months left to play. He also has experienced enough baseball in his life to know the new Astros suddenly belong among the league’s elite.
“There’s no doubt that our best is good enough,” Hinch said before his club’s 9-2 victory over Arizona at Minute Maid Park on Saturday. “We have the opportunity based on the first 100-plus games we’ve played. And we have the talent to make things interesting for us and have a special last couple months.”
That’s why GMJeff Luhnow shipped six of the organization’s top prospects away in a week. That’s why assistant GM David Stearns spent the day after the non-waiver trade deadline flipping the calendar back to this past winter, when every team was still 0-0 and hope was about to spring. Keeping the faith
Not even the Astros’ bold front office would have predicted 58 wins by July, Carlos Correa’s immediate rise and Dallas Keuchel as an All-Star Game starter. But the franchise did envision a weaker-than-normal American League, with no one owning the crown by August and every good team having a real shot at the pennant.
“We’ve hung in there for the last four months,” Stearns said. “We certainly believe we have the ability to for the next two, and that’s our goal.”
The NL is seemingly locked down by St. Louis. The AL? Atwo-month dogfight, with only Kansas City possessing more victories than the Astros, and Toronto holding a better run differential entering Saturday’s action.
“Why not us?” has become one of baseball’s recurring contemporary themes. The Giants and Royals parlayed wild-card berths into trips to the World Series last season. The last five world champions have averaged just 92.2 regular-season wins, thriving off deep rotations and aggressive lineups as October arrived. No 100-win team has claimed the title since the 2009 Yankees.
But it’s not just the AL West that’s down this year. It’s the entire league. And the Astros have four months’ worth of magic to prove they belong.
“We’re kind of like that (2014) Giants team, where weird stuff is happening,” said reliever Pat Neshek, whose Cardinals fell to San Francisco in the NL Championship Series last season. “We’re scoring runs on just anything you can imagine. … The key is just to get in (the playoffs) and anything can happen.”
Now that the Astros have spent April through July shocking the baseball world, they want more. Being alive in August isn’t enough. Surviving September is what matters.
Kansas City got only stronger before the deadline. The Angels have Albert Pujols and Mike Trout. The Yankees have age, experience and a $211 million payroll. Numbers are revealing
Yet the Astros lead the majors in home runs and have the second-lowest opponents’ batting average. And they only trail St. Louis for best home record and winning percentage against teams that are .500 or better.
Kazmir watched Tampa Bay go worst-to-first in 2008. The Rays were young, unknown and overlooked for months, then turned a 31-win improvement into a dreamlike journey to the World Series.
Aweek removed from bringing his baseball life full circle, the Houston native already believes in the current incarnation of the club he grew up watching.
Who’ll be the AL’s best team in 2015? Why not the Astros? “You know what team we are,” Kazmir said. “It’s not like it’s flashes in the pan and we’ve had a good month or something. … Everyone on the team can feel that. Confidence is everything, and it really goes a long way.”
Correa and Springer have a few years before they have to take Luhnow’s experiment all the way. But in a season already devoted to the unreal, the postseason is unbelievably there for the taking. So’s the AL.