Smith: With playoffs seemingly a given, enjoy the ride.
For the major leagues’ best team, the postseason is a given. World Series chances? Stay tuned, hang on and enjoy the ride
World Series. Let’s just go ahead and say it right now. I mean, why wait? So let’s just put it out there. Be open and honest about life. Not lie to ourselves and pretend the thing that really might be happening isn’t actually going on in 2017.
It’s been 12 seasons since the Astros were in their only World Series. This is the best Astros team ever. Ta da! This is also baseball. It is crazy — and I mean crazy — to even tease the Fall Classic in early July.
But … did I mention these Astros have six All-Stars for the first time (and should have seven)?
Have you looked at George Springer’s insane stats recently?
Isn’t it a little cuckoo that Dallas Keuchel has a 1.67 ERA and hasn’t lost a game (9-0) as the All-Star break awaits?
Jose Altuve was “struggling” for a couple of weeks. He went into Saturday’s games leading MLB in batting average (.342) again and was one of six Stros hitting .295 or better.
Sunday on the Chronicle’s “Texas Sports Nation” TV show (11 p.m., KPRC), I’m naming Jim Crane the best owner in Houston sports. Now that is crazy. So is the fact that we accept this line in our daily lives without blinking: The Astros are the best team in baseball.
They hit, pitch, field and run (for the most part) exactly like your local nine is supposed to. They sell out home games, crack you up on social media, beat decent opponents 12-2, and openly discuss everything from their fancy haircuts and love of video games to favorite movies and clubhouse pump-up tracks.
We entered the spring in West Palm Beach, Fla., with promise wrapped in uncertain question marks. We’re a week into July and all doubt has thus far been erased, the sad Rangers are living the below .500 life, the American League West is in the bag and the playoffs are on layaway.
Better than in 2015
Remember how electric Minute Maid Park was in October 2015? Feeling that feeling again is only three months away.
And this team is so much better and loaded and battletested and confident. I mean, the Astros have it. They’re a 1980s video game. They’re a city interstate at 4 p.m. without traffic. A.J. Hinch is staring at AL Manager of the Year, Jeff Luhnow has never looked smarter (Josh Reddick, Yuli Gurriel, Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran) and Crane is ready to back his club whenever it’s needed. So what should we expect? What’s good enough? What will make this sudden ascension pay off and what will (it is Houston, after all) break our hearts just like Game 4 versus the Royals in 2015 — but much, much worse.
Right now, this team has AL Championship Series written all over it. Then it depends on how healthy Lance McCullers Jr. and Keuchel are in mid-October and which team (Cleveland? Boston? Yankees?) the 2017 Astros are facing.
But we’ve got a few perfectly timed off days coming up and the baseball nation is about to see three All-Star starters from the country’s fourth-largest city take the field Tuesday in Miami.
So let’s keep the first-half hits coming and forget about reality for a little while longer.
“Saving my ticket $ for WS, baby.”
“World Series!!!”
“They will win the whole enchilada!”
That was Astros Twitter on Saturday morning, pumped up from Springer’s two-homer game.
Fans weigh in on season
There was an even-minded realist.
“Astros would have a good chance to lose to Indians in ALCS without adding a frontline starter.”
And a classic Houston sports fan.
“Let’s not jinx anything just yet, we’ve had enough disappointments.”
And this guy.
“It depends on who they give up ‘if ’ (they) trade for Melo.” Oops. Wrong sport. The last time we got a little excited, the Rockets insulted us with a horrific Game 6. The Texans also let us down the last couple of years — but we never expected anything big from them, anyway.
The best team in baseball should be different. I question what I was worried about in West Palm: starting pitching depth. I’d pick the Dodgers in the Series (thanks to Clayton Kershaw) and maybe even the Indians in the ALCS (because of experience).
But there’s never been an Astros team with a 16-game division lead, this super-balanced lineup leads MLB in slugging percentage and fewest hitting strikeouts, and no local team since 1962 has started this strong. 1980. 1986. 1998. 2004 and ’05. They all came up painfully short.
Yes, it’s only July. Of course, baseball can be cruel, cruel, cruel.
But we’re dreaming about the World Series. And that tells you everything about just how good the 2017 Astros have been, and where the best team in baseball could end up when the dream is complete.