Club built to handle long grind
A little more than a week ago, the Astros were pushed around Minute Maid Park by the Pittsburgh Pirates, losing the final two games of a series by a combined score of 24-2.
A.J. Hinch’s squad was injured, its bullpen taxed, and its offensive production was inconsistent and sluggish.
Worse, the Astros were playing ragged baseball. There wasn’t a slew of logged errors, but a few misplays, misreads and
some poor execution. For a team that prides itself on intelligent efficiency, using the research from the best front office in baseball, the Astros were coming up short on the variables that turn losses into wins.
It seemed they needed the All-Star break in the worst way. But there was plenty of baseball remaining before the annual in-season break.
The eight games between a stretch in which they lost nine of 11 games, and next week’s festivities in Cleveland will not be the most important ones of the season. Such hyperbole would be particularly misplaced with a team whose only satisfactory result to the season is winning the World Series.
No, those games, of which the Astros have won the first five, will be more evidence of what
we know about this team: Ups and downs, slumps and hot streaks, departures and returns from ailments and injuries, the Astros are built to handle the 162-game grind of the regular season.
Whenever you have a thought that there might be something major missing, they take the field against weaker teams and pound them.
The Angels (44-44), who are here for a three-game set this weekend, certainly qualify as a team the Astros expect to handle, especially with All-Stars Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole slated to start the first two games of the series.
Coming off a three-game sweep of Seattle, then two wins at Colorado, including a rally from a three-run deficit in the first game, all is right in Astros world.
“We’re playing pretty well offensively, we’re getting pretty timely with our hitting and pretty
good at-bats,” Hinch said after Wednesday night’s 4-2 win over the Rockies. “We’ve found ways to win and had some really important at-bats at the most important part of the game.”
With George Springer, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, three of the top four hitters in the batting order, spending significant time on the injured list, the Astros’ scoring has dipped as the season has gone on. That’ll almost certainly improve when Correa returns from a rib injury.
The Astros were averaging 5.5 runs per game when Springer missed four games with a hamstring injury. He injured his knee in his return then missed the next 31 games. The Astros scored almost a full run less (4.6 per game) with their leadoff hitter down.
A record-setting year might not be in the cards, but their current 5.05 runs-per-game average would be among the top five seasons in franchise history.
That’s how good these guys are.
At 55-32, the Astros have the franchise’s third-best mark through 87 games, four games behind the World Series champs of 2017 and one back of last year. This is what contending looks like.
Astros pitchers have held teams to two runs or fewer in three of the five games in their current winning streak. Two of those were Wade Miley starts.
Miley, a mostly uncelebrated offseason pickup, has a 3.28 ERA, putting him 10th among AL starters. That was hardly the expectation for Miley, 32, who entered the year with a career 4.26 ERA.
While fans would rob themselves of the joy from continued excellence throughout the season, it isn’t too early for the Astros to peek at postseason matchups. As mentioned earlier, Jeff Luhnow’s crew is the best in the business at working the numbers to their advantage.
The Astros have room for improvement, more so than glaring weaknesses. A championship mentality with championship parts.
They score more than enough runs and they’re arguably the best fielding team in baseball. They have two top-flight starting pitchers, a third performing at a high level, and the back end of their bullpen is superb.
“We’re gonna keep showing up competing every day,” Alex Bregman said. “We feel good. The second half ’s gonna be fun.”
Another shaky stretch is likely. In the words of every person who has played the game, that’s baseball.
But what the Astros have done in their five-game streak, their fourth of at least that length this season, including two 10-gamers, is show that such runs are mere blips. Minor and temporary.