Ashot to set it right
Once favorites but now underdogs, Astros ready for playoffs
The short, strange trip that is the 2020 Houston Astros now veers to the north for a best-of-three playoff series against the Minnesota Twins that will either extend or bring down the curtain on baseball’s most complicated soap opera.
A year after beginning the playoffs heralded as one of the best teams of the young century, the Astros arrived in Minneapolis at midafternoon Monday as decided underdogs in one of eight wild card series that will begin the 16-team expanded Major League
Baseball playoffs on Tuesday.
“It probably wasn’t the road we thought we were going to take,” James Click, the team’s first-year general manager, said ina radio interview Sunday. “But the important thing is that you get to the dance, and you start up there.
“We had a couple of flat tires, a cou-
ple of missed turns. I think the check engine light was on pretty much the whole time. We’re in there, though.”
Houston was 29-31on the truncated season, one of two teams to make the playoffs with a losing record, and its roster for Tuesday afternoon’s Game 1 will be considerably different than the group that assembled in Florida in the Before Times of February.
The Astros’ lineup again features Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel, George Springer and Josh Reddick, all members of the 2017 World Series winners, plus emerging standout Kyle Tucker and
dependable veteran Michael Brantley.
Game 1 starting pitcher Zack Greinke, however, is the only front-line starter still standing from last year’s American League champions. Ace Justin Verlander pitched just one game in July before a season-ending injury, and Gerrit Cole departed before the season for the Yankees.
Jose Urquidy, who started Game 5 of last year’s World Series as a rookie, and Lance McCullers, who missed most of the last two seasons after undergoing arm surgery, are the other potential starters, joined by a bullpen that has been depleted by injuries and features mostly rookies and trade acquisitions along with veteran Ryan Pressly.
A new leader
Behind veteran manager Dusty Baker, who was hired in the wake of the 2017-18 sign-stealing scandal that resulted in the firing of manager A. J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow in January, the Astros have struggled on the road in 2020.
Their 9-23 road record was the second worst in the American League, and the Twins’ 24-7 record at Target Field was the best in baseball this season.
Five playoff excursions in six years, however, have given the Astros a degree of confidence that isn’t necessarily borne out by their performance this season.
“I like our team. I really like our team,” Springer said. “I love the way our guys have been throwing. Our offense can do things when we slow down and string things together. I look forward to hopefully having that chance.”
With the Astros’ second-place AL West finish this season, Baker becomes the first manager to lead five different franchises to the
playoffs. At 71, he’s endured the Barry Bonds home run controversy in San Francisco and the Steve Bartman debacle that helped undo the 2003 Chicago Cubs, but never has he faced a challenge, he said, that compares to pandemic-era baseball.
“It was the toughest, considering our road record, considering what we’ve been through as far as changes in baseball, being-on-theroad changes,” he said. “That was probably the biggest change and the biggest adjustment, and we’re still making adjustments.”
Preparing for the Twins required an adjustment, too. The Astros expected to face the Oakland A’s in the first round before an Oakland win and a Minnesota loss on Sunday altered the playoff seedings. Houston faced Oakland 10 times during the 60-game season but has not played the Twins.
Baker also has had to adjust to a new relationship with players in isolation, absent the family relationships that have meant so much to him during ahalf-century in the game.
“I don’t even know the (players’) families,” he said. “Usually, I like to create a family atmosphere. I learned that from Tommy Lasorda (his former manager with the Dodgers). You miss getting to know the families.”
Sign-stealing fallout
Family members will be allowed to attend the wild card games, but otherwise the playoffs will unfold for now without fans in the stands. That’s actually been something of a boon for the Astros, given the harsh feelings that emerged from MLB’s investigation into the 2017-18 sign-stealing scheme that has soiled the fran-
chise’s reputation.
Opposing players vowed revenge during spring training, with threats of throwing at hitters and other forms of potential mayhem. The Astros, however, say that things have been relatively quiet during games this season.
“Most of them have been normal, friendly like every other year,” Correa said. “There’s a lot of teams that have been chirping a lot.
“It is what it is. At the end of the day, we’re focused on baseball and winning the World Series, and all this is just going to come with the intensity of the game.”
Other than a brief standoff between the Astros and Dodgers early this season, Baker said, things have been relatively civil between dugouts. He has no illusions, however, that the Astros are MLB favorites.
“There’s not a bunch of people pulling for us, and if you think there are, you’re fooling yourself,” he said.
“You’ve got to be careful about what you say, because you can put yourself in a hole,” Reddick added. “It makes it a little more fun because guys get into it and hear stuff and it lights a fire under their rear ends and keeps it going.
“I thought therewould be more this year. I think no fans in the stands helps our situation, but there hasn’t been as much as I would have thought.”
A veteran view
But if face-to-face hostility enters the playoff atmosphere, Baker is prepared to respond to a degree that belies the anticipated gentility of a 71-year-old senior citizen.
“People don’t get in my face with hostility, because I’m not a turn-the-other-cheek type of brother,” he said. “I don’t approach people with hostility. When the game starts, then there’s hostility there naturally, being a competitor. But people don’t get in my face too much, or else I get you out of my face.”
And so it begins: playoff baseball on a Tuesday afternoon, featuring a team that has withstood scorn and injuries and inconsistent performance and is somehow still around to answer the bell.
“This is a teamthat cares about each other, and that is part of the reason why they’ve hung together,” Baker said. “This year started out tough, and it hasn’t gotten any easier.
“But perseverance and tough times make you tougher. I keep listening to the song (“Stronger”) by (Cham featuring Mykal Rose): ‘Every time you knock me down, I get stronger and stronger.’ That’s kind of like my theme song right now.”