Despite rough start, the heat shouldn’t be on until summer
Dusty Baker has 44 wins and 46 losses since he started managing the Astros in January 2020.
James Click holds the same upside-down record while serving as the ballclub’s general manager.
This below-.500 thing that rarely happened from 2015 to 2019 under the previous regime?
It’s becoming a trend for the new Astros, who went 29-31 last year during the craziest regular season in Major League Baseball history, answered the 60-game letdown with a thrilling playoff run that almost ended up in the World Series, but are playing forgettable .412 ball
almost 20 games into a new season.
It snowed in Denver on Wednesday and was a very un-baseball 34 degrees at the first pitch.
It also ended up as 6-3 Colorado Rockies, who captured both contests in a two-game series against the Astros and exited their home field still holding the worst record in baseball.
It’s hard to find a better symbol for the Astros’ weird 7-10 start to 2021 than the one above. But a superior one exists.
A.J. Hinch’s bad Detroit Tigers dropped the first game of a doubleheader Wednesday and fell to 6-11, which was second-worst in MLB to the Rockies. But Hinch swept his old team out of Minute Maid Park last week by a combined 20-8.
The newest version of the Baker-Click Astros started a scorching 6-1 this year. Since then? They are a horrid 1-9 and left frigid Colorado in last place in the American League West, 3½ games out of first place and officially worse than the rebuilding Rangers.
“We’ll go back home. Go back to work. Try to get back to .500 … and make our move from there,” Baker said after his team dropped its third consecutive contest and lost for the ninth time in 10 games.
You heard it right, increasingly concerned Astros supporters. Getting back to .500 is already the goal in late April, with Seattle playing good baseball, Oakland playing great baseball and Baker’s team getting beaten up by the 6-12 Rockies.
It’s way too early. Especially to say something dumb and crazy like “This is Baker’s fault” or “This is Click’s fault” or this is blah blah blah’s fault. Please.
Baker and Click deserve at least 100 games in their new jobs before anyone starts panicking.
COVID-19 is still a thing, and it hasn’t been fair to these Astros.
No one is going 10-7, let alone playing .500 ball, with this mysterious bullpen, this rotating leadoff spot, Kyle Tucker hitting .169, and Myles Straw batting a flat .200.
But yes, it does appear Baker is still getting a feel for this season’s roster, and the Rockies series wasn’t his best series as a skipper. And yes, a lineup featuring Michael Brantley, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel should produce a daily Astros team better than this.
A reporter asked Baker if a team meeting was required.
The answer summed up the 17-game state of the 2021 Astros.
“How do you have team meetings without Jose (Altuve) there?” Baker said. “The guys have talked about it. We’ve talked about it. Talk is cheap. You’ve got to … it’s actions. We haven’t had our team to talk about it in a week or so.
“We know what we’ve got to do. These are big boys. You shouldn’t have to call a team meeting. I think the bad teams call excessive meetings. Good teams try to figure out a way to get out of it. Everybody knows where we are. But hey, it is early. You don’t like being where we are. But where I came from, you make up one game a week and, shoot, the middle of May we’re in great shape.”
That optimism aided the Astros last season, when 29-31 became Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
But sooner than later, the real Astros must stand up. For themselves. Between the lines that define.
They only made the playoffs last season because commissioner Rob Manfred was feeling generous. Then they stunned MLB and came one victory away from another Fall Classic.
A 6-1 beginning currently looks like another false start. The Athletics have won 11 consecutive games. The Astros were beaten up, physically and mentally, and publicly saying they needed to return home — even though they went 1-5 during their initial homestand of 2021.
Real definition will appear down the road. In June, August and October.
The lasting truth of 2021 won’t be revealed in the April snow in Denver.
But these are facts right now: The Astros are stacking up bad losses and are last in the AL West.
Winning another World Series can wait for later.
Baker, Click and Co. are still aiming for the foundation that .500 represents.