Baseball franchise eases H-Town’s bleak pro sports outlook for at least one night
Remember back in the day when Houston sports were so down, many of you were desperate for good news, and the Astros rode in to save the day, slash year, slash decade? Yeah, earlier this month. Hope you had a good week. What did Houston do to the sports gods?
H-Town has never been Title Town, but not too long ago, sports editors commissioned pieces and radio shows spent hours on how great it was to be an H-Town sports fan.
After a mostly torturous 30
years of Buckys, Billy Joes, Codys, Carrs, Matts and Brocks, Houston’s NFL team finally landed a Deshaun. A Deshaun with an uncanny knack for escaping on-the-field trouble and an impeccable off-the-field rep.
One of the world’s three best basketball players was putting up historic numbers with the Rockets, who were a hamstring injury from winning an NBA championship.
And the Astros had so many stars that artists had trouble fitting them all into murals. They won their first World Series, and one of their players even had a supermodel wife.
Houston never had it so good.
Well, the Houston’s big three were hit hard in 2020 and the first quarter of 2021.
You’re probably aware of the myriad of departures and the controversies, so no need in torturing you by recapping them. I do feel the need to pour a little out for the tens of thousands whose recent jersey purchases are for athletes no longer in, or possibly on the way out of Houston.
But let’s focus on the one professional franchise with the potential to lighten the local sports load.
What is wrong with the Astros?
After starting the season with six wins in seven games, they stumbled into Minute Maid Park Thursday having lost nine of their last 10.
The humiliations have been many, as they have struggled at the plate, on the mound and defensively.
Bad luck has tapped them on the shoulder as well, dropping injuries and COVID-related absences onto a roster that, while solid, is decidedly thinner than the team’s recent entries.
Their situation isn’t as bad as the Rockets — none of the Astros has gotten caught in a Booby Trap — but they had played so poorly that this weekend’s series against the Angels is important.
Not a must-win threegame set, obviously, but a need to REALLY win the series.
Crazy that we could even have such talk in April, but the ups and downs of the arduous baseball season will often lead us into premature panic.
That natural feeling is exasperated by a dark Houston sports scene.
The Astros brought some light Thursday with an 8-2 romp over the Angels. Perhaps this will prove to be the incline on this early-season rollercoaster.
After being spoiled by dominant arms in the starting rotation in recent years, adjustment to the new normal, as in average (or slightly below), is necessary. Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole won’t be taking the mound for the Astros this summer.
The Astros’ starting rotation isn’t bad, but it simply isn’t scary anymore.
Cristian Javier, who controlled the Angels on this night with nine strikeouts and only three hits in five innings, is in his second season with just 12 starts on his résumé. Oh, the potential is there, though.
With just one off day in the next 3½ weeks, the Astros will need better and longer performances from their starting pitchers, who have averaged just five innings per start through the first 17 games.
Zack Grienke is still be hard to hit, and boy is he fun to watch work, but hitters aren’t afraid to step into the box against him.
Lance McCullers Jr. is in his sixth season, but he has averaged barely 101 innings pitched per season. Nasty stuff, but not yet an ace.
Jake Odorizzi has six full seasons as a starter, but he has a career ERA of 3.97, and is coming off a 2020 season in which he threw only 132⁄3 innings because of injuries (a blister and a comebacker that hit him in the chest).
Jose Urquidy has made just 16 starts. Luis Garcia is a rookie with three career starts.
Thus, when the Astros aren’t hitting — they scored five runs just once in the previous 10 games — they are subject to more and longer losing streaks than they have been in years.
They’re good, but only good. For a few years, like Houston as a sports town, they’ve been better than good.
A win in one of 162 baseball games might not seem like much, but Thursday was a great night for Houston sports fans.
There haven’t been many lately.