A season after completing one of the biggest two-year turnarounds in baseball history, the Houston Astros seem intent on going worst-to-first in an even tighter timeframe.
The Astros entered the 2016 season as one of the favorites in the American League thanks to making the postseason last October, a playoff trip that came just two years after Houston lost 111 games and would have struggled to compete for a title in Triple-A. Only when this season began, the Astros were nearly as bad as ever.
Through May 22, 45 games into the season – a more than ample sample – Houston was straight awful: 17-28, dead-last in the AL West and on pace to lose 101 games.
Nothing was working. The young stars weren’t taking the next step, all the new acquisitions were busts and players who had career years in 2015 were regressing. Every game, every loss, pushed the Astros closer to a lost season.
Now, one month and one week later, the Astros seemingly can’t lose a game. They’ve jumped over three teams in the AL West to pull into second place behind Texas and are tied for the second wildcard spot at 42-37. The 25-9 stretch is better than even the baseball darling Cubs and Indians over the same timeframe. (Although no doubt to the chagrin of Houston fans, still behind the 26-7 run the Rangers have been on.)
The turnaround isn’t a surprise to all those who forecast big things for Houston before the season: the Astros’ young stars, new acquisitions and established veterans are all doing what they were expected to do, but very much were not doing through mid-May. But if you had the misfortune of watching the Astros play baseball early in the season, it was hard to see this rebound coming. Night after night of inconsistent pitching countered by an unbalanced, strikeout-heavy offense did not portend coming dominance.
Now both have done a 180 and the defense is throwing in plays like this.
Outfielder George Springer got the offense going with 23 hits in 12 games between 24 May and 4 June and then fellow young star Carlos Correa took it from there, shaking off a slow start to put up a 1.008 OPS so far in June. Carlos Gomez, acquired from the Brewers last year for the playoff push, has discovered how to hit again, seeing his average climb from .181 to .226 in the last two weeks. He’s been joined in the bottom half of the lineup by a resurgent Luis Valbuena, who has found his power stroke again, knocking seven home runs since the Astros bottomed out.
Starting pitcher Doug Fister, signed before the season as a free agent, has dropped his ERA from 5.56 at the end of April to 3.36 today. Flame-throwing reliever Ken Giles, acquired in a trade from the Phillies in the offseason, has cut his ERA almost in half from a horrific 9.26 in early May. The Astros are playing as expected, the team just started the season a month later than expected.
An article lamenting the then-disappointing Astros published on 23 May in the Houston Chronicle stated that “beyond their current players improving as the season wears on, there are no easy short-term fixes to the holes on the Astros roster.” That’s exactly what happened. Astros GM Jed Luhnow has made no major moves – outside of regularly changing his passwords to avoid St Louis Cardinals hacking attempts, of course. His current players just ... improved.
It’s a simple approach, no? Maybe one other contenders should consider as the trade deadline approaches. Although if the Astros keep improving at their current rate, what other teams do won’t much matter.
Video of the week
Melvin Upton Jr made the play of the week (season?) on Tuesday night against the Orioles, pulling back this J Hardy blast.
Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander has given up 16 home runs in 16 starts this year. Imagine how much better his ERA would be if he had chosen to spend his life with Melvin Upton instead of Kate Upton.
Quote of the week
“You haven’t heard the last of me”
– Alex Rodriguez, Yankees DH, responding to questions about manager Joe Girardi benching him for the foreseeable future against right-handed pitchers.
A-Rod has a .787 OPS against lefties this year but just a .584 OPS against righties. Yet he’s confident he’s not done. All great athletes have that confidence. And great athletes who are still owed more than $30m on a guaranteed contract that won’t expire for 16 months? They’re even more confident they are not done.
Who’s closer to victory: Donald Trump or the Cubs?
After losing six of seven, the Cubs righted the ship in Cincinnati and retain the best record in baseball. Meanwhile, after losing ground in the polls, Donald Trump saw that his brand of politics can win with Great Britain’s vote to leave the EU. The Cubs probably still have the better chance of going the distance, but don’t count out Trump winning the presidency (and then attempting to deport a quarter of the Cubs roster).
How did the kids piss off Goose Gossage this week?
Goose Gossage is ready to profit off of his miserable nature. Baseball’s crankiest old man will appear at a St Paul Saints game on 6 July when a copy of baseball’s unwritten rulebook will be handed out to the first 1,500 fans.
Or Saints will hand out Unwritten Rulebook to first 1,500 fans and Goose will be there. Whatever, you get the point https://t.co/nuj9Pic6QO
— St. Paul Saints (@StPaulSaints) June 29, 2016
Knowing Gossage, no rulebook will be given away. This is a sting operation to uncover baseball fans impure enough to dare want to set their eyes upon the unwritten rules, which shall never be written down. Fifteen-hundred Minnesota residents are going to get yelled at, and yelled at good, by Goose next week.
Nine things in order
1. The Goose is on record saying Pete Rose should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. “I don’t think he’ll ever get in, nor should he get in,” Gossage told Perform Media last year. “If we let Pete in … the horse is out of the barn. What will that mean?” No doubt it would mean the Hall of Fame would cease to be a place that honors and respects the titans of the game. It would lose its sense of timeliness. The Hall would be just like any other modern institution, desperately pandering to millennials in hopes of staying “hip” and “current” and “social.”
I don't want to hear about "respecting the game" ever again. pic.twitter.com/QfbshuQX02
— Alex Watt (@AlexanderWatt) June 27, 2016
Pete Rose should be put in the Hall of Fame now.
2. Clayton Kershaw is in the midst of a dominant season even by Clayton Kershaw standards, but he could be out at least through the All-Star break due to back pain and stiffness. The Dodgers currently aren’t expressing any concern about Kershaw’s back keeping him out longterm, but the franchise is on the hook for $33m a year through 2020 for a player whose job requires him to torque and contort his back 100-plus times twice a week. That fact has to concern at least someone in the Dodgers organization. Tiger Woods’ back troubles were under control until they weren’t. Now he struggles to make it through more than a few tournaments a year. What I’m saying is that Kershaw may never win more majors than Jack Nicklaus. It’s time we all realize that.
3. Pitch-framing has become a way for minor league catchers to fast-track their way to the major leagues. But young players need to remember that the the old-school skill of pitch-catching is still important.
4. The 2016 MLB season is currently on pace to see more home runs than the historic 2001 season when Barry Bonds hit 73, Sammy Sosa 64 and Alex Rodriguez launched 52, including 12 against right-handed pitchers. While still short of the record home run output of the 2000 season, home runs are up 32% since 2014. That’s a huge increase in just two years and one without a clear explanation. Teams are increasingly happy to fill their lineups with players who swing for the fences in every at-bat (and also occasionally connect between their many strike outs). But a 32% increase? If you’re the sort who likes to learn from history, advances in PEDs likely play a role, too. Can even that be the whole answer, though? It’s hard to ignore the fact that home runs have skyrocketed ever since Rob Manfred took over as commissioner from Bud Selig. Maybe ... just maybe ... Manfred ordered that all of the baseballs be juiced so the game would be more exciting under his tenure. I should note that there is zero (0) evidence of this. Absolutely none. But vast, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories drive much of the fan talk in the NBA and NFL and maybe it’s time baseball gets in on the crazy fun.
5. The Mets have signed Jose Reyes, but only to a minor league contract. So if you think they support domestic violence, let it be known that they only do so if it gets them good value on a talented player. Many great teams have been built by identifying moral inefficiencies. Excuse me, I meant market inefficiencies.
6. Today is the final day to fill out an online All-Star Game ballot and Cubs players maintain leads of 300,000 votes or more across the infield, with Anthony Rizzo leading all National League players in votes and Dexter Fowler tops among outfielders. Cubs fans clearly get out the vote for their guys. Look for some desperate Republicans to nominate Joe Maddon at the convention in a last-ditch effort to defeat Trump.
7. Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant didn’t take a curtain call on Monday night after his three home run, two double performance at the plate in Cincinnati. Many Cubs fans at Great American Ball Park stood and applauded and Bryant’s teammates urged him to tip his cap, but Bryant stayed in the dugout. “I’m not that guy,” he said after the game. That could be. Or maybe Bryant was just embarrassed by falling a single and triple short of the “cycle.” What a waste those extra home runs and double were when baseball’s most vaunted anomaly was on the line.
8. Cleveland is suddenly sports heaven and it’s not just the championship Cavaliers. Back in early May, Cleveland’s Stipe Miocic won the UFC heavyweight championship. A month later, the Lake Erie Monsters won the AHL’s Calder Cup and then that was followed by the Cavaliers improbable NBA Finals victory after being down three games to one. And now the Indians are unbeatable and attempting to run away with the AL Central. From an individual title to a minor league championship to major league success all in less than two months. It’s like a movie – so much so, in fact, that the Indians have constructed a Jobu shrine in their locker room just like in the movie Major League. But if Major League was remade in 2016, the plot would be quite different. Cleveland would be installed as the powerhouse favorite and the team featuring old guys and players with no business being in the major leagues? The New York Yankees.
9. Andrew McCutchen was ejected for the first time in his career on Sunday night after slamming his bat down over a called third strike by umpire Chris Conroy. The Pirates outfielder, who has a reputation for being one of baseball’s nice guys, told reporters after the game that it’s okay to get angry sometimes. “I’m sick of being the quiet guy. I’m sick of being the guy who people say ‘Oh, he’s a really nice guy.’ Jesus was a nice guy, too, but he went into the tabernacle and flipped tables. He could get angry. So, it’s OK to be frustrated. It’s OK to be angry.” Hmm. Is McCutchen trying to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball?
