Astros don’t plan on ending Cinderella run anytime soon
OAKLAND – Even now, after 133 days in first place, some people are still looking at these 2015 Houston Astros and wondering when it’s all going to fall apart. When is the clock going to strike? When is it going to be midnight?
These are the same Astros, after all, that lost 416 games the past four seasons. The “loser” label is tough to shake. Even when you’re the Cinderella story of this MLB season.
[Play a Daily Fantasy contest for cash today!]
So when the calendar flipped to September and the games started to get more important by the day, you couldn’t blame some folks for wondering: Would the clock strike now?
When the Astros lost two straight to the Oakland Athletics to start this week and the Texas Rangers came within one game of their AL West division lead, the whispers started. Now?
And Thursday night, as those big-swinging Astros bats started blistering balls around O.Co Coliseum in an 11-5 win and as the quietly fantastic Collin McHugh picked up his 16th win, the answer was clear: The Astros aren’t ready to see their postseason ride turn into a pumpkin. That’s not the orange that best fits this bunch.
“We’re very equipped to handle it,” says first-year Astros manager A.J. Hinch of the rigors of a pennant chase. “We’re not as young as people want us to be. These guys have been here all year. They’ve been in the middle of this. I’ll take our guys up against anybody when it comes to being able to handle the moment and enjoy the challenge of what’s ahead. We have a great personality. We have great competitiveness. We have no panic in us.”
This team, of course, was not supposed to be here. Finding a pundit who picked the Astros to win the AL West this season is like finding someone surprised that Ruben Amaro got fired. The Astros would be good eventually, we all knew that. Eventually just happened quicker than anybody expected. These Astros took first place on April 19 and didn’t relinquish it until July 12, and even then it was just briefly. By July 24, they were back in first and they’ve been there ever since. After Texas’ loss Wednesday night, the Astros’ lead was two games in the division again.
[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football: Sign up and join a league today!]
Even if they don’t win the AL West, Houston has a 91 percent chance of making the postseason, according to Fangraphs. So while October isn’t a sure thing, it’s looking pretty good. Still, winning the division and avoiding a one-game playoff is the preferred scenario. Just ask last year’s A’s team.
Inside the Astros’ clubhouse, the surest sign that it’s September is players talking about their fantasy football teams as the clock ticked toward Wednesday’s first pitch. Even coming off two losses and watching a lead that was 5.5 games two weeks ago shrink to just one, the Astros seemed calm. In one end of the clubhouse, Carlos Gomez laughed with a table of teammates. Jose Altuve snuck off to study footage of that night’s pitcher. Carlos Correa, their rookie shortstop who exudes star power, was all smiles.
“We’ll be fine,” says slugger Chris Carter, whose own dismal season (he’s hitting .181 with 138 strikeouts) hasn’t been too big of a hindrance with Evan Gattis, Colby Rasmus, Luis Valbuena and Correa adding pop to the Astros’ lineup.
“Not too many guys know about what happened in the past,” Carter says, shrugging off the ghosts of recent years. “It’s nice to be able to start fresh.”
These Astros, regardless of the win-loss record, certainly can’t be confused with those past disappointments. Since the end of last season, they’ve added Gattis, Rasmus, Gomez, Mike Fiers, Jed Lowrie, Hank Conger, rookies Correa, Preston Tucker and Lance McCullers, plus their formidable bullpen duo of Pat Neshek and Luke Gregerson, who have helped give Houston the fifth-best bullpen ERA this season.
The offense, meanwhile, is launching homers at an impressive rate. They hit four Wednesday night, tying the Toronto Blue Jays for the most in baseball this season. They also have 11 players with double-digit homers after Marwin Gonzalez hit his 10th of the season. That ties a record set by the 2004 Detroit Tigers.
As they march toward October, this is largely a new experience for the Astros. They don’t have a long list of guys who have been in the playoffs before, so it’ll be interesting to watch how the team responds as the schedule gets tighter and we start talking about magic numbers. Most of their postseason vets are in the bullpen – Neshek, Gregerson and Chad Qualls. Qualls was even part of the 2005 Astros World Series team. On the offensive side, Gomez and Gattis have had brief glimpses of playoff baseball, but this playoff run is a first for farmgrown stars Altuve, Correa, Dallas Keuchel and George Springer.
“It’s the best thing for a young player to be in a situation like this and know what it’s like to have something on the line,” says Lowrie, who at 31 is both the Astros’ oldest position player and the guy with the most playoff experience. “There are a lot of teams, frankly, who are going to be home in a couple weeks and we have something to play for. As a young player, you don’t really need to have an understanding of that. You don’t need to put any more pressure on yourself. You just need to look inward and figure out what you can do on a daily basis to help the team.”
[Check out Big League Stew on Tumblr for even more baseball awesomeness.]
Hinch, the skipper with a Stanford degree in psychology, says the only pressure comes from the outside. From the media, mostly. And while that’s true to a degree, Astros fans, long hungry for W’s, have higher expectations after the arrival of No. 1 pick Correa and the team’s splashy trade-deadline moves. But pressure? Hinch considers it something else.
“We’re relishing in the opportunity,” Hinch says. “I think we’re very aware of how exciting it is to play in September and be relevant. We’re in first place. We’re being chased by a number of teams. And there’s a lot of talk about us. That’s more of an opportunity than it is an obligation.”
If you’re looking for someone with a sense of urgency, it’s Keuchel, their ace and the leading candidate to win the AL Cy Young Award. He still wears the chip of 100-loss seasons on his shoulder.
“People have to realize there’s less than a month left,” Keuchel says. “If we don’t get it done, we’re going to be sitting at home watching once again. We’re definitely going to have to play better on the road these next seven or eight games.”
He’s right. The Astros, even after Wednesday’s win in Oakland, are a disappointing 28-40 on the road (compared to 48-24 at home). They’re playing three games against the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim starting Friday, then they head to Arlington for four games against the Texas Rangers that will be vital for either team’s hope for the division crown.
If the crown comes to Houston, you better believe it’ll be worn proudly.
“You have to appreciate going through the struggle and the pain of losing 100 games and being the worst team in the league to appreciate winning,” Keuchel says. “I’m never going to forget a 100-loss season just because that’s miserable. I don’t ever want to go back there again and I don’t think anybody else does as well.”
That’s not too different from Cinderella when you think about. Getting dressed up and going to the ball is much sweeter after you’ve spent so much time stuck in the basement.
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
