ALDS Preview: Surprising Astros try to unseat Royals as playoff Cinderellas

It was the great prophet Ric Flair who said, “To be the man, you gotta beat the man.” If we may flip the script on that: To be the Cinderella, you gotta beat the Cinderella.

That’s what the Houston Astros are trying to do in their ALDS against the Kansas City Royals. The Astros are young and talented, a turned-around 100-loss team from just a few years ago that’s making a surprising postseason run. In other words, they’re exactly who the Kansas City Royals were last year. 

[Also: Previewing the ALDS series between the Blue Jays and Rangers]

The two play very different styles of baseball and we’ll get to that in a second, but if we’re talking about the stories, they’re very similar. The Royals were bad once upon a time too. But in 2014, they turned it all around, making an unlikely run to the World Series, where they lost in a riveting Game 7 to the San Francisco Giants. 

Rather than taking a step back this season like many pundits predicted (we’re guilty too!) the Royals emerged a 95-win juggernaut. They were a punching bag no more. And now they’re the No. 1 seed facing the upstart wild-card team. The Royals know how that can turn out, since they were the upstart wild-card team that swept the No. 1 seed a year ago. 

The Astros stockpiled young talent during three straight 100-loss seasons. We heard about how good they’d be one day. One day turned out to be sooner than we all thought. Their young core — George Springer, Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve — was been complemented by vets Carlos Gomez, Evan Gattis and Scott Kazmir, as the Astros’ front office realized it had a real chance to win this season.

So now we wait and see: Can the Astros unseat the previous Cinderella? Or are the Royals just too good?

SCHEDULE
Game 1: Thursday is Kansas City, 7:37 p.m. ET (Fox Sports 1)
Game 2: Friday in Kansas City, 3:37 p.m. ET (FS1)
Game 3: Sunday in Houston, Time TBA (MLBN)
Game 4*: Monday in Houston, Time TBA (FS1)
Game 5*: Oct. 14 in Kansas City, Time TBA (FS1)
*if necessary

PREVIOUSLY
The Astros won the season series 4-2. The Astros swept a three-game series at home in late June, before losing of two or three in Kansas City in late July.

PITCHING
Game 1: Collin McHugh (19-7, 3.89) vs. Yordano Ventura (13-8, 4.08) 
Game 2: Scott Kazmir (7-11, 3.10) vs. Johnny Cueto (11-13, 3.44)
Game 3: Edinson Volquez (13-9, 3.55) vs. Dallas Keuchel (20-8, 2.48)
Game 4: TBD vs. TBD 
Game 5: TBD vs. TBD

With Houston needing Dallas Keuchel in the AL wild-card game, we won’t see their ace again until Game 3. That robs us of something close to a marquee pitching matchup in this series, but we still have some interesting pairings, that’s for sure.

The Astros are rolling with Collin McHugh In Game 1, which two years ago would have seemed impossible. McHugh was nearly out of baseball after struggling with the Mets and failing to catch on with the Rockies. His emergence has been remarkable. As for Yordano Ventura, he was temporarily demoted this season after breaking out during last year’s postseason. 

Game 2 could be even more interesting. Acquired to provide rotation stability, both Scott Kazmir and Johnny Cueto have struggled mightily in their new locations. The pressure will be on both to be at their best. 

THREE KEYS FOR THE ROYALS
Get a lead, suffocate the Astros: If you watched postseason baseball last year, you know the Royals’ strategy well. They’ve got a great bullpen, so the goal is to get a lead by the seventh inning, then turn it over to relievers. Their closer, Greg Holland, is out after needing Tommy John surgery, but Wade Davis has moved back from the eighth inning. He may actually be better than Holland too. We see no reason for the Royals to deviate from their plan. Get a lead, keep a lead, go home a winner.

Keep the ball in the ballpark: The plan to beat the Astros also includes this pretty obvious point. Don’t give up homers. While that’s true for most teams, it’s especially true for Houston, which depends on the long ball and has no problem sacrificing strike outs and batting average for three-run bombs. The Astros have routinely have six or seven guys in the lineup capable of changing a game with one swing.

Win Game 2: As mentioned above, Game 2 seems like one that can swing the series. Cueto vs. Kazmir is a matchup that will have both teams crossing their fingers, hoping their trade-deadline acquisition looks as good as they hoped in late July.  

THREE KEYS FOR THE ASTROS
Do what you do: Not that we think Astros manager A.J. Hinch is going to all of a sudden turn into a small-ball team, but on the bigger stage the Astros really just need to be who they are. The swing and miss. They strikeout. It happens. Mike Trout does it too, ya know? That’s also how they hit homers. Both Cueto and Ventura have proven themselves to be emotional on the mound, so knocking a few homers against them could rattle them like the Astros did with Masahiro Tanaka in the AL wild-card game.

Keep deep outings from their starting pitchers: On paper, the Astros bullpen isn’t horrible. But it was definitely shaky toward the end of the season. If you’re Houston, you don’t want to take any chances. You’d much rather have strong outings from your starters. As opposed to the Royals, who are often just looking for a solid five or six innings. On the Astros’ side, Kazmir, McHugh and Keuchel are all capable of going deep into games. Make that happen and they’ve got a good chance.

A healthy and productive Carlos Gomez: Gomez, who was another trade-deadline acquisition for the Astros, also hasn’t been his best self. He hit just .242 for Houston and missed two weeks because of injury. Gomez was back in the past few games of the season and launched that homer in the AL wild-card game. If Gomez is healthy and on point, he’s just one more weapon for the potent Astros.

FIVE KEY NUMBERS
• 15.9%: The Royals strikeout rate. That figure is the lowest in the league. The Astros, on the other hand, struck out in 22.9 percent of their plate appearances, which ranked second.

• 4.76: Johnny Cueto’s ERA since joining the Royals. The team acquired Cueto to be an ace down the stretch, and he failed to deliver. If the team hopes to make a deep playoff run, they’ll need Cueto to revert back to his usual form.

• 225: Combined steals between both clubs. The Astros ranked third with 121 in the regular season, while the Royals ranked fifth with 105. Both of these teams are more than willing to run once they get on base.

• 50.9: The Royals UZR this season. That figure led the league. The Royals are one of the best teams are turning questionable balls into outs. That’s probably not a surprise when you consider Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon make up two-thirds of the outfield.

• 24.8%: The strikeout rate of Astros’ relievers this season, which ranked third. Everyone knows about the Royals’ strong bullpen, but the Astros have been nearly as good this season. They may lack popular names, but Houston can rack up strikeouts with the best of them.

*The Stew’s Mike Oz, Chris Cwik and Mark Townsend contributed to this report.

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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