COLD AS ICE
Angry at the Astros for their lack of hitting? Not as much as this guy
Oct 19, 2017, 5:23 am
LIke most of the Astros, Marwin Gonzalez has been a disaster at the plate in this series. Stan Grossfeld/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
A New Year’s Day tradition is the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, where men swim in frigid waters.
Needless to say, there is shrinkage in the packages of male swimmers.
The distance to Yankee Stadium is 25 miles and if I did not know better I would think the Astros bats were getting ready to swim. For the last three games, the best hitting team during the regular season has shrunk. The come home for Game 6 and (hopefully) Game 7 at Minute Maid Park just one win from elimination in the American League Championship Series, down 3-2.
There is no swag.
Confidence appears to have disappeared into timid bats. Yankee pitchers looked like men against boys in the three straight home wins. And the Astros hitters tried to be Babe Ruth, swinging for the fences only to ground out or hit weak fly balls.
Where have the mucho grande cajones gone?
Let’s check the numbers against the Yankees. The Astros are batting .147 against the Yankees and have scored a paltry five runs. They have gone 11-for-92 (.120) with five extra-base hits, no home runs and 25 strikeouts in the three games in New York. With runners in scoring position, they went 2-for-21, including 0-for-8 in Game 5.
George Springer is 2-for-18 in the series. Josh Reddick is 0-for-17. Alex Bregman (2-for-17) and Marwin Gonzalez (2-for-15) are struggling, too. Even Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa were muted in New York. They went a combined 2-for-22 in Games 3-5.
Dallas Kuechel, who has dominated New York, was mortal, giving up four earned runs in 4.2 innings, striking out 8 while giving up 7 hits. It did not matter if it was Judge, Sanchez or Gregorius. Joe Girardi’s hitters think they are Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle or Joe D.
Down 3-2, they will face Luis Severino at Minute Maid Friday night. Justin Verlander must continue his mastery as an Astro. But unless the bats come alive, they will be the Not Ready For Prime Time Players and there will be no Game 7.
In five games your heroes have scored a total of nine runs! That’s right, just nine runs. The bats have been colder than a prostitute's heart.
Regardless of how jaded I am covering H-Town Sports over the years, I have bought World Series tickets for games at Minute Maid. I will show up. Let's see if the bats do as well.
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Cam Smith’s reaction to making the Astros Opening Day roster is priceless
Mar 25, 2025, 4:16 pm
It’s go time! While the Astros are not the juggernaut they were over the more than half-decade stretch from 2017 through 2022 that yielded regular seasons with 101, 103, 106, and 107 wins, four American League pennants, and two World Series Champions, as the saying goes, they ain’t dead yet. There is no superpower in the American League West the Astros need to overcome. In fact, the American League as a whole is grossly inferior to the National League. As a result, a fifth Astros’ AL title in this era is not some absurd fantasy, though it is certainly unlikely. But winning the pennant is unlikely for every AL team, so if you’re a fan of the Astros there is nothing wrong with a “Why not us?” mentality. On the other hand, the floor for the 2025 Astros is lower going into a season than it has been in almost a decade. The lineup has numerous question marks, and if the terrific trio atop the Astros’ starting rotation (Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, and Ronel Bronco) runs into injury or performance issues the Astros would have serious problems. That the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners both finish ahead of the Astros is clearly plausible. Play ball!
Astros history lives in these moments
It is simple fact that time marches on, but it is still amazing that the Astros are beginning their second quarter-century of play at what for its first two seasons was called Enron Field, then for the past 23 seasons Minute Maid Park, and now Daikin Park. That’s 25 seasons in the books, at least 26 more to come, with the Astros a few years ago having extended their lease through 2050. In non-specific order, I have twenty easily come-to-mind most spine-tingling moments at the ballpark. If you want 25 for 25 years, I leave five more to you.
Not all spine-tinglers on the home field are generated by the home team. Here are three produced by visiting players. In 2001, Barry Bonds smashed his 70th home run of the season to tie Mark McGwire’s single season Major League record. We know what went into the home run numbers of that era, but it was still jaw-dropping stuff. Bonds would finish the season with 73 homers. Game five of the 2005 National League Championship Series, with the Astros one out from winning their first ever pennant, Albert Pujols launched a Brad Lidge hanging slider that might still be airborne if not for the glass wall above the train tracks. It may be the most instantaneous crowd delirium to utter silence moment ever. It turned a 4-2 Astros’ lead into a crushing 5-4 loss. But, the next game Roy Oswalt pitched the Astros to that pennant in St. Louis. Lastly, the second game of the 2013 season, Rangers’ pitcher Yu Darvish retired the first 26 Astro batters before Marwin Gonzalez smacked a ball through Darvish’s legs up the middle for a base hit. Soooooo close to a perfect game. Only 22 perfect games have been thrown in MLB’s modern era (1900-today).
Now to Astro achievements. Fudging a bit by including Roger Clemens since it’s not for one specific moment. But the Rocket’s starts with the Astros were events. Speaking of Hall of Famers, Craig Biggio’s 3000th hit is an obvious list-maker. Jeff Kent is not a Hall of Famer but he was better in the batter’s box than any second baseman elected after Joe Morgan. Kent won game five of the 2004 NLCS with a bottom of the ninth three-run bomb to end what had been a scoreless game. Alas, the Astros would lose the next two games and the series in St. Louis. The crowd went much wilder over Kent’s homer than over Chris Burke’s series-winning homer over the Atlanta Braves in a 2005 NL Division Series. Burke’s homer came in the 18th inning, so sheer exhaustion held down the decibel level a little. A sleeper for the list occurred earlier in that same game, when Brad Ausmus of all people hit a two-out game-tying homer to get the game into extra innings.
Four no-hitters have been thrown by Union Station. Working backwards: Ronel Blanco last season, Framber Valdez in 2023, a combined job started by Aaron Sanchez in 2019, and the first in 2015 by Mike....yes, Fiers.
And now to the grandest home park moments of this Platinum Era in Astros’ history. Carlos Correa authored two of them, each in a game two of the American League Championship Series. In 2017 he doubled home Jose Altuve with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. That came off of Aroldis Chapman who shall appear once more in this column. In 2019 Correa tied the series at one win apiece with a walk-off homer. Yordan Alvarez also gets a pair of entries. You know, Yordan hit just .192 in the 2022 postseason. But talk about making your hits count. In game one of those playoffs, ALDS vs. Seattle, it was a two-out three-run walk-off blast off of Robbie Ray to give the Astros an 8-7 win. Then in the final game of those playoffs, it was a sixth inning gargantuan three-run launch to dead center turning a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 lead.
That leaves four moments that are 100 percent non-negotiable entries. While not dramatic (4-0 final score), the payoff warrants inclusion of the Astros winning Game seven of the 2017 ALCS over the Yankees. Similarly, while the moment of victory lacked drama (4-1 final), how could one exclude the Astros winning the World Series on home turf in 2022. Finally, for my money the two most pulsating, goosebump-inducing, viscerally exciting moments at 501 Crawford Street. In one of the most scintillating games ever played in any sport, Alex Bregman’s bottom of the 10th inning single gave the Astros’ their epic 13-12 win over the Dodgers in game five of the 2017 World Series. Then in 2019, Jose Altuve’s game six homer ended the ALCS (I warned you Aroldis).
Here’s to the new season! Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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