EMBRACE IT
If you're sick of MLB fans giving those 'Damn Astros' the business, consider this
Jul 13, 2023, 4:47 pm
Kyle Tucker was booed mercilessly at the All-Star Game. Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images.
Now batting for the American League, from the Houston Astros, Kyle Tucker.
Boo!
Astros fans don’t get it. Why are they booing Tucker at an All-Star Game in Seattle? He plays for the American League, the home team in this game, the same side as the Seattle Mariners. If they’re booing because of the 2017 World Series, Tucker wasn’t even on that team – he was playing for Buies Creek and Corpus Christi in the minors those six long years ago. For the record, the Buies Creek Astros were a Single A affiliate in North Carolina. They’ve since relocated up the road and are now the Fayetteville Woodpeckers, maybe the best team name in all of baseball.
There’s only two Astros still on the roster from the 2017 scandal Astros, Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, and neither is an All-Star this season. So when is this booing crap gonna stop?
It’s not. Actually there is one way for it to stop and Astros fans don't want any part of it. It’s for the Astros to become losers, non-playoff contenders, humbled nobodies. As Reggie Jackson said, “fans don’t boo nobodies.”
So as long as the Astros keep winning division titles, American League pennants and World Series, they’re going to get boo’d and hooted and jeered. Fans of other teams, particularly in Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and New York, are going to despise the Astros. As Shakespeare would put it, those cities are tired of suffering the slings and arrows of the Astros outrageous fortunes.
So they boo – that’s all they got.
Think of the teams that get boo’d for seemingly no good reason: the Dallas Cowboys, the Duke University men’s basketball team, the New York Yankees. Sure, none of them has won squat in recent years, but still they’re hated wherever they go, That’s because losing is fleeting, but the stink of winning sticks with you.
Heck, the Yankees have won one lousy World Series in the past 20 years, but they’re still boo’d in every stadium outside The Bronx like Babe Ruth was in the on deck circle. You know, Boston had won four World Series and San Francisco three in the past two decades and fans aren’t booing their current players just for wearing Giants and Red Sox uniforms.
Consider this, in 1955 a musical-comedy called Damn Yankees hit Broadway and swept the Tony Awards. The play was based on a book called The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant. It’s about a baseball fan who’s sick and tired of watching the Yankees win year after year, so he sells his soul to the devil in exchange for the Yankees failing to win the American League pennant.
Damn Yankees is a comedy, but there’s always a little truth in comedy. Between 1936 and 1964, (29 years) the Bronx Bombers won 22 American League pennants and 16 World Series. And that was back when only two teams made the post-season.
Yeah, there was good reason to hate the Yankees back then and still now. So you kinda understand why fans around the country aren’t particularly fond of the Astros these days. Booing the Astros has taken on a life of its own, and it’s going to live a long time. Fans just plain like to boo. One year in Philadelphia, they boo’d Santa Claus at an Eagles home game. What’d Santa do to deserve that?
You know that song, Everybody Loves a Winner? It’s not true. The Damn Astros are winners and unfortunately they’re just going to have to live with the consequences.
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If the Astros were going to win one series and lose the other on their six-game road trip out of the All-Star break, they got it right in taking two out of three games at Seattle then losing two out of three to lousy Oakland. Had they inverted those results, the Astros would not be alone atop the American League West starting this weekend’s series against the Dodgers at Minute Maid Park.
By the schedule the Astros’ sledding now gets tougher. The Dodgers are rolling toward their 11th National League West crown in 12 years, despite their pitching staff having been battered by injuries every bit as much as the Astros’. The Astros will face three rookie starters this weekend. National League Rookie of the Year candidate (non-Paul Skenes division) Gavin Stone goes Friday. Saturday it’s Justin Wrobleski making his fourth big league start, Sunday River Ryan makes his second. 325 million dollar addition Yoshinobu Yamamoto last pitched June 15. Tony Gonsolin is out for the year without throwing a pitch. Clayton Kershaw’s first pitch Thursday marks the first of his season. Tyler Glasnow’s Wednesday return from the Injured List means the Astros won’t face him this weekend.
Aside: Astros’ fan favorite Joe Kelly is back in the Dodgers’ bullpen. He was activated from the IL out of the break, so the opportunity to welcome him back to Minute Maid Park looms!
After the Dodgers, the Pirates hit town with Skenes slated to pitch Monday opposite Jake Bloss. Gulp. Hey, in one game, you never know. Skenes has been the most electric rookie pitcher since Dwight Gooden with the Mets in 1984.
Sleepless in Seattle
The Mariners’ unraveling has reached historic proportions. It’s not easy losing six straight matchups with the lowly Angels but the Mariners were down to the challenge and pulled it off. The M’s have stumble-bummed their way to a 9-20 record over their last 29 games. That’s actually a better winning percentage than the Astros’ had after staggering from the starting gate to a 7-19 mark. Like the Astros did, the Mariners can right their ship, though if they don’t add quality offense before Tuesday’s trade deadline it seems unlikely. Seattle has scored more than two runs in one of its last eight games, the only win among those eight when the Mariners got to Ronel Blanco and Seth Martinez Sunday to avoid an Astros’ sweep. Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers whipping up on the laughingstock Chicago White Sox this week has their World Series title defense very much alive and a threat to overtake both the Astros and Mariners.
The trade deadline is this Tuesday
Tick-tock toward Tuesday’s 5PM Central Time trade deadline. General Manager Dana Brown is on the clock. Let’s start with starting pitchers. Tarik Skubal! Garrett Crochet! Jack Flaherty! Any would be a fabulous addition. If Brown acquires one, he will have done phenomenal work cajoling the trade partner into thinking the Astros’ offer the best. Frankly it seems impossible. The Orioles are in the starting pitcher market. Their farm system runs laps around what the Astros have. Numerous other teams on the hunt for pitching have higher rated minor league talent. The Triple-A Sugar Land Space Cowboys are having a fabulous season, but until the Astros Thursday moved up soon to be 24-year-old Jacob Melton (who was batting just .248 with a .307 on-base percentage at Double-A Corpus Christi) there was not one non-pitcher of any consequence younger than 25 on the roster. Pedro Leon, Shay Whitcomb, Will Wagner, and include Joey Loperfido: it would be shocking if any of them can be the best player in an offer good enough to land one of the potential big trade fish. All four of them wouldn’t be enough to land a Skubal or Crochet.
On the hitter side, if the Blue Jays shop Vlad Jr. and/or the Rays take offers for Paredes, of course Brown better try. Either would be a sharp upgrade over Jon Singleton, and Guerrero can’t become a free agent until after next season, with Paredes under team control through 2027. Reality check time. Seattle’s offense is in dire straits. The Mariners have four prospects rated higher than any Astros’ prospect. If the Mariners didn’t make a winning offer over what the Astros proposed, Seattle GM Jerry Dipoto would look like a timid clown.
That said, there will be several second and third tier starters and relievers moved who would boost the Astros. If Spencer Arrighetti and Jake Bloss are both still in the Astros’ starting rotation after the deadline, Dana Brown will have failed. That said, the Astros could well stand pat and win the Mild, Mild West. They could also finish third.
Go for the gold!
With the Olympics underway, a medal podium-style ranking of the Astros’ greatest trade deadline acquisitions:
No medal but cannot be omitted: Randy Johnson. It was a brief fling with “The Big Unit” in 1998 but it was spectacular. It elevated Houston as a baseball city. In 11 regular season starts Johnson went 10-1 with a 1.28 earned run average. He threw shutouts in his first four Astrodome starts. He spiked attendance like no other player in franchise history. Even though the San Diego Padres beat Johnson twice (Johnson pitched fine, the Astros scored two runs total in the two games) and bounced the Astros in a National League Division Series, and prospects Freddy Garcia and Carlos Guillen included in the deal both went on to have excellent careers, it was a trade that in hindsight you make 100 times out of 100.
Bronze: Jeff Bagwell. Reliever Larry Andersen was outstanding in helping the Boston Red Sox win the AL East in 1990, but the BoSox got swept in the ALCS and Andersen left as a free agent. Bagwell has the greatest offensive resume in Astros’ history (I know, I know, postseason aside) and is quite arguably one of the 10 greatest first basemen of all-time.
Silver: Yordan Alvarez. He has longevity to prove but to this point in his career, while not the all-around player Bagwell was, Yordan is clearly the more destructive force in the batter’s box. Throw in his three monstrously significant home runs in the 2022 Astros’ title run, and his awesome 2023 postseason, and what could still lie ahead for him and the Gold could be his if we revisit this topic 10 years from now. Imagine the Dodgers if they hadn’t gifted Yordan to the Astros for Josh Fields.
Gold: Justin Verlander. Astros’ World Series championships pre-JV, zero. With him, two. Even though his World Series resume is terrible. The finishing piece to the Astros’ initial championship winner in 2017 with a 1.06 ERA in five starts ahead of winning the 2017 ALCS MVP, a second crown in 2022, two Cy Young Awards and a Cy runner-up. Interesting decision to make for the cap on his Hall of Fame plaque. Much more body of work with the Tigers but the championships and legend cemented with the Astros.
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.