NOW OR NEVER
Burning questions Houston Astros must answer as they approach home stretch
Aug 18, 2023, 4:26 pm
Do the Astros have a clear-cut ace? Composite Getty Image.
How Houston Astros latest statement series holds critical keys to returning to championship form
You’re Astros manager Dusty Baker. It’s the last day of the 2023 baseball season and the Astros and Rangers are tied with identical 94-68 records. It’s a must-win game with the American League West title and a coveted bye in the first round of the post-season possibly at stake.
You’ve played it smart down the stretch anticipating this. All of your starters are rested and ready to take the mound.
Who are you giving the ball to?
Justin Verlander? He’s the highest paid player in baseball history, a sure Hall of Famer, the defending American League Cy Young Award winner. But he hasn’t exactly dominated since returning to the Astros and he got rocked for nine hits, two walks and five runs (four earned) over five innings in his last start.
Framber Valdez? Take away his recent no-hitter, Valdez has not been a shutdown ace in months. Since late June, his average start has gone six innings, giving up seven hits and 4.5 runs.
Cristian Javier has made it to the sixth inning only once in his last nine starts. He began the season at 7-1. Two months and 11 starts (nine no-decisions) later, he’s at 8-2. There’s talk of him going to the bullpen for the post-season.
Hunter Brown has been up and down and Jose Urquidy is coming off injury. You want to go to war in a one-game shootout with either of them?
The true ace of the 2023 Astros is rookie J.P. France who has saved this season with a hard-nosed, reliable 9-3 mark and 2.74 earned run average. Be honest, had you even heard of Jonathan Patrick France before the season started? He didn’t make his MLB debut until May 6. He’s started 16 games, won nine of them. The Astros have won all eight of his most recent starts. Looks like Clark Kent, pitches like Superman.
J.P. France is a selfie of how the entire Astros season has unfolded - unlike anything fans have seen in recent years. Used to be, you’d turn on the Astros game in the third or fourth inning (we arrive late for TV, too) and the Astros would be up 3-1 with Verlander and Valdez dealing in dominant form. This year, the score could be Astros up, Astros down, and the team is scrapping to the end. No lead is safe, no deficit fatal.
It seemed all was smooth sailing in recent years past, with Baker making all the right moves and fans appreciating their crusty, lovable, toothpick-gnawing skipper. This year, fans are pulling out their hair.
Why is Martin Maldonado batting in the eighth inning with runners on base? How much more of Jose Abreu can we take at first base? Why is Grae Kessinger in the lineup? Why is Yordan Alvarez, one of baseball’s mightiest sluggers, batting fifth? When, if ever, is Michael Brantley coming back? Now pitching for the Houston Astros, Phil Maton, oh no!
The Astros seem to be on a frustrating treadmill, and like the real treadmill you use to hang clothes at home, they appear to be going nowhere. The Astros keep winning series but can’t gain ground on the division-leading Texas Rangers. Wile E. Coyote has more success catching the Roadrunner. It’s like that Rodney Dangerfield joke. As a teenager, he borrowed $500 from a lone shark, paid him $25 a week for 30 years and still owed him $1,000.
That’s the weirdest thing of all in 2023 - the Astros are looking up at the Rangers in the standings. That’s not supposed to happen.
Still … the Astros are 70-52, 18 games over .500, and winners of eight of their last 11 games. Unless the roof falls in, they’re all but guaranteed of making the post-season. For all of this summer of discontent, there are 30 teams in baseball and only five of them have a better won-loss record than the Astros. TV ratings are up on AT&T SportsNet. Minute Maid Park is packed, averaging nearly 38,000 fans each night. That’s more than 5,000 up per game from last year when, if memory serves, they won the whole shebang.
Huge hot-ticket series against the surging Seattle Mariners, always popular Boston Red Sox, those dreaded Yankees and surprising Orioles remain on the home schedule.
Oh, there’s a little three-game set against the Rangers coming up in Arlington in early September. Astros fans might want to start planning the roadie.
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Houston falls short as Soto’s homer, missed opportunities doom Astros
Mar 28, 2025, 10:26 pm
With a chance to make a late splash in his New York Mets debut, Juan Soto came up empty.
After signing the biggest contract in baseball history last offseason, the slugger came to bat with two runners aboard and the Mets down by two in the ninth inning Thursday. But instead of delivering the huge hit New York was looking for, he whiffed on a full-count slider from hard-throwing closer Josh Hader that was way outside the strike zone to send the Mets to a second straight opening day loss in Houston's 3-1 victory.
“He just got me in that situation,” Soto said.
Hader loaded the bases with nobody out, then fanned third-string catcher Hayden Senger in his first major league at-bat. Francisco Lindor’s sacrifice fly made it 3-1, and there were runners on first and third when Hader struck out Soto for his 200th career save.
“We all want to do something in a big spot,” Soto said. “We’re all trying to get the knock and try to bring the runs in and try to help the team either way.”
Soto singled and walked twice against the Astros after signing a record $765 million, 15-year contract as a free agent in December.
Mets manager Carlos Mendoza was asked if he thought Soto felt extra pressure in the ninth inning because it was his first game with a new team.
“Yeah, of course, as a competitor he always wants to come through,” Mendoza said. “I thought he had some good at-bats today and even on that one he got it 3-0 and then 3-1 and that pitch that he got there (he) just missed it. Pretty good pitch. But he’ll come through.”
Soto, who played for the American League champion New York Yankees last season, joins the Mets as they chase their first World Series title since 1986.
The four-time All-Star was disappointed his first game with the Mets didn't go their way.
“I was expecting to win the game,” he said. “Definitely it’s not how we wanted. ... They’re a really good team over there and they come in and grind. For me it was a good experience. These guys are amazing and we’ve been having a good time since spring training and we’ve just got to bring that all the way.”
The 26-year-old Soto hit .288 with 41 homers and 109 RBIs last year and won a Silver Slugger Award for a fifth straight season.
Soto is a career .285 hitter with 201 home runs and 592 RBIs in seven major league seasons. He's also played for the Nationals and Padres.
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