THE PALLILOG
How shifting playoff landscape impacts Houston Astros trajectory
Sep 29, 2023, 11:02 am
The Astros open a 3-game series with Arizona on Friday night. Composite image by Jack Brame.
How MLB media's Astros disrespect has reached another level
The sports cliché about controlling one's own destiny is oxymoronic given the very definition of destiny. So let's say the Astros have the ball in their own court. Their job is not done but with their season perilously close to bleeding out that was a timely baseball tourniquet the Astros applied in winning two out of three in Seattle.
The Astros' dream scenario entering their regular season-ending series at Arizona is simple: The Astros sweep three while the Mariners win at least two of the remaining three games in their series with the Texas Rangers. The Astros would win the American League West outright if the Mariners sweep. If the Mariners win two of three, the Astros and Rangers would both finish 90-72, the Mariners 89-73, with the Astros winning the division title and bye into the Division Series by virtue of the Astros owning the Astros-Rangers season series tiebreaker.
If the Astros win two of three in the desert to close 89-73 they are in as a Wild Card.
If they drop two of three in the desert the Astros are out entirely if the Mariners take two of three from the Rangers. The Astros lose tiebreakers to both the M's and Toronto Blue Jays.
If the Astros get swept, F%#%^$! Backing in would require the Mariners winning no more against the Rangers.
The Astros have no walkover in Arizona. The Diamondbacks are positioned to get a National League Wild Card but haven't clinched, so the Astros will face the D'Backs "A" team at least Friday, including ace starting pitcher Zac Gallen. In one game you never know, but Gallen is clearly better than Astros' Friday starter J.P. France.
The Mariners' dramatic win Thursday night means the Astros cannot clinch a playoff spot until Saturday at the earliest. It would have been huge to wrap up a Wild Card Friday. Now, unless the Astros opt to go with Hunter Brown (um, no) or Jose Urquidy, Justin Verlander is their starter Saturday. With the Wild Card series slated for Tuesday/Wednesday/if necessary Thursday, Verlander pitching Saturday takes him out of the Wild Card series until a prospective decisive game three, presuming starting the 40-year-old Verlander on three days rest in game two (if the Astros were facing elimination) would be off the table.
If the Astros were the Mets or Yankees during the 4-12 fade the Astros posted, along the way there probably would have been a typically understated New York Post headline reading “Breggy Bum.” Bregman's salsa certainly has more kick to it than his performance down the stretch has had. He enters the Arizona series with a paltry three hits in his last 36 at bats (batting average .083), seven hits in his last 54 at bats (.130).
Bregman's very up and down season has had multiple stretches during which he's been awful.
Bregman turns 30 years old two days after the 2024 season opener. His contract is up after next season. Over the last four seasons Bregman is a .260 hitter who does draw a lot of walks. He's been an above average offensive player, but closer to average than to great. And while he has tremendous hands defensively, Bregman has committed a career-worst 15 errors. Injuries have curtailed his games played in multiple seasons, but last year Bregman played in 154 games and made just seven errors.
Bregman isn't worth a mega-dollar long term extension that starts when he's 31. The sticky spot for the Astros is their weak farm system has no quality prospect emerging as a comparable successor, unless perhaps this year's first round draft pick Brice Matthews is projectable as a third baseman.
If during the Astros' skid you were thinking “This is the worst choke job ever!” that's understandable, but it wasn't. Which is not saying going 2-7 vs. the sad-sack A's and Royals was anything better than pitiful.
The most famous blown postseason spot of all-time award probably goes to the 1964 Phillies. That was in the pre-divisions era meaning the postseason consisted of just the World Series. The Phils led the National League by six games with just 12 to play. They then lost 10 in a row. In what could be fairly called foolish desperation, during the collapse manager Gene Mauch repeatedly used his two best starting pitchers on just two days rest. After dumping 10 straight, the Phillies won their final two games, and finished one game behind St. Louis which went on to beat the Yankees in the World Series.
The Phillies were on the other end of the choke stick in 2007 when the New York Mets managed to puke up the seven game NL East lead they held with only 17 games left. The Mets 5-12 el foldo enabled the Phils to overtake them and win the division by one game. The last day of the season the Mets could have forced a one game playoff with a home win over the then Florida Marlins. Instead, future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine lasted just one-third of an inning getting blasted for seven runs and that was that.
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Stone Cold ‘Stros is the weekly Astro-centric podcast I am part of alongside Brandon Strange and Josh Jordan. On our regular schedule a first video segment goes up at 4PM Monday on the SportsMapHouston YouTube channel, with the complete audio available in podcast form at outlets such as:
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Astros betting big on their biggest advantage tonight
Jul 8, 2025, 12:03 pm
Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber was too valuable an opportunity for the Houston Rockets to pass up, even though it meant moving on from Jalen Green just four seasons after they drafted him second overall.
Durant was officially acquired from Phoenix on Sunday in a complicated seven-team transaction that sent Green and Dillon Brooks to the Suns and brought Clint Capela back to Houston from the Hawks.
General manager Rafael Stone is thrilled to add the future Hall of Famer, who will turn 37 in September, to a team which made a huge leap last season to earn the second seed in the Western Conference.
Asked Monday why he wanted to add Durant to the team, Stone smiled broadly before answering.
“He’s Kevin Durant,” Stone said. “He’s just — he’s really good. He’s super-efficient. He had a great year last year. He’s obviously not 30 anymore, but he hasn’t really fallen off and we just think he has a chance to really be impactful for us.”
But trading Green to get him was not an easy decision for Stone, Houston’s general manager since 2020.
“Jalen’s awesome, he did everything we asked,” Stone said. “He’s a wonderful combination of talent and work ethic along with being just a great human being. And any time that you have the privilege to work with someone who is talented and works really hard and is really nice, you should value it. And organizationally we’ve valued him tremendously, so yeah very hard.”
Green was criticized for his up-and-down play during the postseason when the Rockets were eliminated by the Warriors in seven games in the first round. But Green had improved in each of his four seasons in Houston, leading the team in scoring last season and playing all 82 games in both of the past two seasons.
Pressed for details about why Green's time was up in Houston, Stone wouldn't get into specifics.
“It’s the NBA and you can only do trades if a certain amount of money goes out and a certain amount comes in and there’s some positional overlap or at least overlap in terms of on ball presence,” he said. “And so that’s what the deal required.”
In Durant, the Rockets get a veteran of almost two decades who averaged 26.6 points and six rebounds a game last season and has a career average of 27.2 points and seven rebounds.
Houston loves the veteran experience and presence that Durant brings. Stone noted that the team had arranged for some of its players to work out with him in each of the past two offseasons.
“His work ethic is just awesome,” Stone said. “The speed at which he goes, not in a game … but the speed at which he practices and the intensity at which he practices is something that has made him great over the years and it started when he was very young. So of all the things that I hope rubs off, that’s the main one I think is that practice makes perfect. And I think one of the reasons he’s had such an excellent career is because of the intensity with which he works day in day out.”
Durant is a 15-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, who was the Finals MVP twice. The former Texas Longhorn is one of eight players in NBA history to score at least 30,000 points and he won NBA titles in 2017 and 2018 with the Warriors.
Now he’ll join a team chasing its first NBA title since winning back-to-back championships in 1994-95.
“Everything has to play out, but we do — we like the fit,” Stone said. “We think it works well. We think he will add to us and we think we will help him.”