THE PALLILOG
How Astros white-hot streak, schedule dramatically shifts new possibilities for postseason
Aug 15, 2024, 1:18 pm
It was just a matter of time. Composite Getty Image.
There’s still plenty of baseball left to be played but what a stretch for the Astros to take command of the American League West race, for at least the time being with a three game lead. Remember, their just concluded road trip began with a gut-wrenching defeat in Arlington, a game in which they squandered three different leads and lost in 10 innings on a two-out two-run bottom of the 10th inning home run. That dropped the Astros a game and a half back of the Mariners with the Rangers only three and a half games behind the Astros. Since then, it’s eight straight wins for the Astros, while the Mariners dropped five of six games with the Tigers, and the Rangers collapsed completely out of contention.
The Astros’ franchise record winning streak is 12. They’ve reeled off a dozen straight victories three times, most recently in 2018. Nothing is a given, but the Chicago White Sox are one of the worst teams in the history of the Major League Baseball, quite possibly the worst since 1900. They arrived in Houston with a record of 29-93, that is a pace to finish 38-124. Sweeping three from them this weekend would take the Astros’ current run to 11 with the Red Sox in town to start next week. In mid-June the Astros settled for taking two out of three over the ChiSox in Chicago. The loss was a 2-0 shutout in the series opener which dropped the Astros' record to 33-40, 10 games behind the Mariners. Since that day the Astros are 32-15, second best in MLB behind only the San Diego Padres. Over the same stretch Seattle has staggered to a 19-28 mark.
Seattle certainly could still wind up winning the AL West. That the Astros seemingly have all the momentum now means nothing. Momentum comes and goes. The Mariners have the mildly preferable schedule the rest of the way, but it’s about what they do with it. This weekend the M’s are in Pittsburgh where they face rookie sensation Paul Skenes Friday night. The three-game Astros-Mariners series at Minute Maid Park the final week of the season still looms extremely large, with the Astros needing to sweep or they lose the tiebreaker to the M's. The Astros’ next road trip is a doozy with four games at Baltimore then three at Philadelphia, though the Phillies have been terrible since the All-Star break.
Even should the Mariners take the division, the Astros’ surge to 10 games over .500 has significantly shifted the dynamics in the Wild Card race in case ultimately it’s a Wild card the Astros need to play in the postseason for the eighth consecutive year. The Astros enter the weekend just a half game behind Kansas City which holds the third Wild Card slot. Among remaining schedules, the Royals have the second hardest in MLB, including four games at MMP next month. For what it’s worth, the Astros’ remaining slate rates 15th toughest, the Mariners’ 24th.
August belongs to Bregman
August is a sizzling hot month every year. Not the weather. Well, of course the weather. But I mean for Alex Bregman. In 12 games this month Bregman is batting .340 with a 1.092 OPS, highlighted by “Breggy Bombs” in four consecutive games. Over his career, it is bizarre how vastly superior August has been for Bregman compared to the rest of the season, particularly given his amazing consistency over the other months. Here are Bregman’s career regular season batting average and OPS numbers for the first four months of the season:
March/April .248/.737
May .258/.818
June .268/.840
July .258/.835
Those are very solid numbers but there is absolutely nothing spectacular about any of them. Then:
August .335/1.003
Awesomeness. There is no reasonable explanation for it. It is definitely not true that once the calendar flips to August Bregman hits maximum stride in and there is no stopping him the rest of the way. Reversion has historically kicked in.
September/October (regular season only) .260/.841
Again, very solid numbers but nowhere close to August. Crazy. Will he better sustain excellence down the stretch this season? For Bregman’s postseason career the batting average/OPS combo reads .235/.790.
Closing time
Since blowing his very first save opportunity as an Astro Josh Hader has converted a franchise record 26 consecutive save chances. Saves can be a very deceiving stat for defining the quality of a closer’s season. That Hader has given up five game-losing ninth inning home runs is a big stain. Through July 30 Hader had only three “tough” saves this season. I’m defining tough as coming in for the ninth inning with just a one-run lead. Over his last eight appearances, Hader has nailed down four “tough” saves, and also worked two innings to get the victory in the Astros 2-1 win Wednesday. In the process the Astros have improved their still lousy record in one-run games to 13-19.
Frost bite
The hip-hop duo Outkast once asked “What’s cooler than being cool?” “Ice cold!” Mauricio Dubon has been frigid at the plate for a month and a half. From July 1 forward Dubon is batting a sub-anemic .146 with a feeble .445 OPS. He has just 12 hits in 81 at bats over this awful spell. But man have two of the hits been big ones. Dubon’s pinch-hit homer was the difference in a win over the Pirates July 31, then Wednesday night it was a two-out, two-strike RBI single to deliver the winning run in the 10th inning vs. the Rays. Hey Ya!
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It’s been an excellent weeklong stretch of games for the Astros tempered by the news of yet another season-ending injury to a starting pitcher. To get the bad news out of the way, it comes as no surprise that Ronel Blanco needs Tommy John surgery and is done until at least the middle of next season. While Blanco had not been nearly as good through nine 2025 starts as he was last season, he was still taking his regular return and on average getting into the sixth inning. Blanco turns 32 years old at the end of August. He’s not even salary arbitration-eligible until 2027. That last fact may be good news for him. The Astros will likely keep Blanco next year in hopes he can contribute in the second half of the season, since they will pay him barely the Major League minimum salary ($780,000 next year) That’s in contrast to Jose Urquidy, who in the midst of his salary arbitration years would have cost about three and a half million dollars to keep, so the Astros non-tendered him.
With Blanco joining Hayden Wesneski in the “See you next year! Hopefully.” club, it struck me as interesting that the Astros let Lance McCullers throw 102 pitches in his Wednesday outing vs. the Athletics. That’s eleven more than he had thrown in any of his prior four starts. McCullers holding up physically would be a huge boost, but the new essentials in the Astros’ rotation are Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. Framber has settled in to the tune of a 1.93 earned run average over his last four starts. Brown’s season ERA is 2.00. Brown has had five days of rest before all eleven of his starts this season. This Sunday is Brown’s presently next scheduled outing. He would work on four days of rest if on the mound Sunday against the Rays.
Taking the last two games from the Mariners was huge (for the second half of May anyway). Keeping the good times rolling by sweeping the two-game miniseries from the A’s was less significant but still nice. Maybe not quite nice enough to have Frank “The Tank” from the movie Old School belting out “We’re going streaking!!!” but it did give the Astros their first four game winning streak of the season. They still have not lost more than three straight.
On a heater!
Speaking of streaking, time for annual mention of one of my all-time favorite baseball factoids. The 1916 New York Giants hold the MLB record for the longest win streak with an incredible 26 in a row. Earlier in the season the Giants ripped off 17 in a row. Combine the two streaks and that’s 43-0! The 1916 New York Giants finished in fourth place. In all their other games the Giants went 43-66. The American League’s longest ever winning streak is of fairly recent vintage. The 2007 Cleveland Indians won 22 straight. There have been only two other winning streaks since 1900 of at least 20 games. The 1935 Chicago Cubs won 21 straight. The Art Howe-managed 2002 Oakland A’s won 20 in a row, and were the inspiration for the movie Moneyball. The Astros have three 12 game winning streaks as the longest in their history.
Expect the unexpected
Tuesday’s win over the A’s brought the Astros to the one-third completed point of the regular season. Isaac Paredes was definitely their best offensive player to that milepost. His “on pace for” numbers were the best on the ballclub 33 home runs and 93 runs batted in. Paredes also led in runs scored with 29. The last Astro to lead the team in all three of those categories was Alex Bregman who did it in both 2018 and 2019. That Bregman was clearly a better player than this Paredes, but Isaac healthy and making “only” 6.625 million dollars this season is a heck of a lot better value than Bregman at 40 mil for the Red Sox, especially given that while Bregman was off to a sensational start for Boston, he’s now out for at least a month with a quad injury.
Hunter Brown is on pace to win 20 games. The last Astro to get there was Gerrit Cole on the last day of the 2019 regular season. The day before that Justin Verlander won his 21st game.
The Cleveland Guardians’ bullpen was awesome last season, by far the best in the league with four relievers who each pitched in at least 74 games posting ERAs of 1.92 or lower, headlined by closer Emmanuel Clase’s microscopic 0.61. One-third of the way through this season for the Astros: Bryan Abreu sat at 1.90, Steven Okert 1.82, Josh Hader 1.57, Bryan King 1.52.
For Astro-centric conversation, 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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