The Astros have reached the stretch run looking less like a team that’s settled and more like one that’s still trying to hold itself together. After a season that swung from ice-cold to suddenly hot, Houston is now drifting again, and the unease around the club seems to be growing right along with it.
One of the biggest reasons for that unease is the front office. Dana Brown is no longer being viewed as simply a lame duck with a contract expiring after the season; the feeling here is that he won’t be renewed at all.
The trade deadline only sharpened that suspicion, especially with the report that owner Jim Crane vetoed a deal that would have sent reliever Bryan Abreu to the Twins for outfielder Trevor Larnach. That kind of intervention stood out as something unusual and suggested a serious disconnect upstairs.
On the field, the timing is just as worrying. Houston built a 2-1/2-game lead after sweeping the Rangers, but since then the Astros have dropped two series in a row and haven’t looked like the same group that rolled through that earlier stretch. The trade deadline disappointment seems to have left a mark.
The rotation is the part that feels most likely to decide how far this goes, and maybe even how the next year looks. Hunter Brown and Peter Lambert are steady enough, but after them the picture gets murky fast.
Hayden Wesneski has flashed some promise since coming back from the IL, posting a 3.86 ERA and averaging almost six innings in his two starts. But that’s still only two starts.
Ronel Blanco has made four starts and owns a 6.98 ERA while averaging less than five innings per outing.
Cristian Javier has averaged 5 1/2 innings since returning to the rotation, but his 5.73 ERA doesn’t exactly calm anyone down.
Tatsuya Imai has already been moved to the bullpen after a 5.55 ERA and four starts in which he imploded and lasted 1.1 innings or less.
Mike Burrows put up a 5.99 ERA in 17 starts, got sent to the minors, and then was stowed away on the IL.
Kai-Wei Teng has a 5.52 ERA in 10 starts and is also down in the minors.
Spencer Arrighetti and Lance McCullers Jr. are gone with the wind in trades.
Houston spent the year leaning on the idea that there were a lot of arms who could potentially start. The problem is that volume has not turned into the kind of quality a pennant race demands.
And yet the offense has been better than you might expect. The Astros have scored 550 runs, which ranks third in the AL.
That number says as much about the state of offense across baseball as it does about Houston itself, but it is still striking to see them getting that production while handing real at-bats to Christian Vazquez, Cam Smith, Brice Matthews, Jake Meyers, Joey Loperfido, Zach Dezenzo, Lamonte Wade Jr., Lucas Spence, Zach Cole, and others who are hitting .220 or less. That’s frankly remarkable.
Even with that run production, the concern is what happens if the Astros actually get into October. The belief here is that they would have a hard time against the premium pitching they’d face, and that the rotation would be too shaky to carry them.
At the same time, there’s one obvious reason they still might get in and maybe even go on a decent run: the competition around them is very mediocre.
So the Astros sit in this strange spot, still alive but not convincing, with the path ahead looking more like survival than momentum. And maybe that’s the whole exercise here anyway - thinking too hard about it and then trying to remember to just watch the games, whether that leads to enjoyment or rage.
In Other News...
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Astros Suddenly Have A Post Break Slide They Cant Ignore
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Cristian Javier was trying to settle in on the mound in just his third start back from injury, but the Padres made him work and collected four earned runs against him over five innings. Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. delivered the biggest counterpunches with home runs of their own, and for a club that usually expects more stability this time of year, the latest setback makes the post-break slide harder to dismiss. [Read more 🡒]