MINNEAPOLIS — In this chaotic October, between 100 winning teams being swept, a winless American League East and domination by lower seeds, there is only one constant. The Houston Astros do what the Houston Astros do, which is they own the most important month on the baseball calendar.
In this era of complaining about the game’s playoff format, in which the top teams sit for a week while the latecomers fight for their season in the wild-card round, there is one exception. The Astros illustrated that goodbye doesn’t necessarily equal goodbye.
In this moment of deep questions across sports, about strategy and analysis and the challenges of building a team to succeed in the playoffs as it does over a 162-game season, there is the team that, during seven consecutive years, found itself in the American League Championship Series. The Astros were once the most analytical organization in baseball. Even though they have gone backwards in recent years, they continue to win.
Baseball is on one. Up is down and right is left and the sliders are sweepers and no one can really figure out what’s going on. The 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks are in the National League Championship Series after dismantling the Los Angeles Dodgers, who finished 16 games ahead of them in the NL West. The 104-win Atlanta Braves are on the verge of being beaten after their shortstop spoke loudly to Bryce Harper in the clubhouse, a reporter printed the ill-advised tweet and Harper got the revenge game to end all the revenge games that put his Philadelphia Phillies, who finished 14 games behind Atlanta in the NL East, on the line with a chance to end their series on Thursday.
All of this came a day after the 101-win Baltimore Orioles saw their season end at the hands of the buzzsaw that is the Texas Rangers. After winning the AL West crown in the final week of the season, Texas swept the Tampa Bay Rays in the wild-card round, then knocked off the Orioles to set up a whale of a ‘an ALCS.
Never have the Rangers and Astros played in the postseason, and despite all the upsets so far – if Philadelphia eliminates Atlanta, the lower seed will have prevailed in five of the eight series – having this kind of ALCS speaks to the drama that exists when chalk turns to dust.
It’s the Battle of Texas, the Silver Boot series coming to prime time.
This is a pair of fearsome offenses that will make 27 outs painful for opposing pitchers.
It could even be Justin Verlander vs. Max Scherzer.
A little over two months ago, the two wizened aces were teammates on the New York Mets. The Mets’ deadline calculation sent Verlander to Houston and Scherzer to Texas. And even though a shoulder strain has stopped Scherzer over the past month, he could return and bring even more verve to a series full of it.
This is the problem of this month of October. There are no New York Mets. Or the New York Yankees. Or the Boston Red Sox. Or the Chicago Cubs. Or the San Diego Padres. Or the San Francisco Giants. Or the Los Angeles Angels. Even heavyweights who have managed to achieve this fall face down. If Philadelphia beats Atlanta, the win totals for the bottom four teams will be 90, 90, 90 and 84.
It’s baseball. For anyone who wants to complain about how winning a division doesn’t mean anything anymore, understand this: every team — each team — would rather have a week off after the season to rest and reset his rotation than play a best-of-three series against another quality team with his season on the line.
Teams don’t lose because they had a bye week.
They lose because the MLB playoffs are a tournament with series of three, five and seven games, in which getting hot at the right time matters far more than what a team did over a six-month period.
That’s what makes the Astros’ run even more impressive. For seven years – just shy of Atlanta’s record of eight consecutive championship series appearances – the Astros managed to win at least one playoff series. And as unsatisfying as it may be for those who harbor resentment against the organization for its cheating in 2017, anyone who refuses to acknowledge the Astros’ exceptional resilience is simply willfully ignorant.
Only three players, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Verlander, remain from the 2017 team. The Astros added the magnificent Yordan Álvarez, who might be the scariest hitter in the world, and Kyle Tucker, a perennial star. They brought in Michael Brantley, the epitome of a professional, and complemented him with Jose Abreu, and both, now 36, homered in their series triumph Wednesday at Target Field, where the Astros won both championship matches. Minnesota Twins. Houston developed Framber Valdez and Cristian Javier and Jeremy Peña and Chas McCormick and Jose Urquidy, who hadn’t pitched in 12 days and locked down the Twins to secure the Game 4 victory.
Conversations in sports are always changing, and today it will be about Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman going 1 for 21; and the Diamondbacks, with the fewest regular-season home runs of any remaining playoff team, becoming the first to hit four in a single postseason inning; and if Spencer Strider can take on Citizens Bank Park and send the Braves home for a Game 5.
The Astros will hover above it all, preparing for Sunday, when they host Game 1 of the ALCS for the fourth time in five years. It will be the final step toward the ultimate goal of doing what they do: becoming baseball’s first back-to-back World Series champions since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000.
This is perhaps the most normal thing that can happen.
