The Houston Astros season draws to a close, but future is bright

The Houston Astros 2015 season ends on a dominating performance by Johnny Cueto. The Astros were beaten on Wednesday night by one of their biggest weakness, the strikeout. Cueto looked dominating from the get go last night striking out Jose Altuve and George Springer. The only scoring that happened by the Astros was an infield hit by Evan Gattis followed by a blast by Luis Valbuena giving the Astros a two-run lead. However, Cueto retired his last 19 hitters in a row before exiting after eight innings pitched.

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This performance by Cueto was what the Royals exactly traded for at the trade deadline. Yes, Cueto struggled during the regular season following the trade and in Game 2 of the ALDS series, but he more than made up for it tonight getting the Royals to the ALCS.

Enough about the Royals. The Astros might be packing their bags right now and about to say their goodbyes with some players possibly not returning, but the Astros core group of players are still young and under team control for a while. Who knows what moves Jeff Luhnow makes this offseason, does Colby Rasmus return, do they part ways with Chris Carter, or will Scott Kazmir still be an Astro in 2016?

The Astros may have fallen short in the playoffs, but they were able to outlast the Angels and beat the Yankees in the wild-card game in their house. The process as we know it is over, now the Astros are poised to become a perennial playoff team while building a good farm system with later draft picks. The current Astros team was good, but this team had many holes on their team, and I’m not talking about the ones in their swing.

The playoff experience that the Astros received this season will get them ready for 2016-17. Astros owner Jim Crane probably got a taste of the revenue from playoffs and liked it. If he is as smart as he seems, instead of looking to cut salary, he should really invest in bringing better talent to help the young guys. Adding a power arm in the bullpen should be a big issue this offseason, as the Astros look to get better and not settle for the 2015 results.