Ranking Houston Astros’ most favorable playoff matchups

With October fast approaching and home field advantage clinched throughout the American League playoffs, the Houston Astros can take all the time they need to prepare for postseason baseball. Whether it’s players getting some time to nurse nagging injuries, working on mechanics or perfecting a secondary pitch, the team has put themselves in an enviable position heading towards autumn baseball.

These are the teams the Houston Astros want to face in the playoffs

No matter who the Astros play it’s hard to imagine they won’t be favored to make it to their sixth straight ALCS, setting an American League record. That said there are certain teams that are more concerning to face than others.

The Astros are the best team in the American League. But as we’ve seen in two of the past three postseasons, a team can get hot at the right time and make an unbelievable run. The Astros team this year is stacked with pitching in both the rotation and the bullpen while the offense has been up and down.

Their defense has been solid all year from Yordan Alvarez’s surprising arm to Kyle Tucker’s casual home run robberies and Jeremy Pena fitting right in at shortstop filling in for Carlos Correa.

So which teams are most vulnerable to the Astros in a potential matchup and who could cause the team headaches and an early exit before the World Series?

We’ll start with the team the Astros most want to face in the playoffs.

Astros best playoff matchup No. 1 — Tampa Bay Rays

Record vs. Tampa Bay 2022 Regular Season: 5-1. Outscored opponent 22-11 in six games.

The Houston Astros, to put it bluntly, dominated the Rays this year. And with all those games coming at the end of the season that means they faced the team they most likely will see should they meet in the postseason. Unlike their other potential opponents such as the Seattle Mariners who the Astros faced before they acquired Luis Castillo, the Rays are going to be, to quote the late Dennis Green, who we thought they were.

Their two encounters included a sweep at Tropicana field where the Rays mustered a total of two runs in three games followed by winning a three game series two to one where the Rays only scored one run in two of the three games at Minute Maid Park.

The weaker an offensive team the better for the Astros as their pitching will most likely yield a maximum of two runs against an offensively deficient team, giving Houston the advantage of being able to win playing small ball with stolen bases and sacrifice flies.

The domination of the Rays this year, even if they get Tyler Glasnow back, would continue were the two teams to meet in the postseason as if you can only score more than one run once in the span of six games, you most likely aren’t going to win more than one game.

That’s the team the Astros want to face the most in the American League Playoffs.

Astros best playoff matchup No. 3 — Cleveland Guardians

Record vs. Cleveland Guardians 2022 Regular Season: 4-3. Outscored opponent 26-18 in seven games.

A month ago the Guardians would have been higher on this list of teams the Astros want to play. But they are scorching hot which is always a terrifying prospect coming into October as the Astros have found out from playing the 2019 Washington Nationals and 2021 Atlanta Braves.

The Guardians went 21-8 in September and have arguably the best closer in baseball with Emmanuel Clase at the back end.

Clase leads all of major league baseball with 41 saves and has been so dominant that he won three of the past four reliever of the month awards since June. A lock down closer is terrifying in postseason baseball as that means you basically have eight innings to get the lead or else the game is over.

Shortening the game with a dominant bullpen is huge for October and the Guardians, while also offensively challenged, seem to have the best back end of any team in baseball not named the Astros.

In fact the Guardians are right behind the Astros bullpen in a litany of categories. The Astros are second in Major League baseball in save percentage at 76 percent. The Guardians are third at 74 percent.

The Astros are second in baseball with only 17 losses in relief. The Guardians are third in all of baseball with 18 losses in relief. The Astros are second in baseball with 52 saves. The Guardians are fourth with 50 saves. You get the point.

While the Guardians offense is second to last in all of baseball in home runs at 126, their offensive runs per game is right at the league average of 4.29 per game. That’s more than the Seattle Mariners at 4.22 and the Tampa Bay Rays average of 4.15 runs per game ranking 19th and 21st respectively in all of baseball.

What the Guardians lack in pop they make up for in not striking out. They strikeout the least of any team in major league baseball. The team that strikes out the second least is the Astros. One thing that could frustrate Houston pitching is not being able to put guys away and foul ball after foul ball extending at-bats and raising pitch counts getting starters out by the fifth inning which could spell trouble for Houston.

The Astros bullpen depth, which could include as many as three starters, should be able to carry any extra workload they may endure if anyone in their playoff rotation goes short. But the longer a series goes and the more taxed a bullpen gets the less sharp the pitches are.

Houston still should be able to beat Cleveland should they meet in the ALCS, which is the only scenario they would meet since Cleveland is locked in at the three seed and the Astros only ALDS matchup can be between the four and five seed. But the Guardians could cause problems for the Astros more than the Rays or Mariners could.

Astros best playoff matchup No. 4 — New York Yankees

Record vs. New York Yankees 2022 Regular Season: 5-2. Outscored opponent 27-22 in seven games.

While the run differential is the smallest of all the previous teams, it doesn’t truly reflect how dominant the Astros were against the Yankees. The statistic that really shows how much the Astros owned the Yankees this year is the fact that the Yankees never led in any game they played except for after the final at-bats of games one and four of the series in New York.

This series included Cristian Javier’s seven no-hit inning performance that was finished off by Hector Neris and Ryan Pressly. The Yankees do have a powerful offense leading the American League in runs scored and they lead all of baseball in walks.

A patient offense with power can be a problem for the Astros pitching staff but the one thing the Yankees don’t do well is make contact. After Aaron Judge’s .311 batting average the next highest average is Isiah Kiner-Falefa with .263. Over half their lineup is hitting under .250 and four of their nine guys in the lineup are hitting .227 or under.

They are a true three outcome team either walking, homering or striking out and against elite pitching it showed that the strikeouts were a problem for the Yankees when facing the Astros. The games they won were by game tying or game winning three run homers so they score in bunches but with the Astros pitching they should put up more zeroes than they do big innings.

There is of course the mental side of this in the fact that the Astros have had the Yankees number since 2015 when they beat them in the Wild Card game at Yankee Stadium. Since then the Astros have won two more playoff series against New York and gone further in the playoffs than the Yankees every year since 2017.

With Aaron Judge’s potential impending free agency departure next season the pressure seems even greater for them to win it all this year. This will most likely be the ALCS matchup and if so it would be a dandy.

Astros best playoff matchup No. 5 — Toronto Blue Jays

Record vs. Toronto Blue Jays 2022 Regular Season: 2-4. Outscored opponent 27-26 in six games.

These teams met in the first month of the season but the games had a playoff atmosphere as they were both known to be contenders to play in October. Both squads gave an all-out effort reserved for a matchup in fall rather than two early series in April.

Every single game was close with five of the six games having a one run margin of victory, with the Astros winning a game 11-7 in Toronto. Clearly this series was close as despite the fact the Astros lost the season series four games to two they still outscored Toronto 27-26. For what it’s worth this series was also Jeremy Pena’s coming out party when he hit a walk off home run against the Blue Jays elite closer Jordan Romano.

The Blue Jays would by far be the toughest opponent for the Astros to face in the playoffs. Their offense is fourth in runs scored but unlike the Yankees they hit for contact. By contrast to the Yankees the Blue Jays have eight players hitting .263 or better. You’ll remember from the previous slide that that number is the second highest batting average on the Yankees.

The Blue Jays have the highest team batting average in the major leagues, they are seventh in the majors in home runs, and they don’t strikeout a lot as they have the sixth lowest strikeout rate in the major leagues.

In the playoffs the more contact you can make and the more you can minimize rally killing strikeouts the better off you are.

Besides their potent offense they have two aces leading their rotation in Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman. Those two would be formidable foes to the Astros one-two punch of Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez.

The bullpen of the Blue Jays is probably their weakest point but they have three relievers with ERA’s under three and in a short series with two starters who can go six strong that is a scary prospect.

The Blue Jays high contact, high power offense combined with their top two in the rotation and solid bullpen make them the opponent the Astros least want to face. Especially in a short series where you only need three starters unless the series goes the distance. Unfortunately were the Astros to face the Blue Jays it would be in an ALDS matchup where the depth of your starting rotation won’t be exposed. Starting pitching depth is where the Astros have the Blue Jays beat as after Toronto’s top two starters there is a significant drop off with the struggling Jose Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi.

The biggest advantage the Astros have over Toronto is playoff experience. There’s only a handful of players on this team that have seen postseason action other than the pandemic playoffs of 2020 which had minimal crowds.

If the Astros play the Blue Jays it will be the first taste of real postseason baseball for a lot of their players.  How they respond to those environments could determine the series as the Blue Jays have enough talent to match up with the Astros.

It’s looking like the Astros will most likely face Toronto or Seattle in the first round. If you’re an Astros fan, root for Seattle. Because Toronto is the most dangerous team that could ruin the Astros run of consecutive ALCS appearances and their bid for a second World Series title.