Houston Astros: The Good and the Bad Heading to the ALCS

The Houston Astros won some incredible postseason games against the Seattle Mariners to advance to their American League record sixth consecutive LCS.

In a bit of serendipity they will now face their 2017 and 2019 ALCS foes in the New York Yankees, a team that continuously claims they would have won the World Series in 2017 were it not for the Astros ineffective sign stealing scheme.

Despite the fact there’s no evidence of cheating in the 2019 season or postseason and conflicting reports of whether the Astros used their system in the 2017 postseason, now is the Astros chance to leave the Yankee fans without any doubt in their minds who the class of the American League is and has been over the past half decade.

But before the Astros got to this point they had to sweep a series against the Seattle Mariners in an extremely hard fought ALDS.

Two of the games were instant classics with Yordan Alvarez’s incredible three run walk off homer in game one and the battle of the bullpens that lasted 18 innings in game three before Jeremy Pena’s solo shot put an end to the game.

6 takeaways from the Houston Astros’ ALDS win heading into the ALCS against the Yankees.

While there were plenty of positives for the Astros coming out of the ALDS there are still some concerning issues they need to fix going forward to make it back to the fall classic.

The pitching in the division series for the Astros was overall spectacular, especially in the back end. The flip side can be said for the back end of the Astros lineup which has truly given the team little to no help.

The Astros leaned on pitching all year and this series was a microcosm of the 2022 Astros. Get just enough hitting to win games and the pitching will take care of the rest. While the Astros exploded for eight runs in game one, five of them came in the eighth and ninth innings. They scored just eight runs in the other 34 innings played.

Without further adue let’s see what parts of the team are in a good place going forward and where the Astros will need to improve in order to beat the New York Yankees.

The Houston Astros’ bullpen gave up one run in 20.1 innings pitched winning the series for them.

Home run heroics will always get the attention hence why Yordan Alvarez and Jeremy Pena will be the highlights shown whenever we look back on this series.

But make no mistake, the Astros bullpen was the MVP. Their ERA was 0.44 over three games, the lone run being a solo shot off Cristian Javier back in the seventh inning of game one.

If the Astros bullpen wasn’t unanimously considered the best in baseball going into the postseason, they certainly should be now.

While the vaunted bullpens of the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers were blowing leads late in their respective games on Saturday, the Astros bullpen went 12 innings locking down the Mariners offense.

Nothing shows how deep and powerful the Astros bullpen is then the fact that they have several multi-inning relievers including two starters in Luis Garcia and Jose Urquidy who on any other team would be in the playoff rotation.

The fact the Astros were able to get the equivalent of a second game pitched by Luis Garcia in extra innings is the advantage Houston has over any other team. Look at the pitching lines from Garcia and McCullers Jr. in game three.

McCullers Jr.: Six innings pitched, two hits, two walks, seven strikeouts, no runs.

Garcia: Five innings pitched, two hits, no walks, six strikeouts, no runs.

The Astros essentially got two quality starts in the same game.

This will only serve them better in a longer series where now they know if the bullpen is drained they could bring in Garcia to pitch three or four innings to close a game out and rest their one inning relievers.

It will be especially important given the fact that there is only a solitary day off in this LCS due to the lockout at the beginning of the year.

Suffice to say the Astros regular season strength remained a strength in the postseason and then some. Now to the bad news.

Rental players aren’t helping Houston Astros much in the playoffs

The Houston Astros traded for half-season rental players in Christian Vazquez, Trey Mancini and Will Smith. So far they have not contributed to the winning effort.

At the trade deadline, even if your team is in first place and running away with their division or even the league’s best record, you make moves with an eye towards the postseason.

What players will help you beat the best teams that you’ll be facing when October hits.

So far the return on investment for the Astros has been dismal.

Smith didn’t even make the Astros ALDS roster despite the Mariners having a bevy of left-handed bats and switch hitters. It obviously didn’t matter given how well the bullpen performed without him and the Astros traded someone who wouldn’t have been on their roster anyhow in Jake Odorizzi but it still would be nice to have one lefty the team could trust.

Smith could rejoin the team in the ALCS since it will be a longer series and the Astros will need more arms if that’s the case so he still has a chance to make an impact this October.

Vazquez has been used as a backup catcher to Martin Maldonado since being traded as it seems the pitchers feel more comfortable with Maldonado behind the plate. As a result it feels as though Vazquez hasn’t had a chance to get into his usual rhythm offensively and was especially rough in game three of the ALDS going hitless in five at-bats with three strikeouts.

So long as he’s a backup catcher it’s not the end of the world but it certainly would be nice if he did what the Astros expected him to do when they traded for him which is provide a late game offensive upgrade over Maldonado without losing too much defense.

Most disappointing has to be Mancini who was supposed to lengthen the Astros lineup. Unfortunately his play has been so bad the Astros gave him only two starts at designated hitter in the ALDS and struggled so much the team chose to pinch hit Aledmys Diaz in his stead for the ninth inning of game three rather than giving Mancini another at-bat in the scoreless battle.

That’s not exactly the confidence you want in someone you brought in specifically for an offensive upgrade.

The Astros were able to make it through the American League Division Series without contributions from those three.

If they win the World Series without their three trade acquisitions producing it will be an impressive feat that the team was good enough to win the World Series at the end of July. A very rare thing especially considering the huge additions other teams made such as Luis Castillo for Seattle and Juan Soto alongside Josh Bell for San Diego.

Jeremy Pena, Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman were almost exclusively the Astros offense in the ALDS.

If there’s an MVP-A and MVP-B for the first round series the Astros had against the Mariners, it’s the bullpen and the middle of the Astros’ batting order.

It’s amazing and concerning all at once how many of the Astros runs this series depended on those three hitters. Eleven of the Astros’ 13 RBI this series were from those three. And of those 11 RBI ,six of them were Alvarez or Bregman driving in Pena. Pena was another one driving himself in with the game winning solo shot in game three meaning seven of the 13 runs scored this series relied on three batters working off each other.

It’s not good if more than half your runs come from only a third of your lineup and it’s certainly not sustainable in the postseason. They’ll need backup if they want to advance further.

Gurriel’s bat seems to be back which is a positive sign. Even the times he made an out he hit the ball extremely hard.

He nearly was the Astros hero in the top of the 16th smashing a ball into the right center field gap that according to Statcast had a 10 percent catch probability which Julio Rodriguez turned into 100 percent catch probability with his incredible speed.

Kyle Tucker had a rather unimpressive series going four for 15 with seven strikeouts against one walk. He did have the solo shot in game two that got the Astros on the board first but beyond that he has not looked great at the plate.

It will be interesting to see if Gurriel slides into the five spot of the lineup to then get on base in front of Tucker’s power and behind Alex Bregman’s strong on-base skills. It would also revert the Astros back to the left-right-left alternating lineup.

Gurriel’s lack of power may keep the Astros from making that change. Regardless the Astros could use some other players to wake up. Specifically the little big man.

Jose Altuve had the worst postseason series of his career against the Seattle Mariners in the American League Division Series.

The worst postseason series in Jose Altuve’s career was his first full one in the 2015 American League Division series against the Kansas City Royals going 3-for-22 with two runs and one RBI.

That has now been topped by his 2022 ALDS performance against the Mariners. Altuve was held hitless in 17 at-bats including going 0 for 8 in game three.

What’s worse is that he looked lost at the plate chasing pitches way out of the zone striking out six times against one walk. Even in that 2015 ALDS he only struck out twice in those 22 at bats.

The Mariners clearly had a plan against Altuve that they executed about as well as you can against the former MVP. It’s possible the five days off affected Altuve as he was hot as a hitter can get going into the postseason batting .356 in the final 28 games of the season with six home runs, 27 runs scored and 14 walks against 14 strikeouts.

While the Astros won despite Altuve’s lack of presence at the top of the lineup the odds of them continuing to win with him going hitless is quite the long shot.

It may be bizarre to say that perhaps facing the Yankees could turn Altuve around. For whatever reason he has a penchant for big hits against them starting with the 2019 walk off home run in the ALCS that sent the Astros to the World Series.

In 2021 he hit a game winning three-run home run in Yankee stadium on his birthday. A month and a half later he smashed a devastating a three run walk off home run at Minute Maid Park against those same Yankees in the final game before the All-Star break.

At this point Altuve knows what to expect when he goes into Yankee stadium. He’s visited multiple times since the revelation of the cheating scandal so he’s heard it all at this point. As soon as the Yankees advanced past the Cleveland Guardians in five games last night they immediately began with “F*** Altuve” chants. Classy as always.

That said those chants have never seemed to slow Altuve down before, so why would they start affecting him now? Whatever is ailing Altuve’s plate discipline and swing should be rectified quickly as he is one of the most talented hitters to ever play the game.

Or at least it hopefully will be because if not the Astros will be in serious trouble in the ALCS.

Jeremy Pena got big hits to set up the guys behind him before he got the biggest hit of his career in game three.

When Carlos Correa left in free agency the question was how will rookie Jeremy Pena perform having to fill the shoes of the best shortstop in Astros history.

Not only was Correa the best shortstop in team history, he also has some of the most clutch hits in the postseason all-time. He’s tied for the most walk-off hits in playoff history with David Ortiz at three.

Pena had his work cut out for him.

He started the regular season hot, then slumped during the summer before coming around at the end of the year after permanently moving into the two spot in the lineup.

The question then became how will Pena perform in October compared to his predecessor. So far he’s come up as big as the Astros could have hoped.

While he didn’t have THE hit that won the game until game three, he certainly kept innings alive with two out hits that set the table for Alvarez and Bregman to crush the spirits of the Seattle Mariners.

While Pena could work on his walk rate and propensity to chase breaking balls off the plate, his ability to get the bat to the ball has served him well this postseason and his power seems legit. It’s weird to think that Pena was considered a glove first shortstop when he was coming up as a prospect but that may have been before Pena put on enough muscle to look like a middle linebacker.

Regardless the success of the Astros in the first round depended just as muchon Pena getting on base to extend innings as Alvarez and Bregman driving him in.

Without those hits Alvarez would have been relegated to leading off innings with no one on sapping his ability to affect games the way he does.

If Pena can continue to come up with heartbreaking hits the Astros will be just fine in the ALCS, especially if Altuve gets it going in front of him.