Astros’ numbers since June seem to point to another deep postseason run

Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff! The Houston Astros are proving their doubters wrong and are starting to look like the juggernaut they've been over the better part of the last decade.

Houston has taken off, leaving behind an early-season slump and now stands out as one of the best teams in the league despite significant offseason losses like Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker, and crushing injury blows like the consistently uncertain status of Yordan Alvarez, among many others.

None of that has mattered as manager Joe Espada has turned in a Manager of the Year worthy performance to date, and highly touted players have finally realized their potential and fully broken out, with Hunter Brown leading the way on the pitching side while the currently injured Jeremy Peña has been the team's offensive engine in Alvarez's absence.

It's been a team effort to rise to the top of the AL West and establish the club as true contenders, not just in the weak American League but in MLB as a whole. The month of June showcased the Astros' emergence perfectly.

Astros are poised for a deep postseason run after a dominant June performance

The Astros have been carried at times this season by a dominant pitching staff. The rotation features baseball's best two-headed monster in Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez, while the bullpen features monster after monster just waiting to be unleashed to torment opposing hitters.

It should be no surprise, then, that Houston's pitchers led the majors in many key metrics in June. The Astros finished the month with the league's best ERA (2.93), FIP (3.48), and K/9 (10.49). All told, Astros hurlers produced 4.7 fWAR for the month, again the best mark in the majors.

Of course, the pitching wasn't the major concern entering the year. The question was, how would the Astros consistently score runs? Those worries were magnified when Alvarez hit the IL on May 2.

While the Astros hitters may not have reached the same heights as their teammates on the mound, they still turned in a worthy performance. Houston's hitters posted a .253 batting average that was good for seventh in the month of June. Their team wRC+ of 104 ranked 13th, and their 32 homers ranked 14.

An elite pitching staff with an above-average lineup is a dangerous proposition, especially when that pitching staff is strong in both the rotation and the bullpen. That alone makes the Astros a threat to be dangerous in October.

But there's more. The Astros will address their biggest needs at the trade deadline. They'll finally start getting healthy, and once Alvarez returns, they'll be adding one of the game's top-five hitters to the meat of their lineup. If that wasn't enough, top prospect Brice Matthews is knocking on the door of the big leagues with a .283/.402/.479 line down at Triple-A Sugar Land.

Point being, after finding their new identity after losing so many franchise cornerstones and then suffering what for many teams would be crippling injuries, the Astros have put together an incredible run when they should've been at their weakest. With the reinforcements around the corner, the rest of the league is being put on notice that Houston is set up perfectly for yet another deep October run.

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