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The final weeks of the 2024 season have arrived. After a nice littel hot streak after a bit of an up and down start to the month of September, the Astros still have a great chance of repeating as division champs once again thanks to what has been a remarkable turnaround after their rough start.
In fact, the Astros are in such good shape that is fair to start wondering when Houston could clinch this thing and start looking ahead to the postseason. The short answer is that they still have a fair amount of work to do.
Here is where the Astros' Magic Number sits as of now
For the uninitiated, a team's magic number is the combined number of wins by them, as well as losses by the teams behind them, needed to clinch a particular playoff spot. It gets more complicated in some cases, especially when the term is used to talk about clinching a division title or home field advantage, but that is the general idea of its calculation.
In the Astros' case, the math is actually surprisingly simple. Right now, it is actually much easier for Houston to make the playoffs as the winner of the AL West, as they are actually behind in the AL Wild Card chase by record. For the moment, that means that all that matters is how many combined wins/Mariners losses occur for the remainder of the season
With a healthy 5 game lead as of September 24, the Astros' magic number to clinch the AL West sits at 2. Once the number of Astros wins and Seattle losses hits that number, Houston will win the division and clinch a playoff berth. The Mariners have been on a bit of a hot streak of late, but Houston has still managed to chip away while keeping Seattle at bay.
That is a strong position to be in, but this thing is not over. Having a pair of series left against a pretty bad Angels team helps the cause, but the Astros also have series against genuinely tough matchups in the Diamondbacks, Padres, Mariners, and Guardians, squads that are all playing for something in the last month of the season.