Houston must take advantage of opportunity after handling business against Seattle

After taking their crucial series against the Mariners, the next step Houston must take is to pile up the wins during an unusually soft part of their schedule this year.

Eric Cole

Houston Astros v Seattle Mariners / Alika Jenner/GettyImages

While it was still just a series in July, it is not an understatement to say that the Houston Astros' matchup with the Mariners last weekend was a critical one. The Astros have obviously been playing really well over the last month and a half, and the division-leading Mariners had been cratering. Momentum really matters in the game of baseball, and Houston making a statement against Seattle would be huge for the Astros' chances in the AL West.

Fortunately, the Astros mostly accomplished their mission, as they took the series from the Mariners, but they now have to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them given their upcoming schedule.

Astros have a chance to put distance between themselves and division rivals over the next couple of weeks

As of Monday, the Astros are tied with Seattle atop the AL West. While this is great news considering how dire things looked for Houston at the end of May, the Mariners managing to win a game in last weekend's series does make getting the tiebreaker with Seattle at the end of the season difficult. That means Houston simply has to put distance between themselves and the rest of the division when the schedule presents opportunities for that to happen.

Over the next few weeks, the Astros have series against very beatable teams including the Athletics, Pirates, and the struggling division rival Rangers coming up. Winning all of those series feels very likely, and accomplishing that would help a great deal, as Seattle has tough series against the Red Sox and Phillies at the beginning of August after a couple of soft series at the end of July.

The one speed bump for Houston could be their series against the Dodgers on July 26-28. Obviously LA is an exceedingly talented, dangerous team and they have a guy named Shohei Ohtani in their lineup that you may have heard of, but the series is at home and the Dodgers are dealing with their own injuries in their rotation as well. If the Astros are going to play against LA, doing so when they don't have Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mookie Betts, and others is a good time to do it.

In an ideal world, the Astros would get Kyle Tucker back from his injury to help the cause. However, that isn't looking overly likely, as the team is being very cautious with his rehab at the moment. Still, these next couple of weeks look like a prime opportunity for Houston to make some waves, even if they aren't at full strength.

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Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.