A Disaster and the Silver Lining
The Astros picked the wrong time to have a losing stretch. It's hard to understand why it happened, but all hope is not lost.
The word in my head is disaster. The Astros have now lost four series in a row, losing nine of twelve games in that stretch. Worse, that stretch included nine games against the Royals and A’s, both of which have already lost 100 games.
They have moved from 2.5 games up in the American League West to 2.5 games behind the Rangers with almost no chance of winning the division (11.3% according to Fangraphs).
It’s a disaster.
From June 4 to June 19 this season, the team had another protracted losing skid, dropping 11 of 15 games. That skid included a four game losing streak and a five game losing streak. After avoiding such a losing skid again throughout the season, it has happened again in September.
If you take away the two losing stretches, the Astros are 78-51. But you don’t get to take away part of the season. Your record is what it says it is.
Or to put it another way, this is a team that is capable of having two long losing stretches in a season. And unfortunately, they did.
No Good Explanation
The harder part is to figure out why. Some parts are quite explicable. The Astros starting pitching has collapsed in the second half of the season, and each of the five starters has performed before their previous levels this season, and, for most of them, below our expectations for them.
Friend of the Substack Cody Poage listed the numbers for the starters since August 1 in this tweet and they are not pretty. Three have ERAs and FIPs above 5.00, and these numbers were posted before Hunter Brown gave up four homers in three innings on Sunday.
Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander are the two aces on this starting staff and they have certainly performed the best. But that best has been at the level of a #3 starter since August 1.
Over the 12 game losing stretch, Astros starters have an ERA of 5.54, while averaging 5.4 innings per start.1 It has been the biggest factor in the losing stretch.
Some reasons are less explicable. Joe Sheehan addressed the AL playoff race in his newsletter this morning, and wrote of the Astros losing skid, “"What happened? Baseball happened.”
Sheehan provides evidence to back up that claim.
Looking back at the nine games against the Royals and A’s these last two weeks, the Astros went 12-for-77 with runners in scoring position. There’s nothing in their track record that would have made you think this was coming. The Astros are a .272 team with RISP this year, sixth-best in MLB. The Royals and A’s have allowed the second-highest and fourth-highest averages with runners in scoring position.
Over a 162 game season, sometimes the breaks go against you, and that is part of the story of why the Astros are in a losing stretch right now.
You just really wish it didn’t happen against bad teams in the middle of a division race.
A Psychological Explanation? Who Knows?
Something fans often jump to when a team is in a losing streak is a psychological explanation. The team is not in the right frame of mind; they are too complacent, not motivated enough.
With the Astros, some have suggested that their mindset is off because they are paying too much attention to media narratives, or that players weren’t taking the season seriously enough, or that Dusty Baker has set a narrative that is too relaxed and comfortable, or that this is a World Series hangover.
Are any or all of these ideas correct? I have no idea. None of us on the outside have enough data to be able to properly assess the psychological state of any player, much less 26 individuals working together. Few of us have the psychological training to do it properly—I certainly don’t.
The way I think of it is that any or all of the explanations provided could be correct; we just have no way to prove it. Part of why I focus on numbers and analytics is that I know how to use them to make conclusions, and I don’t with a team’s psychology.
Of course, sometimes those numbers lead to the conclusion that I quoted Joe Sheehan as making above: baseball happens. And I get why that is completely unsatisfactory, and we want to turn to explanations that focus on psychology.
The Silver Lining
If the playoffs started today, the Astros would be in it. Oddly, we owe thanks to the Rangers for this, as they swept the Mariners this weekend, keeping the Astros in the sixth spot in the playoffs, still a half game ahead of the Mariners despite the disaster that was the last twelve games.
And of course, the playoffs are all about getting in an seeing if they dice rolls come up in your favor. It did for the Astros last year, and it might this year. If they get in.
To do that, the Astros need to outplay one team at this point—the Mariners. At this point, they will not win the division without a major collapse by the Rangers and will not pass the Blue Jays for the 5th spot without their collapse.
The good news is that the Astros play the Mariners starting tonight. Can they play better than they have the last two weeks? Absolutely. Streaks start and stop on a dime for all teams.
Here’s hoping it starts tonight. Because if not, well, I don’t want to think about it.
Things get a lot better when the bullpen enters the game. They have a 3.07 ERA over that stretch.
I still hope the offense can find its way. At least tonight they beat the Mariners, that was great news!