How the Losing Skid Has Damaged the Astros Playoff Chances

The Astros have now lost 10 of 14, reducing their chances of winning the AL West to 22% and of making the playoffs to 52%.

On June 3, the Astros won 9-6 over the Angels. The Astros jumped out to a 7-1 lead thanks to a grand slam from Alex Bregman and six solid innings from Cristian Javier. The bullpen did not pitch well, as the Angels crept back into the game thanks to shaky bullpen work by Ryne Stanek. But a pair of runs in the bottom of the 7th put the game way.

My impression of the game.

The game was not sharp (the Angels gave up 8 walks) or crisp (3:12 time of game), but a win was a win. And it fit with what the Astros had been doing for the three and a half weeks leading up to that game—winning a lot.

The next day, that changed. The Astros lost 2-1 to the Angels in the series finale. Phil Maton gave up an 8th inning RBI double to Shohei Ohtani for the game winning hit.

And it began the losing stretch of play we have seen from the Astros over the last two and a half weeks. The team has now lost 10 of its last 14 games. It feels like it has lost in every way imaginable—losing pitching duels, losing slugfests, losing one runs games, losing blowouts, losing extra inning games that go long, and losing extra inning games that end quickly.

One conclusion I make is that the Astros are not as good as the winning stretch where they won 17 or 22 or the recent losing skid. The team is somewhere in between those two extremes—not as strong as the team was last season, but still a quality team.

But the losing stretch has had an effect. It has certainly negatively affected our psyches as Astros fans and likely has negatively affected our livers (certainly mine). But it has also negatively affected the Astros chances of reaching the postseason.

Fangraphs updates on a daily basis its projected record and playoff odds for each team in baseball. It uses projections for both the quality of each team’s players and projections for playing time, which accounts for injuries—to simulate 10,000 seasons.

The chart below shows the projected full season win total for the top 4 teams in the AL West. After the June 3 win over the Angels, the Astros were expected to win 92 games on the season (i.e. this was the median win total over those 10,000 seasons). The losing skid has reduced that to 86.

More importantly, it has moved the Astros win total well below that of the Rangers. You can see that the Astros and Rangers expected win total mirrored each other through May, with the Astros ahead throughout the month. That mirroring continued in the early part of June, but diverge after June 13, with the Rangers increasing slightly and the Astros…well, not increasing slightly.

Not surprisingly, the reduced projected win total has reduced the Astros chances of winning the division. The Astros had the highest odds of winning the AL West from Opening Day through June 3rd, when the Astros had a 52.5% chance of winning the division.

The division odds stayed relatively good for the first part of the losing skid, but have cratered with the current four game losing streak. As of this morning, this measure gives the Astros only a 22% chance of winning the AL West.

Of course, this isn’t 1989 and the division crown is not the only ticket to the postseason. Three wild card teams will make the playoffs, and here the Astros are in better shape.

And here there is better news. Fangraphs gives the Astros a better than 50/50 chance of making the playoffs. But not much better, it is at 52%.

And again, the team’s losing skid has significantly hurt its chances of getting to the playoffs. The Astros had an 87.4% chance of making the postseason after the June 3 win. Losing 10 of 14 has reduced the Astros chances of making the postseason by 35%.

So this is not only a bad stretch of the season for the Astros, but it is significantly harming their chances of making the postseason.

How do the Astros get out of their big swoon in their playoff odds? Win. The big losing stretch has hurt the team’s chances of making the playoffs because they are bunched together with a bunch of other teams. There are 6 American League teams within 4 games of each other in the standings.

Of course, the Astros created some of that pileup through their losing skid. They were five games ahead of the Angels after their June 3rd win. They are now one game behind them.

But the Astros got to an 87% chance of getting to the playoffs by having a big stretch of winning games. Fangraphs still projects them as one of the best teams in the American League moving forward—they projected them to win 48 of their remaining 90 games, tied for best among American League teams.

This team still has a strong chance of playing in October. But they need to stop losing. Which, you already know.