Critical two weeks are ahead for Astros

The Astros have shown signs of life the last week winning five of their last seven games after their 7-1 thrashing of the Cleveland Indians and former Cy Young winner Corey Kluber Monday night. Their record stands at 13-20 and they are 6.5 GB in their division behind the Seattle Mariners and 5 GB in the Wild Card race. The recent spurt has been mostly due to an improvement in the starting pitching with an ERA of 3.30 over the last 7 games and an even better 2.16 ERA over the last 5 games.

Given that, the Astros are facing a difficult turn over the next two weeks. How they perform over this coming time period may well determine if their performance on this last home stand was a drowning man resurfacing for good or coming up for the last time.

Including Monday night’s game, the Astros will be playing series against four teams that are all currently over the .500 mark. They play the next two at Minute Maid against the Indians and two pitchers that as Mr. Bill pointed out yesterday have been poison to the Astros. Then they go out on the road to play four games against the 19-13 Red Sox, who have won 11 of their last 15 games. After that they play three at the 23-10 White Sox, who are the best team in the American League to date. Then they finish the two-week run with three games at home against the Rangers. Yes, those Rangers who look at the Astros like a homeless dog looks at a tossed steak.

At the end of the two weeks the Astros could be hopelessly behind in the race. It is probably too much to expect them to gain ground during this time, but if they can play .500 during these two weeks they may have built a decent foundation for better times to come.

So…..

  • Do you see this as a critical two weeks in the fate of the Astros?
  • How do you think they will fare over this time period?
  • What kind of record would signal the end for them come May 23?
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141 responses to “Critical two weeks are ahead for Astros”

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    • It’s almost 11pm and the first storm is just west of us. Keeping an eye out. A little more worried about the one behind it. Will sleep very lightly tonight.

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    • Oakland has an excuse….no pitching, and all kinds of guys on the DL. Including Jed!
      These guys have sooo much talent, our pitchers are bealthy, so no this crew has no excuse. They need a swift kick in the rear end, and get to work.

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  3. No way of knowing how badly AJ Reed is injured. The 7-day DL is the only one the minor leagues have. Guess we’ll await further word.

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    • He’s got some thunder thighs….and I’m sure he is in some pain. Who knows he might heal fast. We need him to get better, because I gotta feeling Luhnow is going to call him up next month.
      You stay safe my friend…..I’ll be praying for your safety tonight.

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  4. Speaking of guys who go to other teams and succeed……Brett Wallace is now playing third base for the Padres….and they LOVE him. Hitting homeruns and sparkling defense. Hmmm……

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    • He was hitting better last year when he hit over .300 in about a 100 ABs for SD. This year he is only hitting .220 (He was hitting .221 here in his last year) but has a robust .400 OBP and a strong .820 OPS. I always pulled for the guy – he seemed like a good kid – just struggled putting it together here in Houston.

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  5. Dan, I predict the Astros will be 14-21 when they fly to Boston and will be tied with the A’s for last place in their division. It’s just a wild guess. Let me know how it turns out. Man, this being a baseball expert makes me thirsty. I predict Mrs 1oldpro won’t let me have a beer. I let you know how that turns out.
    OK, darlin, water’s fine. Dang it!

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    • Old pro tell us how you are doing with the storms because that is more important than your unbelievably accurate baseball predictions.

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      • The storms last night missed us to the north. I hope everyone of those people north of us got rain on their gardens and nothing else. Amen

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  6. James Hoyt has a 0.93 WHIP along with nearly a 5:1 K/BB ratio and he is averaging over 14Ks/9IPs. If you also consider Feliz, Gustave, Guduan, McCurry and Ferrell the Astros have some strong bullpen depth in the next 1-2 years. They may try to transition Feliz to a starter, but there is plenty of depth there as well with Musgrove, Devenski, Paulino, Yuhl, Abreu, Deetz and Dykxhoorn. Yes, the farm system isn’t as strong as it was this time last year, but there is still some significant pitching depth coming in the next few years.

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      • And I didn’t even mention Martes in the starting pitching depth. Yes, he is struggling this year, but he is very young for AA (20 years old) and is still one of our top pitching prospects.

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  7. Okay, Dan, then I’m assuming your upcoming post will address pitching. I hope you have some strong bullet points because I’d love to get back on the bandwagon, but I surely do need some persuadin’.

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    • It is a look at the top 30 prospects (per mlb.com) and how they are performing this year to date. That includes a lot of pitchers and as Tim states – a lot of big armed relief pitchers, but some starters too.

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  8. Wait a minute! Is that Dave Loggins I see picking up a guitar? Shhhh! He’s singing:

    “Please come to Boston, Houston Astros.
    We’re up in 2nd place and we have David Price.
    You’ve got Erik Kratz and Go-Go Gomez [chuckle]
    and an ace whose ERA is way up close to five!
    Please come to Boston, we can’t wait.
    Boys, we’ll send you home real soon!

    But we said: Hey Bawston boys, you’d better hush yer mouth!
    Yer season will soon start goin’ South,
    cause we’re wakin’ up fast and we’re comin’ back strong, you’ll see!
    And we’re plannin’ on takin’ at least two out of three.”

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  9. In 70 ABs at Corpus Christi, Alex Bregman has 7 HRs and 7 Ks. Crazy good.
    The weird thing is that Bregman looked worse at spring training camp than any Astros prospect. He was just plain bad. Spring training is just practice. Spring training is just practice. Spring training is nothing more than practice.
    1op, don’t trust anything you see at spring training. Leroy Jethro Gibbs head slap.

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