A few innings into Friday night’s game against the Angels, the Astros playoff chances had gone from bleak to not bad. Cleveland and Detroit had both lost and the Astros were up 3-0 and if they held on, they would be in a tie (but without the tiebreakers) with both competitors.
But NOOOOOOOOO!!!! The Astros lead melted like an ice sculpture on an August day. Slowly and painfully, they lost it run by run until the Angels took the lead in the eighth and the Astros went back to their hotel on the precipice of going home for the offseason.
They have reached that point where everyone says, one more Astro loss and one more win by both the Guardindians and the Tigers and the Astros are eliminated.
The funny part is that either or both Cleveland and Detroit are fully capable of losing their next two games. The sad part is that there is no confidence here that the Astros could take advantage of that and win their last two games.
The Angels are trying their best to help the Astros out starting Caden Dana (0-3, 6.39 ERA) and Sam Aldegheri (0-1, 8.00 ERA) in the last two games of the season. The Astros are countering with A.J. Blubaugh (3-1, 1.93 ERA) and the famous TBD on Sunday, which will obviously vary depending on whether they are playing for anything in the last game of the year. Cristian Javier? Colton Gordon? Call up Chas McCormick and see how long he can go?
The season has been such an odd one for long term Astro fans. The Astros were overcoming so many setbacks and injuries for 90% of the season. But they keep passing up chances to clinch a playoff spot in the last 10% of the season and frankly have earned an early off-season.
Will they play on or will they go home? Will Dan P be writing about playoff opponents or starting the autopsy portion of the off-season? We may know Saturday, or we may know Sunday. Hang in there, loyal readers.
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
14 responses to “Astros 2025: The Fat Lady is Warming Up”
Thanks for the continued effort Dan. I’m chomping at the bit. Jim Crane sure has been quiet.
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daveb
I’m a little anxious about starting to write about the off season – there is so much to cover and can I do it justice.
And Jim Crane is the Wild Card. If he makes a move or moves right away it can certainly signal a very different off season
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I’m with you. Today I’m giving the Astros a bit of credit for being alive as we approach game 161.
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I’m remaining hopeful, but it sure was a gut punch to wake up this morning and see they’d lost that game last night.
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Devin, I watched the guys go meekly. I did not think those three early runs would be enough. But if you can’t win that game, what can you win?
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Up above I should have said “if the Astros lose or the Tigers and Guardindians win it will be over” not and
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Test
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If the Red Sox are to win this game I’m watching, it will be with their bats. As they are already playing on Tuesday, they’ll be using arms from the lower end of the totem pole. Same goes for tomorrow.
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Tigers win. Keeping an eye out for the Guardindians next.
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guardians win so the fat lady can start singing. It’s a sad, sad song.
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Good morning Astro fans. I admit to watching Oregon and Penn State last night, ignoring baseball. That was a heck of a game. And I won’t watch the Ryder Cup match today. What a shameful group of spectators, worse than any Yankee Stadium crowd I ever witnessed. The challengers played golf, ignoring all but the loudest of drunken louts, humiliating the home team. And last, Carlos Correa apologized to the fans last night on behalf of his team. I sure did not need that. Thank goodness I can move with my day now.
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What a pathetic display by the crowd at the Ryder cup yesterday. I wonder if there was too much alcohol flowing that had anything to do with it. Another thing that bothered me was the 10 million cell phones being held up by fans 10 rows deep. I just don’t get it but then I’m sitting on the couch watching it on TV so I get to get the best view. The Europeans just basically played better golf and were probably emboldened by the unruly crowd. I suspect today will be a short one for the guys. I think that from the top down the Europeans were a better team.
As for the Astros, I’m reminded of the Oiler collapse against the Bills back in the early 90’s. Injuries and abysmal hitting just doomed them. It will be interesting to see how Crane and company handle the team in the off season. There are lots of holes to plug in this dyke.
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And what an almost miraculous comeback today. Got to give the guys credit being down by 7 and almost pulling it out. Glad to see the crowd was better behaved today too. I love playing and watching golf when it was like it was today.
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Just checking in. My plan is to write a series of posts relative to the failures of 2025, where the Astros are with Position Players and Pitching going forward, what moves are possible, probable, and outside the box.
Hang in there as I work on them and release them – hope for the first one today.
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