HOUSTON — If you want to discuss whether the newly expanded playoffs make it hard for favorites to win, you’ll have to speak up. They can’t hear you over the sound of the home run train at Minute Maid Park.
The favorites in the American League—and least favorites in the hearts of many fans—spent Wednesday night doing what they do every year. On Wednesday, the Astros beat the Yankees 4–2 in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Ace Justin Verlander went six. Three Astros hit bombs, setting off that whistling locomotive ride. Closer Ryan Pressly finished it with a four-out save. The details change. The results stay the same.
This is the sixth straight season the Astros have played in the ALCS, an unprecedented run of dominance in the modern era. How do they keep doing it? Righty Lance McCullers Jr., whom Houston selected in the first round of the 2012 draft and who’s been there for that whole run, tried to attribute it to luck, then reconsidered.
He mentioned player development (the team begins integrating analytics in the low minor leagues, so players are prepared for the amount of information they will receive at higher levels) and clubhouse culture (the team is always so stacked that no individual feels he has to carry the club). Finally, he grinned. “It just feels like no matter who puts on the jersey, it brings out their best self,” he said.
Houston’s new faces, like rookie shortstop Jeremy Peña, right, have fit in just fine with members of the Astros’ long-standing core like Jose Altuve, left.
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For a while, it was easy to attribute their success to the tear-down-and-rebuild strategy embraced by former general manager Jeff Luhnow. But the Astros have not picked earlier than 28th in the draft since 2017. For a while, it was easy to attribute their success to the illegal sign-stealing scheme they used on their way to their 2017 title. But it has been five years since MLB installed security guards to monitor the use of replay video.
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For Astros haters, of whom there are many, this has to be exhausting. They were infuriating when they tanked. They were infuriating when they cheated. And they’re infuriating now that they just keep winning.
The latest victory included performances by everyone from 39-year-old Verlander, who had thrown 66 pitches through three innings but still lasted six, to 24-year-old shortstop Jeremy Peña, whose two doubles and a homer tied the rookie record for postseason extra-base hits. The person he tied? His predecessor at short, Carlos Correa, who finished fifth in MVP voting last season, led the Astros to their third pennant in his time there and signed with the Twins in the winter—then watched Houston win 11 more games without him.
Only five players remain from that first deep playoff run in 2017: McCullers, Verlander, first baseman Yuli Gurriel, second baseman José Altuve and third baseman Alex Bregman, although left fielder Yordan Álvarez, right fielder Kyle Tucker, center fielder Chas McCormick and pitchers Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, José Urquidy, Luis Garcia and Bryan Abreu were in the system by then. But most everyone who arrives is integrated, and most everyone who is integrated excels.
“These guys have been great,” Peña said. “They show up every single day. They put the work in. You gravitate towards that. You want to be a part of it. So you gravitate towards their work. They’re hungry. They have been here for so many years, but they still act like it’s their first time. They’re still hungry in that sense. And we have a special team and I think we’re going to have a special run.”
They hit the fourth-most home runs in baseball this year—while striking out less often than all but one other team. Their rotation covered the most innings in the majors, with the second-best ERA—and their bullpen struck out the most batters per nine innings. If there is a weak spot, no one has found it. They won 106 regular-season games and have not yet lost in this postseason.
“We’re just solid in every facet,” McCullers said. “I’m not saying it’s our best offense we’ve ever had. Maybe it’s not our best pitching staff we’ve ever had, or our best bullpen, but everything across the board is just so, so good that it just … works.”
Their biggest problem might be one of interior decorating. The hallway leading to the home clubhouse bears banners from each playoff run, starting with their 1980 trip to the NLCS. They get more frequent as the years pass, until they might as well be a calendar: ’17, ’18, ’19, ’20, ’21. There’s a gap for ’22, but that’s it. The wall ends. They’re running out of room.
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