One month into the season, the Houston Astros are one of the best teams in baseball.
The Astros are 18-10, and are only two wins behind the St. Louis Cardinals, who sit at 20-7. The Astros also own one of the best road records in baseball, at 10-2.
To put what’s going on in Houston into some perspective, the Astros haven’t had a winning season since 2008, when they finished 86-75. They were also in the National League, and played in the same division as the St. Louis Cardinals.
According to ESPN.com, the Astros have the second lowest team payroll, at $69,064,200. Their highest paid player, starting pitcher Scott Feldman, commands a “meager” $10 million salary. Yet their record puts them in the company of the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
So can the Houston Astros be for real this year?
Maybe. First of all, the AL West is not so hot right now. As of today, every team in the AL West has a losing record, apart from the Astros. If everything stays going the way it is now, of course the Astros will likely earn a playoff spot.
The Astros don’t just play teams in the AL West, though, and playing in what seems to be a weak AL West has been to their benefit.
So far, the only teams outside their division they have played are the Cleveland Indians and San Diego Padres. The ‘Stros swept the Padres but lost two-out-of-three to the Indians. The Indians are looking pretty bad right now at 9-16, and the Padres are a .500 team.
Baseball is a streaky game, and the bulk of the Astros’ success came at the end of April.
Over that period of time, the Astros compiled 10 -1. That’s a significant improvement from the 5-6 record they put up over the first two weeks of the season. And through six May games, the Astros are 3- 3.
The truth is that we really can’t know this early in the season if the Astros actually are for real. It’s still too early to predict how any team will finish, and its even harder to guess for a team like the Houston Astros, a franchise that has been in a slump for so long.
However, we do know one thing for sure: the Astros can put up some runs, and they know how to stop the other team from doing the same. They are 5th in the AL with 140 runs scored, and are tied for the 2nd fewest runs allowed. Their pitching staff also holds the third-best earned run average in the AL, at 3.22.
If this stays steady and or improves, then the Astros’ dog days are definitely over
Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images
