Just a few days ago, the Houston Astros found themselves one game away from advancing to the League Championship series for the first time since 2005, but were unable to beat the Kansas City Royals and were eliminated from postseason baseball. Things may look bleak, but there is no need to panic; there is a silver lining in the Houston Astros future.
Despite dropping game five of the ALDS to the Royals, the Astros are certainly not coming out of the postseason looking like losers. In fact, despite coming up short to the reigning American League champs, the Astros are still in a good place.
After all, the Royals are a very good team that dominated the American League this year. They finished the regular season with more wins than any other AL team, and were only one big hit away from defeating the San Francisco Giants in the World Series last year. As a wild card team, the Astros loss to the Royals means very little. And they probably did better than most expected when they won two games against the Royals and sent the series into a deciding game five. They almost bested the Royals too, and had they not suffered from an eighth inning bullpen collapse in game four, they’d be on their way to Toronto right now to play in the American League Championship Series. Not bad for a team that very few picked to even make the postseason.
And let’s not forget, the Astros weren’t supposed to be this good. Yet.
When they moved to the American League in 2013, the Astros were a downright awful team that finished the year dead last, with a dismal 51-111 record and the put them a whopping forty-five games out of first. The next year, the Astros improved dramatically and fought their way to a 70-92 record and a fourth place finish. Still not a good year, but they were clearly a team on the rise.
But in 2015 the Astros were contenders. They dominated the division for much of the year, before losing it late in the season to a rising Texas Rangers team. Their 86-76 record and second place finished earned them a one-game playoff appearance against the New York Yankees. The game featured an exciting pitcher’s duel between the Astros’ Dallas Keuchel and New York’s Masahiro Tanaka. The Astros won, and their 3-0 victory over the Yankees sent them deeper into the postseason.
And though the Astros’ season is now over, they have nothing to panic or feel ashamed about. Simply put, the Astros are still a very good ball club and will be for the foreseeable future. They have great pitching and perhaps the best second base-shortstop duo in baseball. Keuchel will likely be a contender for a Cy Young, Jose Altuve was an All-Star, and young star shortstop Carlos Correa will likely win Rookie of the Year. Additionally, the Astros still have high draft picks from the years when the team was struggling. They had the number one overall pick in 2013, and the number two and five overall picks in 2015. The Astros are set for the future and now have postseason experience.
The Astros may feel disappointed after their loss to the Royals, but there’s certainly a silver lining here. The Astros have arrived and will undoubtedly be a dangerous team in the coming years.
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