Maybe the batting cages of a minor league stadium in Sacramento was the perfect place for the Astros to celebrate clinching the AL West on Sunday. They managed to barely eke out a division win in the final week of the season against some of the division’s worst teams while the Rangers faltered down the stretch in Minnesota.
Underwhelming, sure, but it’s a win.
Of course, the AL West will go down as one of the worst divisions in the history of baseball. No team was better than .500 (the Astros barely managed that) and no team finished with a positive run differential. The Astros were the top of that garbage heap at -32 and the team they beat on Sunday (the woeful A’s) were a mind boggling -238.
At least now the Astros will get to sniff the playoffs and do it at home against the underwhelming White Sox. Truthfully, given the path, it would not be a shocker if the Astros got all the way to the ALCS. They would need to take two of three from Chicago (all in Houston) and then beat a very mediocre Cleveland team waiting after a bye.
Now, they would likely get crushed by whoever wound up playing them, but it’s not a crazy possibility, particularly when you have Yordan Alvarez and a fairly solid rotation of pitchers.
We aren’t going to bet on it though. Even at Daikan Park, we see no reason to believe this is a team that goes deep into the postseason. It’s a shame too considering just how incredible Alvarez, the presumptive AL MVP, has been this season.
He leads in so many categories (including batting average and OPS) that it would be a disservice to him to try and name them all here. Suffice it to say, he’s the best hitter in the American League and a deserving MVP.
The Astros are a flawed team with an outfield that is in shambles and basically no hitting beyond one through five in the lineup. But, they do have a solid trio of starters in Hunter Brown, Hayden Wesneski and Peter Lambert to go with a very good (if not terribly deep) bullpen. In a short series, that is a recipe for success.
It all gets started on Friday with the Astros in a familiar place back atop their division, one they have virtually owned for a decade. Now, where they go from here is the next big question. But, for now, pop those corks and enjoy the moment, even if it is in a Sacramento minor league fieldhouse.
