For eight Major League Baseball teams the 2022 postseason has already begun. Hell, for four of those teams, the postseason is already OVER. The sport’s first ever full wild card round of baseball, in its new 12-team playoff format, took place over the weekend, with four best-of-three series across the American League and National League.
Because the top two teams in each league get a bye, the Astros were able to sit from atop their figurative perch over the American League and watch the other teams beat the hell out of each other for a few days. When the dust cleared, the Seattle Mariners, a familiar divisional foe, emerged as the Astros’ opponent for the American League Divisional Series, which begins at Minute Maid Park Tuesday afternoon at 2:37 p.m.
The Astros handled the Mariners decently this year, with an overall record of 12-7 in head to head matchups. The Mariners, though, are playing very good baseball, and after coming back from an 8-1 deficit in Toronto in Game 2 of their wild card series, to win 10-9, the Mariners have a bit of a “team of destiny” feel early on in the postseason.
The Astros, on the other hand, have been there, done that, since 2017, making the American League Championship Series every season since then. It’s been a helluva run, and honestly, there’s plenty of reason to believe this postseason, the Astros are better set up for success than any of the previous five. In fact, in each of the previous five postseasons, there was at least one issue the team was having as the playoffs began. Let’s go back and take a look:
2017 POSTSEASON ISSUE – The Fall of Ken Giles
The one Astros team to close the deal, and win a World Series, during this run of dominance, did not have a ton of issues heading into the postseason. If anything, they had been fortified down the stretch by the acquisition of Justin Verlander. However, over the final three weeks of the regular season, beginning with a blown save on September 8, closer Ken Giles started to show some cracks in the armor. Over his final nine appearances, he had a solid ERA of 2.25, but he put a ton of guys on base, with an opposing OPS of .874 and a WHIP of 1.75. Sure enough, Giles bottomed out in the postseason, with an ERA of 11.74, and became unusable to the point where Cahrlie Morton had to close out Game 7 of the World Series.
2018 POSTSEASON ISSUE – Banged Up Altuve
Jose Altuve was in the process of following up his MVP season in 2017 with another awesome year in 2018, but then he suffered a leg injury toward the end of July, and missed about a month of the season. Altuve managed to make it back by the end of August, but he wasn’t the same player. Still, he was a respectable .776 OPS the rest of the season, but he was not MVP level Altuve. For the 2018 postseason, Altuve batted just .265, and had knee surgery literally just hours after the end of the Astros’ playoff run. Carlos Correa having the worst season of his career in 2018 didn’t help either.
2019 POSTSEASON ISSUE – Yordan’s First Postseason
The 2019 regular season version of Yordan Alvarez was a young wrecking machine, the likes of which you see once in a generation, with a 1.067 OPS and 78 RBI in 87 games. Then the level of competition amped up in the postseason, and the adjustment was steep. Alvarez had a modest .241 batting average in the postseason, which hurt the Astros, but not as much as the complete lack of power generated by Alvarez (1 home run, 3 doubles in 65 postseason plate appearances).
2020 POSTSEASON ISSUE – No Verlander, no Yordan
This was the COVID season, where the Astros snuck into the playoffs with a 29-31 record. Once the postseason started, guys who had struggled all season long, most notably Jose Altuve, who hit .219 during the regular season, began to get their normal stroke back. As a result, the Astros made it all the way to Game 7 of the ALCS. Unfortunately, the biggest issue, other than a pandemic, that season for the Astros was Justin Verlander getting injured for the next TWO seasons (Tommy John surgery) after just one start, and Alvarez getting injured for the season (knee surgery) nine plate appearances.
2021 POSTSEASON ISSUE – Banged Up Breggy
The 2021 season was, by far, the roughest of Bregman’s career, as he missed 71 games due to various injuries, and saw his OPS plummet to a career low .777, which is still well above the MLB average, but Alex Bregman is expected to be far better than that. As it turned out, Bregman was playing the postseason last year with an injured wrist, and it showed (.217 batting average, 1 home run, 69 plate appearances). Lance McCullers going out of the postseason during the ALDS with an arm injury didn’t help matters either.
This season, all of the big hitters are clicking, the starting rotation is healthy and pitching well. The bullpen is the best in baseball. The only negative issue is Michael Brantley being done for the season, but the team has had time to adapt to that, and even when healthy, Brantley is fifth or sixth down the list of offensive weapons.
No excuses. It’s time to get that second ring.
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
