Predictions are a crap shoot. Well, that isn’t an entirely accurate cliche since craps is one of the more player-friendly games at a casino. Predictions more often than not leave the predictor with egg on their face. They are more like a game of roulette. Throw a guess ball into the wheel and hope you are at least half right. In my instance, those odds are even worse. It goes double for baseball where I’ve been burned by faulty looks into the future dozens upon dozens of times. With all that being said, I have a “bold” prediction to make. The Houston Astros have already wrapped up the AL West.
Yes, I am aware that the calendar just turned to June and there are still over 100 games of baseball to be played. It is also abundantly clear to me that in that time frame a division can be choked away. Heck, a bad month can do that. But I feel fairly confident that the 2017 Astros won’t fall into that category. To say they are a cut above their competition is an understatement. While the rest of the AL West scratches and claws for level pegging, the ‘Stros are on pace for a historic campaign.
Let’s start with the offense. Good Lord, they are murdering teams at the moment. Since a three-game sweep by Cleveland in late May, the one team that seems to have their number in 2017, Houston has put up a touchdown’s worth of runs ten times. The Central Division’s first place team, Minnesota, got the worst of it, absorbing 40 runs of pure massacre over three games. That output included an 11 run eighth inning in the opener that left then AL ERA leader Ervin Santana befuddled. Not often do you leave a game with a six-run lead and come back to see the lead nearly flipped the other way by the time you get your shoulder iced. But that is what can happen with this explosive Houston attack.
Every member of the Astros is raking right now. The usual suspects are there. Jose Altuve is making another batting title chase while posting a WAR between 2.4 and 2.8, depending on your method of calculation. Carlos Correa is continuing his ascent into superstardom. George Springer is launching tape measure dingers for fun. Alex Bregman recently went on a homer tear of his own, doubling his season total in three games. But it is an unlikely source providing the proverbial “stirring of the drink” straw. (That sounded more cohesive in my head.)
Marwin Gonzalez leads the team in OPS. He is second to Altuve in offensive WAR and in the same position behind Brian McCann in walk rate. I tapped the former Rule 5 draftee for a breakout season a year ago, but that promise has come a year later. The AL West has been a bit schizophrenic for the Venezuelan, as he’s hit an aggregate .171 against Seattle, Los Angeles, and Oakland with 3 home runs. But it evens out with his brutalization of the Rangers. He has a .571 average with 4 home runs and 2 of his 3 stolen bases on the year against Texas.
The hitting isn’t a surprise though. The way this staff has run through the AL West is though. From its ace to its closer, Houston has dominated on the mound for the entirety of 2017. Even if the astronomical scoring outputs (pardon the pun) subside, their hurlers will keep their trajectory towards a season for the ages on course.
It starts with 2015 AL Cy Young Dallas Keuchel. Left for dead after a miserable 2016, Keuchel has already equalled his win total from a year ago. He leads the Major Leagues with a 1.67 ERA, making him the lone sub-2.00 ERA pitcher among those qualified. His WHIP also tops the sport and he is second only to Ervin Santana in batting average against. If you are more the sabermetric individual, Keuchel is third in the American League in SIERA (Skill-Interactive ERA) behind Chris Sale and teammate Lance McCullers Jr.
Speaking of McCullers, the emergence of the 23-year old has brought balance to the rotation. It is no longer Keuchel and company, but rather a dynamic duo at the top of the pitching staff. McCullers can pile up the strikeouts, but that, in turn, leads to his one glaring weakness. His inability to get deep into games, as well as put batters away earlier in counts, could lead to problems downstream. But for now, he is on a four-game winning streak. Houston hasn’t lost a game he has started in a month.
Past Keuchel and McCullers, plenty of interesting stories emerge. Brad Peacock has been a plug-in guy in the starting five and proven that his impressive strikeout rates weren’t just a product of middle relief work. Peacock has whiffed 26 batters over three starts since transitioning from the pen, all Astros wins. Recently DL’ed Charlie Morton‘s numbers don’t jump off the page, but he’s third in the bigs behind two pretty big names when it comes to getting the umpire to call strike three. Overall Astros pitching is striking out over 10 batters per nine innings. I’d be remiss though if I forgot the contributions of the bullpen.
In truth, the relief corps could be what sets them apart in the AL West. While their divisional counterparts struggle with their late inning hierarchy, the Astros have built a fortress around closer Ken Giles. Michael Feliz, Chris Devenski, and James Hoyt are axing batters at alarming rates. The lone “junk baller” of the unit, 2016 All-Star Will Harris, has a team-high 12 holds and a 27/3 K/BB ratio. In the ninth, Giles sometimes makes things interesting. However, Giles has just one blown save in 2017, a game the Astros rallied to get him the win in.
So yeah, I’m pretty confident the Astros have the AL West firmly in their grasp. The hitting isn’t showing any signs of slowing down and any injuries they’ve suffered have been more than adequately stop-gapped. The pitching could be more prone to flux, but as long as their top two continue to deal, they’ll persevere. Pair those with a division featuring four uninspiring opponents and the record for the earliest divisional clinch, set by the 1975 Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds, could be in jeopardy. Even if that doesn’t come to pass, Houston has put the AL West race to bed. To take a line from the late Dennis Green, crown their ass.