Dallas Keuchel on Astros’ deadline moves: ‘Disappointment is a little bit of an understatement’

The Astros are just fine when it comes to making the postseason this year. They have a 16-game lead in the AL West and are 11 1/2 games in front of the Yankees when it comes to the entire American League.

Yet even teams that have a postseason berth all but locked up, like the Dodgers or the Nationals, made some moves at the trade deadline. A few of those moves were big ones (hello, Yu!) and look to be immediately beneficial to the teams that took the plunge and upgraded their rosters.

But the Astros didn’t make any major moves at the deadline, and in fact they barely made any moves at all. The only trade they took part in was acquiring the middling Francisco Liriano from Toronto for Nori Aoki and Teoscar Hernandez.

For a team that has the 24th-ranked bullpen by ERA right now, the Astros definitely could have used some help there. And while they wanted to hold on to top prospects instead of going all-in for this season, that might backfire since they held on to everyone.

It could pan out, but right now one person is feeling let down by the Astros’ lackluster performance at the deadline.

In advance of Tuesday’s game, pitcher Dallas Keuchel told Brian McTaggart “I’m not going to lie. Disappointment is a little bit of an understatement.”

He went on to say that everyone in the clubhouse right now believes they can win it all, which is reasonable considering how they are doing in the regular season, but that something extra to shore up the team and improve weak spots during a playoff push would have been nice to see.

Players don’t always readily admit that teams “standing pat” in what could be a pivotal situation is disappointing to them, so this is some refreshing honesty in a tricky moment for Keuchel.

He also stated, “Good teams can always be great, and great teams can always be legendary.” Now it’s time to wait and see if the Astros’ disappointing deadline decisions prevent this team from rising to legendary status or if the players they are sticking with will do that without any outside help.