The Astros? They’re good at baseball. Have you seen this, have you heard about this? The defending champions won their 12th game in a row Monday night, thanks to an Alex Bregman walkoff.
The Astros are perfect, and the Mariners are right behind them anyway
Tuesday’s Say Hey, Baseball sees the Astros’ dominance and winning streak, but doesn’t want you to forget about the Mariners.
Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images
What you might not realize, given the Astros’ continued dominance, is that they’ve needed to be this great to stay in first in the American League West, thanks to the surging Mariners. Houston, winners of 12 in a row, a team that’s already been in first place for 60 days of a season that’s less than three months complete, are just two games up on Seattle.
While the Astros have had to essentially be perfect in order to maintain their lead, they’ve also basically been perfect all season long. The lineup, as a whole, has a 120 OPS+ — that’s best in the majors, and seven points up on the second-ranked Yankees. The pitching staff is responsible for a 129 ERA+, which sits two points behind the Cubs and one ahead of the Red Sox. No one out there has their exact combination of dominance: the Yankees are close, the Red Sox are a little behind that, and the Mariners are ... nowhere close.
Seattle is close in the standings, however, and those wins aren’t going anywhere. They’re relying more heavily on one aspect of their team than Houston is, as their lineup ranks third in OPS+, but their pitching staff is much more middling, coming in at 14th with a 104 ERA+. That’s still good, as the M’s are above-average on the mound and one of the best offensively, but they’re going to have to keep winning close games like they have been in order to keep pace with the two-headed monster in Houston.
The Mariners are 23-10 in one-run games, whereas the Astros as 7-12. This isn’t meant to imply the Mariners have been overly lucky in those contests — they have a good lineup and some great relievers, and that combination can take you places. It’s just a reminder there is a difference between things working perfectly and a team playing perfectly.
This is where you can say “it’s better to be lucky than good” and baseball will prove your cliche right often enough to keep you repeating it, and I’m not about to argue with you on the point, either. Baseball is cruel in myriad ways, as both Mariners and Astros fans know well, and given Seattle’s obvious strengths and Houston’s absolute dominance, watching this race play out and the heartbreak it will entail is going to be one of the highlights of the summer.
- This week’s Grant Land includes love for Ozzie Albies, players falling down on the basepaths, and a pitcher barfing on camera, while also lamenting the loss of Shohei Ohtani and coping by talking up that Mike Trout guy.
- Thanks to rescheduling and games resuming, rookie Juan Soto managed to hit his first big-league homer before he made his big-league debut. Baseball is wild.
- To celebrate Adrian Beltre passing Ichiro Suzuki to become the all-time foreign-born hit leader, I put together a Sporcle Quiz where you can guess the MLB foreign-born hit leader from each country with such a thing. And if you don’t want to play along, there’s still a whole lot of notes I dug up in my research for you to enjoy.
- Bryce Harper shaved. This is no time for jokes, only for mourning.
- Potomac Nationals players recreated the mound conversation scene from Bull Durham, which turns 30 years old this week.
- With some help from Shin-Soo Choo, Bartolo Colon became the winningest Dominican-born pitcher in MLB history.
- The Royals traded closer Kelvin Herrera to the Nats, which is a good segue to this Royals Review feature asking you why in the world you’d watch Kansas City this year.
- Here’s Michael Baumann on Max Muncy, a relative unknown who just might save the Dodgers’ season.
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