‘We’re going to get super hot’: Why the Astros believe they’re about to start playing like the Astros again
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
The Houston Astros arrived at Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium in Mexico City on Saturday searching for a symbolic fresh start, and Yordan Álvarez, their menacing slugger, found it almost immediately — on a white piece of paper taped to a wall inside their temporary clubhouse. On it was a simple message, scribbled in black marker:
Introductions, 3:45 p.m.
At that time, members of the team would line up along the third-base line to be formally introduced for the start of Major League Baseball’s brief foray into Mexico City, just like they normally would on Opening Day. Álvarez saw it as an opportunity.
“It was like we were starting a new season,” Álvarez said in Spanish. “I told the guys, ‘This is the moment to believe our season starts today.'”
The Astros, losers of eight of their previous nine games and already in a deep hole within the American League West, proceeded to put together two of their most complete and impressive performances all season, beating the Colorado Rockies by a combined 14 runs on Saturday and Sunday. They were playing against one of the worst teams in their sport and hitting in the thin air of a ballpark that sits 7,300 feet above sea level, but the Astros — still a whopping 10 games below .500 — came away from that series believing they had turned a corner.
“We’re going to get super hot and go on a run,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said in the wake of it.
It would have to be quite the run.
The Astros lost 18 of their first 25 games, tied for the second-worst mark in their franchise’s history. Only two teams — the 1981 Kansas City Royals, in a strike season, and the 1914 Boston Braves — have overcome such a start to make the playoffs.
Entering the Mexico City series, six of their starting pitchers had already spent time on the injured list. Their vaunted bullpen trio of Bryan Abreu, Ryan Pressly and Josh Hader had combined to allow 24 earned runs in 32 innings. Their decorated offense had stranded an American League-leading 202 baserunners. And two of their most important bats, Bregman and, to a greater extent, José Abreu, were in the midst of a profound slump.
In spring training, a two-game series in Mexico City was looked upon by players as a fun getaway to break up the monotony of a traditional schedule. As the season ensued and the losses mounted, it evolved into a necessary respite, an opportunity for a clean slate. The results only seemed to validate that.
“We want to use this series as a springboard to play better than we have,” Astros manager Joe Espada said in Spanish. “I think we demonstrated over these last two games the type of team we are.”
The Astros carry the unwavering confidence of a club that has appeared in each of the past seven AL Championship Series, even if present circumstances make it seem misplaced. Legitimate reasons for optimism do exist, though, beginning with the health of their starting pitchers. Justin Verlander made his delayed season debut on April 19, Framber Valdez was activated off the injured list Sunday, Cristian Javier should rejoin the rotation this week and José Urquidy is on track to return next month. The Abreu-Pressly-Hader trio should be much better. And there’s little reason to believe the lineup, which has gone through 23 different variations already, won’t eventually be a force.
But it’s also easy to see why the Astros are vulnerable — why we might actually be witnessing the end of one of the most dominant runs in recent baseball history. Most of the Astros’ best players are in the back half of their careers, some nearing the ends of them. The organizational depth that prolonged their window has dried up, making injuries potentially more devastating than ever before. These past two games were nice, but the Astros’ next series will come against far better teams in the Cleveland Guardians, Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees, with little margin to fall much further
And then there’s Abreu, in his age-37 season and in the middle of a contract that pays him $58.5 million through 2025. His first 71 at-bats have consisted of just seven hits and 18 strikeouts. Scouts say he has been late on almost every fastball. The Astros have recently placed Abreu in a quasi-platoon with the left-handed-hitting Jon Singleton. The recent promotion of first-base prospect Joey Loperfido might cut into his playing time further.
“You know what’s been the hardest thing for me? And I say this from the bottom of my heart — I feel embarrassed,” Abreu said in Spanish. “The people in this organization brought me here to do a good job. I haven’t done that. The hard thing, too, is that my teammates see that I haven’t done my job, although they’ve always supported me, always been by my side. But I won’t stay down.”
Abreu got two hits past a drawn-in infield Saturday. And though he didn’t take much solace in a result that came while still feeling out of rhythm, he did acknowledge the significance of his first multi-RBI game all year.
“It’s been a while,” Abreu said with a smile.
Something similar occurred late in Sunday’s game, when Bregman, homerless while slashing .216/.287/.268, lined a base hit up the middle. Bregman, a famously slow starter, called it “my best swing of the year.” He had been fighting timing issues all season, but he told himself to be ready to hit sooner when he came to bat in the top of the eighth. He started his load earlier so he could wait on the fastball, adjust to an off-speed pitch and avoid feeling rushed. When he loads earlier, he said, “everything is simpler.”
He thinks that eighth-inning swing was the start of something.
He thinks the Astros are finally coming.
“I know the character of the guys in this room,” Bregman said. “I know that we have fighters in here that are going to continue to show up and compete every day and prepare correctly and go out and execute on the field. We have way too many good players in here, way too many who know what success is like at this level.
“I think we’ll see a different Stros team the rest of the year. We’ll be where we need to be by the end of it. I know no one’s done it since 1914 or whatever, come back from this start, but we’ve got a good group in here and we’re up for the challenge.”
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Ryan S. Clark
Many of Mikko Rantanen’s greatest moments have come in a Colorado Avalanche sweater. It’s just that the most defining moment of his career came at their expense.
It wasn’t enough that the Dallas Stars were trailing by two goals. It was also the fact that Rantanen scored a hat trick in a string of four unanswered goals that saw his current team, the host Stars, eliminate his old team, the Avalanche, in a 4-2 win Saturday in Game 7 of the Western Conference quarterfinals at the American Airlines Center.
“Obviously, the feeling was incredible to win a series,” Rantanen said in his postgame media availability. “This series was not exactly what I expected. I expected a seven-game series, even before Game 1. The ups and downs in the series. … Belief was there with the group the whole time. Obviously, I was able to make a pay to get the first one and the crowd started to roll.”
The Stars, attempting to reach the conference finals a third straight time, will advance to the semifinal round in which they will await the winner of series featuring the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets. That encounter will be decided Sunday in Game 7 in Winnipeg.
Soon, the Stars’ collective focus will shift to another Central Division foe. But for now? The attention before, during, and after the game, was on Rantanen.
Part of what made the Avalanche-Stars series arguably the most intriguing first-round series in either conference was the fact it placed two 100-point teams that are in championship window against each other. But, it also came with several subplots with the notable being the team that traded quite a bit to land Rantanen — with the hope he could win them a Stanley Cup now — needed him to defeat the team that he won a championship with back in 2022.
With one assist through the first four games, there was a discussion about if the Stars could manage to win with a sputtering Rantanen on top of the fact they were already without two of their best players in defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson.
Rantanen responded with a three-point performance in Game 5, and a four-point performance in Game 6 only to then have a hand in each goal on Saturday. His first goal came on the power-play with 12:12 remaining in the third period when he found enough space to fire a wrist shot that beat MacKenzie Blackwood.
Then came the game-tying goal and the significance it carried. The Stars went on the power play went Avalanche forward Jack Drury was called for holding. Drury part of the trade package the Carolina Hurricanes used to get Rantanen in late January before they would trade him to the Stars.
Drury’s penalty opened the door for Rantanen to score a game-tying goal that might be one of, if not, his signature salvo. Rantanen skated into the Avalanche zone in a 1-on-3 before he split two players before going around the net for a wrap-around goal that went off the skate of Samuel Girard with 6:14 left.
Three minutes later, the Stars received another power-play opportunity that saw Rantanen along with another former Avalanche forward in Matt Duchene work together to find Wyatt Johnston for the game-winning goal.
In the final minute, the Avalanche pulled Blackwood in the attempt to grab a late goal and force over time. Instead? Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger withstood a barrage that officially ended when Stars forward Tyler Seguin got the puck out of the zone only for Rantanen to skate in on an open net for the hat trick with three seconds left.
“I couldn’t care less who scored for them, I really couldn’t,” Avalanche captain and left winger Gabriel Landeskog said when asked about what it was like to watch Rantanen score a hat trick. “Mikko is one of my best friends and I love him, but I couldn’t care if he scored or if somebody else scored.”
For eight full seasons, Rantanen was part of a homegrown movement that saw the Avalanche go from finishing with what was then the worst record in the salary cap era back in 2016-17 to become a perennial favorite to win the Stanley Cup, which did they did in 2023, while also becoming a model for the need to build through the draft.
Building through stars such as Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Landeskog and Rantanen allowed the Avalanche to become a success. As did the moves they made to get other key figures like Valeri Nichushkin and Devon Toews.
Like all teams in a championship window, the Avs were facing the prospect of possibly making a difficult decision. They had yet to agree to a new contract with Rantanen, who was a pending unrestricted free agent. Then, came the blockbuster trade that few throughout the league saw coming.
The Avalanche traded Rantanen in a three-team trade that saw them get Martin Necas and Drury along with two draft picks. Rantanen’s time with the Carolina Hurricanes was limited to just two goals and six points in 13 games.
Despite the fact the Hurricanes are also among that cadre of championship contenders, Rantanen struggled to find cohesion in Raleigh. Rather than run the risk of watching leave for nothing in free agency, the Hurricanes put out feelers to a few teams with the Stars being one of them.
A long-time admirer of Rantanen, the Stars packaged two first-round picks, three second-round picks and former prized prospect Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen. They then signed him to an eight-year contract worth $12 million annually.
“It’s two things: It’s where our team’s at, and it’s Mikko Rantanen,” Stars general manager Jim Nill told ESPN back in March.
Rantanen finished the regular season with five goals and 18 points in 20 games prior to the showdown with his former team.
Not only did Rantanen’s hat trick condemn his former team to their second first-round exit since winning the Stanley Cup, but it continued a theme of former Avalanche eliminating their previous employers.
The Avalanche and Stars faced each other in last season’s Western Conference semifinal that saw Duchene, a former Colorado first-round pick, score the game-winning goal.
A year later, it was another former Avalanche first-round pick who delivered the devastating blow.
“It seems pretty fitting,” Johnston said about Rantanen. “Obviously, we want to win for each other and I think that goes a little extra when it’s a guy like that who is such a big part of our team and was there for a long time and everyone knows the trade that went on. It’s so awesome. We’re so happy as a group for him.”
As if Rantanen scoring a hat trick in a four-goal comeback wasn’t enough, there’s also the fact that this is now the ninth consecutive Game 7 that Stars coach Peter DeBoer has won his career.
DeBoer’s nine wins in Game 7s broke a tie with Darryl Sutter for the most in NHL history. It was also DeBoer’s third game 7 wins with the Stars.
“I felt something was going to happen,” DeBoer said. “But I could not have predicted that.”
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