Let’s be honest: We knew the Astros weren’t World Series contenders despite being at the top of the meager AL West going into the Atlanta series.
Still, it’s baseball and anything can happen, right?
Well, what happened was the Astros got bullied by a better team.
Period.
We’ll see if the Alvarez-led team meeting leads to any results, but the fact that you have to call one at this point of the season, with this much on the line, speaks volumes.
Let’s start off with the basics: We are 96.3% of the way through the regular season.
That means 96.3% of this is actual performance and 3.7% is projection.
The offense was pitiful over the weekend and has now recorded a 95 wRC+ for the month (75 for the Braves series), wasting three good starts.
As mentioned above, three good, but inefficient, starts against Atlanta. The first two were Kikuchi starts, and the final was 5 shutout innings by Hunter Brown.
The bullpen is having a tough September with a 5.10 ERA. Their xERA is 3.92, suggesting some bad luck, and we saw a bit of that on Sunday as Bryan King suffered a chopper over Isaac’s head and a broken-bat single into right as the Braves took the lead and the inning spiraled out of control.
You can see that in the chart below, which shows King with a September ERA of 11.81 and an xERA of 3.39.
I’m not making excuses for King; he’s not been good. Just stating facts.
wRC+ for September
As mentioned, the team is rocking a 95 for the month, and there is plenty of blame to go around, but most noticeable are Cam (60) and Walker (17).
Win Shares
It’s always been Yordan.
AL West Playoff Update (as of September 21)
First, let’s take a look at what fangraphs.com says about a potential playoff run (through games of September 21):
Projected Remaining Record: 3-3 (Previous 5-4)
Projected Final Record: 80-82 (Previous 82-80)
Win Division: 43.5% (Previous 77.7%)
Wild Card: 1.5% (Previous 3.2%)
Make Playoffs: 45.0% (Previous 81.0%)
I project a 3-3 finish and an 80-82 record, and missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
xWins and GB are rounded.
Projected Standings
Thanks for reading!