As baseball moves through May and into the heart of the summer season, the narratives about various teams come more into focus. For some, that is a good thing, and for others, perhaps not the greatest reflection. For the Houston Astros, the 2025 season is, well, it just is. They’ve hung out right around .500, weathering their initial sub-.500 start (even hitting the classic checkpoint of 7-9). They aren’t leading the division, but they lurk in reasonable striking distance. Not that division standings are all that important at this point in the season, but a team will have a sense of its identity by now. A few observations:
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Settling in at home, but no so much on the road: Generally, good teams win most of their home matchups and play about .500 on the road. However, home field has been a disadvantage for Houston over the past couple of seasons. A losing home record in 2023 (39-42), and a somewhat improved home record (46-35) in 2024, but 2023-2024 saw Houston deal with a 7-game home playoff losing streak. If Houston wants to get back to the ALCS, they need to hold serve at home. To start 2025, Daikin Park agrees with Houston. They sit 15-9 at home, with series wins over the Mets, Tigers and Padres (all teams either leading or right at the top of their respective divisions). Aside from an early-season sweep by the Giants, Houston’s won every home series to date.
However, that is tempered by Houston’s road record sinking to well under .500. In 2023, they went 51-30 on the road, and still maintained a winning record on the road in 2024 (42-38). The 2025 Astros, well, they don’t like leaving the Ice Box. They currently sit at 9-13, and can only claim one road series win (against Minnesota) and one series split (2-2 against the Rangers). They gave the White Sox a rare series win (even as the rubber match got capped at 7 innings). Things may yet even out, but perhaps it is home sweet home, and on the road…well, wait for the return home.
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Best off-season move: This offseason, the trade of Tucker to the Cubs got most of the headlines, especially with the return of three MLB-rostered players (Smith is now a regular). Yet, a smaller move might rate as the best for Houston for this year. The de facto salary dump that also sent Ryan Pressly to Chicago for a minor-league pitcher,r Juan Bello. Bello…eh, maybe Houston’s pitching machine can do something with him. However, the move helped put Houston approximately $5M under the first CBT level, which is THE #1 priority for the Crane regime this year (yeah, there is the whole winning thing, but we can all read between the lines…it is all about resetting the tax lines). However, it also extricated Houston out of a rather unfortunate situation. Pressly, the man who closed out Houston’s 2022 World Series wins, got demoted to set-up man with the signing of Josh Hader. It didn’t really work out as hoped, culminating with Pressly’s loss in Game 2 of the Wild Card. He had a no-trade clause, but Chicago offered him the chance to regain the closer spot. Pressly consented, and off he went.
Since he joined Tucker on the North Side…well, consider a recent high-leverage situation, where he surrendered EIGHT runs in an extra-inning duel with the Giants. All the Pressly measurables trended down last season, but now, the hard numbers match the analytic ones. Meanwhile, Hader seemingly put his uneven 2024 behind him, reverting to his dominant closer form of years past, and the rest of Houston’s bullpen is following along. Meanwhile, the Chicago trade acquisitions (Cam Smith, Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski) are either playing fair to middling or injured, at least to start off the season. (Hayden is now out with Tommy John surgery and Paredes is showing flashes of on-plate success).
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If “Defense wins championships…” If Houston plans to win this season, it will be on the strength of their pitching and defense. Last season, the Astros displayed some rather uncharacteristic defensive lapses, and it seemed as if they couldn’t quite figure out how to effectively prevent runs in a post-shift world. Having solid pitching helps, and this season, Houston again ranks among the top teams in terms of pitching metrics. Yet, it is the fielding aspect of the team that is helping the squad. In run-prevention stats, only the Cardinals rank higher than Houston, a testament to good fielding and defense. Is it perfect? No, and since the offense continues its sluggish turn, the margins remain rather tight if pitching and defense remain the strengths of the squad. Still, that can take a team far enough, especially if key bats like Alvarez and Altuve can get going.
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Hey, it can always be worse… While Houston’s sluggish 2025 is somewhat surprising/disappointing, it pales in comparison to the disappointment emanating from the Baltimore Inner Harbor. The team some could call Astros 2.0 came into this season with massive expectations, especially after back-to-back playoff appearances. Granted, they lost their ace Burnes in free agency, only to replace him with solid, if not spectacular, arms. The goal was to not only get back to the postseason but to actually win. Then the season started. The pitching staff, a concern coming into the season, is a full-on liability. Ol’ Uncle Charlie Morton looks cooked, and the rest of the staff are either injured or ineffective. Bad enough they carry perhaps the worst pitching staff in the league, but the vaunted offense is not exactly offensing. This cost manager Brandon Hyde his job in a desperation-type move on May 17th. Perhaps it kick-starts the O’s, but if not, GM Mike Elias needs to update the LinkedIn profile forthwith.
Of course, all assessments fall under the rather large caveat of it being early in the season. However, if there was a lesson to come out of 2024 for the Astros, it was this: you can overcome a bad start, even a horrid one, but it can take so much to just get out of a hole, you may not have enough energy or resources to climb up the mountain. It doesn’t hurt that the AL currently lacks that dominant squad (we’ll see about Detroit). For teams like Houston, it may not take all that much to shake off a mid start to get to a higher plane. We shall see if Houston can get there.