Will Thomson

On June 18 the @astros were 33-40 & 10 games out of first place in the AL West. They had just been shutout by the White Sox, a team that could go down as the worst in modern baseball history. At the time, the Mariners had an 87% chance to win the division, with the Astros sitting at 10.8% odds. We all know what happened after that. The Astros became just the 2nd team in MLB history to go from being 5+ games under .500 & 10.0+ games back to being in first place in fewer than 25 games, along with the "Miracle Braves" of 1914. The Astros miserable start and miraculous turnaround has them on several lists that include the 1914 Braves. The Astros started the year 7-18, and of all the teams that have played since 1900, only that Braves team had previously overcome a start that bad to make the postseason. The 2024 Astros are also on pace to join a club some of us are more familiar with: the 2005 Astros. That squad famously started 15-30 before catching fire and playing .632 baseball the rest of the way. This year’s squad has a .647 winning percentage since June 14, a day that coincides with the release of Jose Abreu. The 2005 squad finished with 89 wins, the same number the 2024 squad is currently projected to finish with (per FanGraphs). The 2024 Astros bounce back defies historical precedent, logic, and mathematical odds. After a sweep of KC this weekend, they have a chance to do something even more improbable: secure a first round bye. The Astros now trail the Guardians for the 2 seed by just 3 games and the Yankees by just 4. As long as they seem keen on rewriting history, why would we think they would be content to stop at simply making the postseason? That they’ve done it with unheralded players picked up off the proverbial scrap heap is even more impressive. A pitching rotation that once seemed to be held together with duct tape is suddenly the most formidable in the sport. It’s starting to feel like we should be asking “how will they do it?” rather than “can they do it?”