The Houston Astros\u2019 regular season was notable for being the first team to win in baseball history to win its division with a non-winning record over a full campaign.<\/p>\n
But ironically enough, they did find a way to win games when they needed to, particularly down the stretch.<\/p>\n
That ability is something they\u2019ll now need to tap into with their season is on the precipice.<\/p>\n
But this year\u2019s team, despite its .500 record, has showed an ability to bounce back. That had players feeling upbeat heading into an elimination game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team\u2019s built for it,\u201d first baseman Christian Walker said. \u201cWe are comfortable facing adversity. I think we go about our business the right way. We can use it as a lot of motivation, and I\u2019m excited for the challenge to dig ourselves out of this hole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then in late August, after general manager Dana Brown was dismissed<\/a> following a 3-6 homestand against three sub-.500 divisional opponents. Houston won four of six games during a New York swing against the Yankees and Mets.<\/p>\n The Astros then proceeded to take what seemed like devastating blows on consecutive weekends with sweeps by the Rays<\/a> and Braves<\/a>, but rallied to win the ensuing series each time. Last week, Houston won four of six on the road following the sweep by Atlanta to clinch the division title. That included scoring 22 runs in the final two games against the Athletics needing wins to keep pace with the Rangers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe lean on guys like (Jose) Altuve with, you know, 600 postseason games or whatever he\u2019s got,\u201d Walker said. \u201cYou know, Yordan (Alvarez), (Isaac) Paredes, they\u2019re cold blooded. They\u2019re low-heart-rate guys, and I think we can all feed all of that for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n The Astros have won games on consecutive days 29 times this season. That\u2019s now required to move on to the AL Division Series against Cleveland<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, the only option is to turn the page,\u201d shortstop Jeremy Pe\u00f1a said. \u201cYou know, we\u2019ve won two games in a row before. So it\u2019s turn the page and show up tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Taking the mound Wednesday will be right-hander Hunter Brown, who allowed two runs in 13 innings in winning both starts against the White Sox this season. Brown is also familiar with the situation, having turned in a strong start in an elimination game two years ago<\/a> against Detroit, taking a no-decision.<\/p>\n \u201cHunter Brown is our ace \u2014 he\u2019s our stud,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cThe expectation is that he comes out and he dominates and gives us a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Astros\u2019 regular season was notable for being the first team to win in baseball history to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-451749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}