The Launch Angle

It comes down to the final day of the season, Game 162.

The Astros won last night, but so did the Rangers, tied at 80-81, with the Astros having the tiebreaker.

The Astros will win the division if one of two things happen:

• The Astros win their series finale against the Athletics
• or The Rangers lose their series finale against the Twins

Either works. But if the Astros lose today and the Rangers win, then the Rangers will leapfrog the Astros to take the division.

Both games will be happening at the same time too. Astros-Athletics begins at 2:05 p.m. CT. Rangers-Twins begins at 2:10 p.m.

And sometime around 5 p.m. CT today, one team from the Lone Star state will be popping champagne.

As this is the last Game Preview of the regular season, I’d like to hand out my own Astros End-of-Season Awards. None of these are going to be surprises.

MVP – Yordan Alvarez

Who else? He’s got a great chance to be MVP of the league, he’s surely the MVP of the Astros. He leads the AL in AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS, XBH, wRC+. He is a special player, and there’s not much more to be said than has already been said. Without Yordan, this is a well below average team. With Yordan, they are… an average team, but one that might possible raise a division banner.

Honorable Mention: Josh Hader. See next section.

Pitcher of the Year – Josh Hader

There has been little to no rotation all season, and the Astros bullpen has been asked to cover more innings than any Astros bullpen in franchise history. Leading that overworked pen has been Josh Hader, who has taken a couple of losses in tie games, but has converted every single save opportunity on the season. The overwhelming majority of Astros wins this year, particularly post All-Star break have been by 4 runs of fewer. Without Hader’s near-perfection, this team would have dropped out of division contention weeks ago.

Honorable Mention: Peter Lambert. Lambert went from the 10th option in the organization for starting pitcher to being the most dependable and reliable starter in the Astros rotation. Lambert made 28 starts and allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in 23 of them. In another 3 he allowed only 4 runs. Is he going to get Cy votes? No. But every time he took the mound, he gave the Astros an opportunity to win, and that’s all you can ask for from a guy who wasn’t just the #5 starter, but the #5 starter in Sugar Land to start the season.

Rookie of the Year – AJ Blubaugh

Blubaugh led all of MLB, not just MLB rookies, with 96 innings of relief pitching. He’s had a 3.38 ERA on the year and was used in all degrees of leverage. He was used against righties, lefties, and was used for multiple innings over half of his appearances. He has just 0.1 fWAR on the season, but WAR value doesn’t consider the context of the Astros season. The Astros needed innings, as many relief innings of pitching as they could get, and Blubaugh delivered and then some.

Honorable Mention: None. It’s not really been a notable year for Astros rookies, otherwise. Maybe Ethan Pecko,who sandwiched 3 serviceable pitching appearances between 4 rough starts. Maybe Lucas Spence, whose 3 home run game may have saved the Astros season. But really nobody else besides Blubaugh.

Game 162 – Astros at Athletics

So how are the Astros going to do this? They just used their 3 best starters, Lambert, Hunter Brown and Hayden Wesneski. Cristian Javier is on the IL out for the year. Ethan Pecko would be on short rest, and he’s not really been all that effective anyways. Lambert has offered to be available on 2 days rest.

Where can the Astros find 9 innings of pitching coverage in their quest to finish .500 and win the division? This Game 162 problem is an encapsulation of the entire season.

It looks like the Astros are taking Lambert up on their offer. He’s starting today on 2 days rest. But since he threw 62 pitches Thursday, it may not be for more than what an opener would do.

The bullpen has carried the team all season; it will shoulder the load for the final game. Lambert may be the name one the starting lineup card, but Game 162 is going to be a bullpen game.

Starting for the A’s will be Seth Johnson, but he will serve as an opener as well. Brady Basso figures to take on a bulk role; Jeff Passan reports him as the main pitcher the Astros will face. Basso, a Pearland native, has a 1-3 record in 25 games with 7 starts. He carries a 5.36 ERA and 1.60 WHIP. His last two starts have not been great. Agsinst the Angels on September 22, he lasted just 2 innings, allowing 5 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks, striking out 2. Before that, on September 16, against the Rays, he lasted just 2.2 innings, allowing 4 runs on 7 hits with no walks or strikeouts.

Let’s hope the Astros can continue the trend of lighting up Basso, and ride the runs to a division title. That’s Plan A.

(And hey if Basso wants to subconsciously throw a meatball or two in the interest of seeing the team he grew up cheering for win the division, who are we to argue?)

In Minnesota, the Rangers send 8-11 Mackenzie Gore with a 4.59 ERA against the Twins’ 4-5 Dean Kremer with a 4.97 ERA. That’s Plan B.

This post will be updated with lineups as they are made available.

The game is televised on SCHN, and on the radio on 790 KBME. Start time is 2:05 PM CT. We’ll all be chatting in real time about the game(s) on the TLA Discord Server. Please join us. Otherwise, we’ll see you back here at 5 o’clock. Either I’m going to wanna hug someone, or I ‘m gonna need a hug.

Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link.