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So the Astros had difficulty beating the Reds and then they face a hot team in the Los Angeles Dodgers and somehow find a cure.
Welcome to being a baseball fan or, more to the point, an Astros fan. We can’t beat the teams that we should (aka the Reds), but we can beat the teams that we shouldn’t (aka the Dodgers). Not that the Reds are awful. They have some great young talent, but the Astros should be able to split the series with them. The Dodgers are expected to win their conference and might even make it to the World Series; obviously that means that the Astros shouldn’t be able to win more than one game in the series.
Instead, Houston looks like a legitimate contender. They won the first game in the series in strong fashion and then they had a game last night where they fought back and took another win from La-La Land.
What gives? The common thought would be that they were embarrassed by their performance against the Reds, had a closed locker room meeting and went out there and played better. That is probably true, but I have always felt that for years that the Astros get better motivated against the better teams and overconfident against those they expect the beat. It has happened time and time again.
It was definitely a good win though and something Houston can build on. Wolf had a fairly off night and Pence took advantage of it. Of course, anytime we beat the Dodgers is a good time for me. I still feel the 1980s rivalry they had and I will never be a big Dodgers fan.
Check out this quote from Randy Wolf…
The Astros (6-9) might be playing under .500 but “they’re a tough lineup,” Wolf said. “When it’s the first two weeks of the season, you throw out numbers. They don’t mean anything.”
It’s nice that at least somebody has confidence that the Astros will bounce back. I am still undecided.
