All dynasties are eventually dethroned. We may have witnessed the end of baseball’s only true modern dynasty on Wednesday.
After a prolonged run of American League excellence, the Houston Astros’ seven-year streak of reaching the AL Championship Series was snapped Wednesday by the Detroit Tigers and former Astros manager A.J. Hinch in a 5–2 victory. Nobody on the Tigers’ youthful wild-card roster had reached the majors yet when Houston’s ALCS streak started in 2017. It’ll go down in the record books as the longest such AL streak, bested only by the Atlanta Braves’ eight straight NLCS appearances from 1991–99. And it ends in stunning and abrupt fashion with Houston being swept out of the wild-card round by the team with the joint-worst record in the playoffs.
While it’s a bit of a disservice to the Tigers to describe them as such, no one expected them to be here a few weeks ago, and certainly not in early August when they were languishing below .500. (Fangraphs gave Detroit a 0.2% chance of qualifying for the playoffs on Aug. 11, when the Tigers were 56–63.) But now they’re the hottest team in baseball, and they proved this week they’re not to be taken lightly going forward.
For Hinch, who was fired by Houston in 2019 in the wake of revelations about the team’s sign-stealing scandal during its ’17 championship run, his first playoff series win with Detroit since his hiring four years ago must feel extra sweet, especially since he outmanaged his counterpart and former bench coach Joe Espada.
Hinch said before the series that Detroit’s plan was to ride Tarik Skubal in Game 1 and follow with “pitching chaos.” Hinch navigated that chaos beautifully, pushing the right bullpen buttons in both a more traditional Game 1 win and a Game 2 victory that featured seven Tigers pitchers taking the mound. The result was Houston managing just one extra-base hit in two games, with superstar outfielder Kyle Tucker, who was expected to give this lineup a spark after returning from the injured list last month, going hitless in eight plate appearances.
Lefthander Tyler Holton, who led Tigers relievers with 94 1/3 innings in the regular season, functioned as Wednesday’s opener and retired the fearsome top of Houston’s lineup in order. Beau Brieske, who recorded the save in Tuesday’s 3–1 win after coming on with two men in scoring position, extinguished another threat Wednesday.
Even though Jackson Jobe, MLB’s top pitching prospect, blew a 1–0 Detroit lead in Game 2 by allowing two runs in the seventh inning, the Tigers roared back in the eighth. Hinch called on 31-year-old infielder Andy Ibañez, the oldest player on his roster, to pinch hit and was rewarded with a game-winning three-run double against Astros closer Josh Hader. (Espada had brought in Hader after setup man Ryan Pressly allowed the tying run to score on a wild pitch, and while it’s hard to fault Espada for that move, the result was what it was.) Southpaw Sean Guenther and righty Will Vest, pitching for the second straight day, didn’t allow an Astros baserunner from there to polish off the series.
The Tigers’ unorthodox win on Wednesday is nothing new for them. After Jack Flaherty was traded at the deadline and several of their remaining starters were injured or underperforming through August, Detroit heavily relied on openers and bulk relievers for the rest of the regular season. That proved to be a formula for success for this young squad, and it’s worked so far in October, too. We’ll have to see if that strategy can persist as the postseason series get longer.
The Astros, meanwhile, are left to pick up the pieces of a deflating defeat that could spell the end of an era. Longtime third baseman Alex Bregman is set to enter free agency, while future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander and trade deadline pickup Yusei Kikuchi also seem likely to depart and leave a couple of holes in Houston’s rotation (Verlander could retire after an ineffective campaign at age 41). Even before their elimination, the warning signs were there after Houston got off to a slow start in the spring and posted its worst winning percentage in a full season since 2016.
Or perhaps this is just a bump in the road. The Astros have been doubted before when the likes of George Springer and Carlos Correa signed with other teams. But if this is indeed the last time we see the Astros in October for a while, it’s fitting that the manager who oversaw their rise closed the book on their historic streak from the opposing dugout.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Houston Finally Has a Problem: Hinch, Youthful Tigers Snap Astros’ ALCS Streak.
