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.
