How the Astros came back from oblivion to win their seventh straight full-season AL West pennant.

Admit it.

If you’re like most of us, by May of this year you knew the gig was up. After all, all good things must pass.

Maybe the Astros had been the envy of baseball for the previous seven years. But after the first two months of this season we all sensed that the Astros dynasty had finally fallen — and with a loud thud.

Seven for seventeen after the first 24 games. Ten games under .500 as late as June 18th with no end in sight.

And then?

It was like a miracle.

Without pitchers Luis Garcia, Lance McCullers, Cristian Javier, J.P. France, and Jose Urquidy, without very much of Justin Verlander, surviving the complete breakdown of the released Jose Abreu, and then the devastating injury to the Astros’ leading hitter Kyle Tucker, the Astros won the AL West going 52-32 after the June 18 low-water mark.

Of all the championship seasons the Astros have enjoyed since 2017, when the history of the Astros is finally written, this one will go down as the Miracle Season.

What happened?

These are the X-Factors in the remarkable turnaround.

The Emergence of Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti .
A big reason for the early failure of the Astros was the injury to or failure of starting pitching, including sophomore Hunter Brown. The eventual resurgence of Brown and the emergence of rookie Spencer Arrighetti are major reasons why the starting rotation went from nearly worst in the majors to almost unbeatable.

From the start of the season until May 17, Brown posted an ERA of 7.71. From May 22 until September 23, Brown’s ERA was an elite 2.31.

Arrighetti was rushed into major league action by the catastrophic injuries to the erstwhile starting rotation. His early performances were not-quite-ready-for-prime-time to say the least. In his first eight appearances until May 25th, Arrighetti had a 6.93 ERA. From then until June 30th he improved his ERA to 5.17. From July 7 until Sept 22nd Arrighetti became a TOR level starter with a 3.18 ERA.

Although he doesn’t qualify as a turnaround X-Factor because he started the season with a no-hitter while everyone else was sh#@ting the bed, we can’t ignore the 2.88 ERA or 4.0 bWAR of perennial minor leaguer Ronel Blanco. He deserves an article all his own.

2. Emergence of Yainer Diaz

After a breakout rookie season, much was expected of Yainer Diaz. Yet during the dog days of April and May, Diaz was severely underperforming expectations. On June 2nd, Diaz was hitting .249 with a wRC+ of 79, 21 percent below league average. From June 3rd, the day Kyle Tucker went down, to present, it’s like he decided it was up to him to take up the slack. Since then, Diaz has been hitting .328 with a wRC+ of 138. Sixty-one of his 84 RBI were accrued during this period. That is the most on the team, tied with Yordan Alvarez.

What an upgrade over last year’s catcher production.

Many people believed that with Diaz behind the dish rather than Martin Maldonado the Astros pitching would suffer. Yet on the fifth game of the season, Diaz caught a no-hitter from emergency 5th starter Ronel Blanco. Considering the excellent seasons, especially the second half-seasons, of all five main Astros starters, I see no evidence that Astros pitching suffered with Diaz as the receiver.

Coulda used his bat in last years ALCS, but I digress.

3. Astros Pitcher Development.

I know. If I say the pitching coaches were responsible for the latter success of the staff, why don’t I blame them for the early failure? Well, being able to suggest successful adjustments mid-season is what coaches are for. They’re there to maximize each player’s natural talent. Astros pitching coaches, whether Brent Strom, or Josh Miller, have done that consistently to an extraordinary degree.

It wasn’t written in the stars that low-bonus, Latin Astros pitchers like Framber Valdez or Ronel Blanco were destined for big league success. Or that fifth or sixth round draft picks like Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti would become pillars of Astros post-season hopes.

Do I need to mention the abrupt improvement in Yusei Kikuchi when he came to the Astros? It seems like, no matter what happens, the Astros coaching staff finds pitching coal and turns it into diamonds. Can you think of any other team with such a dramatic pitching turnaround? Or one that, for years, has taken mediocre pitchers or low-level prospects and turned them into stars so consistently. The list seems endless.

About Kikuchi. The Astros won the first eight games he pitched, often by close scores. It is no stretch of the imagination to believe that with Jake Bloss (traded for Kikuchi) pitching those games, the Astros would have lost five of those games at least, and thus any Astros playoff hopes at the time of this writing would still be very much in doubt. Which brings us to:

4. Dana Brown.

Admit it. You wanted Brown fired after he traded away half the farm for Kikuchi. Long term, the deal may well prove costly — maybe — but give Brown credit for successfully implementing his #1 skill: discovering under-utilized talent. If you had known Kikuchi would be as good as he has proven to be since joining the Astros, you probably would have jumped at the deal. Give Brown the credit he deserves.

As well as for recognizing that Ronel Blanco should be a starter. Or for his late-season acquisitions, especially picking up Jason Heyward, who had crucial game-winning hits down the stretch, including the game-winning home run in the game that clinched the AL West pennant.

5. Leadership and a Culture of Winning

One of the first pieces I wrote for the Crawfishboxes was a post 2017-championship paean to the leadership of the Astros entitled “If Anyone Can, the Astros Core Four Can.”

Here’s an excerpt:

Someday people will know, as a matter of fact, that on this team stands a bedrock core of four, each of whom will someday be remembered among the greatest players of character and leadership and inner passion that have ever struggled on the diamond….

No, I am not saying our core four are all locks as first round Hall-of-Famers. I am saying that all of the Astros core, Jose Altuve, George Springer, Carlos Correa, and Alex Bregman, have that kind of unquenchable, indefatigable baseball desire, that kind of character and devotion, that drove the Greats and makes anyone truly great in whatever his field of endeavor may be. If a team has even one such giant of leadership it should consider itself blessed. This team has four such players, each kissed by destiny, each driven toward and focused on perfection like few players in any generation ever are.

Two of those four remain, and that culture of winning remains the foundation of the team into which every subsequent player since 2017 is inculcated. It’s why the Astros contend every year, unlike last year’s champions, or just about every other champion of the 21st century.

And it’s why the Astros didn’t collapse or succumb after its disastrous 2024 start, because the team culture demands from each player everything that they can give regardless of the temporary results. More so than most teams, being satisfied with losing, quitting, and/or not giving full effort on a daily basis in games and in practice, is not tolerated.

The leadership of Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman are invaluable. The possible loss of Bregman after this year could have inestimable effects that go beyond metrics like WAR, WPA, or OPS+. Yes, even in baseball, great players not only play well, but inspire their teammates to play better as well.