I still remember when I first heard of Jose Altuve. It was on Keith Law's mid-season Top 50 prospects list in 2011. This was a really dark period in Astros history, as is well known. That year, they lost 100+ games for the first time. It was a long time coming. They had hemorraged talent from 2006-2010 due to a series of incredibly shortsighted moves, bad drafting and pathetic free agent decisions. They were the worst run franchise in baseball. They needed a reckoning. 2011 was that reckoning. It set off the worst three-year stretch of any team ever. It is now known as the tank that built a potential dynasty, but if we go back to 2011 by itself, it wasn't. Luhnow wasn't there yet. Drayton McLane was still the owner. They didn't lose 100+ games in 2011 because they tanked. They did because they were putrid.
But in that dark abyss, was one bright spot, a tiny infielder that Keith Law at the time said could hit for high average and had incredible contact ability. Altuve wasn't particularly high on his list, but the Astros had one of the worst farm systems in baseball, so even having one prospect on that list was a small tiny sign of things to come.
Jose Altuve came up in 2011. He was a solid 1-2 WAR player in 2012 and 2013, when teh team intentionally tanked, and lost 105 and then 111 games. Jose Altuve is the only guy on this team that had to deal with those losses, that infamy; deal with teh parade of hilariously overmatched players that ran through that clubhouse. Altuve was there through it all. For that, it is so earned, amazing and perfect that it was his home run that sent them back to the World series.
Jose Altuve is a miracle, a 5'6" player that not only became a major leaguer, but won three batting titles, grew into having dependable power (even if the juiced ball helped him get to 30 HR this year). He grew into a damn MVP, and an earned one at that. This little guy put up 32 WAR in a 5-year stretch. He became one of the best players in baseball. The rest of the team was all planned. All the other great players on this team were brought in because they were great, or were always supposed to be good ones. George Springer is the only other guy who was there before Luhnow, but he was a Top-10 pick in the 2011 draft. Altuve was the miracle.
The weight of what the Astros did hasn't left me yet. Of course, neither has that brief 15-minute period between Osuna blowing the game and Altuve winning it - 15-minutes wherein I was an uncontrollable mess. But I'll trade that little period of misery for the unbridled joy and boundless excitement that was Altuve's home run to end the series. The Astros are back in the World Series, beating the Yankees to do it again.
It is easier to say this when you support the team that won the series, but that was an incredible series of baseball. Both offenses were below their normal level, but so much of that has to be chalked up to the pitching on both sides being incredible. The Astros had the lowest strikeout rate as an offense. The Yankees somehow struck out loads of them. The Yankees drew so many walks with their usual patient approach, but through a combination of incredible defense and timely putching the Astros escaped time and time again.
We had of course the signature moments, from Correa's perfect walk off and celebration to end the Game 2 marathon, and of course Altuve's series ender. There was drama in so many games. The Astros went to New York in three chilly games and walked away with two wins. You even had the craziness that was the first inning of Game 5 when the Yankees rocked Verlander, complete with mystique and aura pushing Hicks ball nicely off the pole. It was that type of series, one of the better six-game sets I've seen.
The Astros are in an incredible run right now. The team looks to be great in 2020, but nothing lasts forever. Cole will likely be gone. Verlander and Greinke another year older. The Astros will have to depend on a returning-from-Tommy-John Lance McCullers, Jr., and a prospect finally making good in Forrest Whitley. The offense should still be good, but injuries have been concerns for a couple years now. Who knows what the future holds, but the present has the Astros with the chance to have one of the more dominant three-year stretches in MLB history.
The joy in that stadium was palpable even sitting in my house 1,400 miles away. The noise, the cannon, the train, all of it - with Altuve's giant grin being the capper. Jose Altuve deserved that moment, for suffering through the losses, the tank with no guarantee this would be at the end of that run. They all deserved it. Hell, us Astros fans deserved it.
When I started this blog, I barely wrote about baseball. If I did, it was about the joy of watching Roy Oswalt be traded away from the sinking ship that was the Astros at the time. The fact I've gotten to write about two AL pennants is unbelievable. I could never have asked more than the dramatic run that was 2017, but this has been nearly as good. Now just four more wins to go.
