It's good to win the first game of the season because it's always fun to make the 162-0 joke. It's even better to win the first four games of the season because it's even better to get to make the joke four times.
The Astros took an early lead in all four games, and added on late in three of them to drain this early season showdown of the top two contenders in the AL West of any late drama.
As an Astros fan, this series was a ton of fun to watch.
This was only four games in a season that will feature 162 of them. There will be many more games to play, including another four game set against the As at Minute Maid Party next week. We should not make too much of one series, no matter how fun it was to watch.
But taking four games on the road from your main challenger for the division crown is helpful to the effort. You can get a sense of it from the chart below, which traces the odds for winning the AL West title this year. Four wins can increase your chances, and four losses can certainly decrease them. These numbers are likely to bump up and down this season, but they begin by moving in the right direction for the AL West's pre-season favorite.Here are some of my other observations from this weekend's games in Oakland.
- Yordan Alvarez went 5 for 17 with a walk, two doubles, a homer, and 6 RBI. His knees looked healthy and his bat looked like the hammer of the gods that it always has.
- Alex Bregman went 6 for 12 with 2 homers and a double. The Astros are being cautious with Bregman after an off-season hamstring injury. The brought him along slowly in the Grapefruit League, gave him a day off on Saturday, and removed him in the late innings on Thursday and Sunday. So far, this plan is working.
- The bullpen proved effective, giving up only 4 runs in 17 innings. The pen remains walk-prone (8 BBs), but limited their hits allowed to 9 and home runs allowed to 1, and struck out 17 batters. As a result, they ended up with a 1.00 WHIP and and FIP of 3.02. In short, they were very good.
- Highlighting the excellent work from the bullpen were the last two guys to make the roster, Bryan Abreu and Brandon Bielak. Abreu went 2 1/3 IP on Friday with 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, and no runs allowed. Bielak had a perfect 4 2/3 IP on Sunday, strking out 4. Both of these pitchers were shaky in 2020, and improvement from them would help address the issues in pitching depth. These outings were encouraging.
- Four Astros hitters were on the bench in the opening day lineup on Thursday--Aledmys Diaz, Chas McCormick, Jason Castro, and Robel Garcia. These four slashed .412/.444/.882 in 18 PAs over the weekend. They scored 8 runs and drove in 7, and Castro and McCormick both homered. These efforts were very helpful to the sweep.
It is too early to determine how much of what we saw this weekend was improvement from the 2020 season for the team or individual players. And we all know that this team won't win every game. But the opening weekend tilt in Oakland was about as enjoyable for Astro fans as a series could possible be. May it continue in Anaheim tonight and tomorrow.
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