The Houston Astros have faced the 2018 season with the difficult goal of the repeat, a goal made immediately more difficult by the improvements of their divisional opponents, Angels above all. With a division that sees all the teams over quota .500 except the derelicts Rangers is a stimulus but also a source of great pressure for a team still very young and this may in the long run penalize them a little especially if the Angels continue to keep this pace . In the offseason the retirement of Carlos Beltran has left a hole in the lineup of both experience and clutch hitting, his substitute Derek Fisher is not performing as expected and in general the performance to the batting plate of the champions in office remains suspect with the only exceptions of Reddick with already 6 homerun and the usual Altuve accompanied by the scorching Correa both well above quota .300. The department where Houston has improved the most is certainly the rotation of the starting pitchers that with the arrival by trade from the Pirates of Gerrit Cole, a Cole who has a record of 2-1 with an ERA of 1.29 knit Astros, to keep him company in what is the best rotation of the MLB starters are: Verlander with a record of 4-0 and an ERA of 1.36, Keuchel 1-3 and an ERA of 3.10, Morton 3-0 and an ERA of 1.86 and finally McCullers that with a record of 4-1 (child mainly due to a more than solid run support) closes the rotation with an ERA of 3.71. The front office work of this team was not only fabulous in drafting, exchanging and growing the right players but also by trusting a manager like AJ Hinch who despite the very little experience (only 2 seasons in Arizona) was able to create a great group and in my opinion his greatest merit was to know how to put the players in the right place in the order of joke. An atypical batting order in general that of Houston that sees a leadoff like George Springer who is fast enough but who has a power of number four, Carlos Correa from clean-up is another atypical thing since only he and Didi Gregorious it's the shortstop that beat in that position throughout the MLB. Another very underrated aspect of Hinch is knowing how to handle the bullpen, he has the courage to change the roles inside the bullpen like no other manager in this league, see the playoffs of last year when Ken Giles struggled did not hesitate to put Chris Devenski in his role. These Astros are one of the most complete teams in recent years, counting on an excellent rotation and a deep bullpen with many players able to contribute at a high level, also their lineup can hurt in various ways having multi-dimensional players like Altuve , Springer and Correa. In addition, the versatility of many of their players in defensively playing more positions gives him better adaptation to the needs of a long regular season avoiding excessive stress to the players in order to get fresher for the playoffs. Playoffs in which I expect the Astros as winners in the AL West although the battle with LA and Seattle will be intense until the end.
