For reeling Houston Astros, two weighty weeks loom before trade deadline. 'Need results now'

The runway that has lingered for the Houston Astros is dwindling, a reality that spurred notes of urgency around a listless loss Sunday from a team unable for months to seize it.

A sweep at home by the Baltimore Orioles to start the nominal second half left the Astros at 47-54. They are seven games under .500, after climbing as close as two under before the All-Star break. Panic may be pointless, but so is pretending a club that still harbors playoff hopes can continue at this pace.

"I feel like we're at a point in the season where we need to start getting results now," shortstop Jeremy Peña said Sunday afternoon.

"Guys are showing up every single day. We're working hard, we're trying to get it done. There's no quit in this team. Our division is still pretty tight. Obviously, we want to come out of the break swinging. But this is the position we're in right now and we've just got to bounce back."

Sixty-one games remain in the Astros' season. Eleven remain before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, a looming date at which their activity could hinge on results over the next two weeks, making this a critical stretch.

General manager Dana Brown has declared Houston will be buyers at the deadline. An abysmal AL West and muddled American League allow for that possibility. Yet it may be incumbent on the Astros to avoid falling further in the next two weeks to preserve in that approach a measure of logic.

"I don't think we're really thinking about that as players," Peña said. "I don't know what everyone else is saying. But I know inside the clubhouse, we are focused on the game at hand, we're trying to win ballgames. And that's all that's in our control. We're going to keep showing up and go from there."

Even their current record might call the deadline stance into question. Since 1900, just two MLB teams have started 47-54 or worse and made the playoffs: the 2006 Dodgers and the 1973 Mets. Of 23 other teams in Astros history to start a season 47-54 or worse, two finished with a winning record.

Yet there is also, somehow, no guarantee a winning record will be required to claim this year's AL West. The Rangers lead the division at 50-49. The Astros are four games out of first place and 4 ½ out of an AL wild-card spot. Entering Sunday, they had a 16.2% chance to reach the playoffs, per FanGraphs.

"Regardless of whatever anybody's eyeing about the (trade) deadline right now, in this clubhouse we're focused on us and trying to put the best product and play the best that we can," ace Hunter Brown said.

2026 ASTROS STATS

___

Houston's trade of Lance McCullers Jr. to the Brewers this week was made in part to free up finances for potential deadline additions. Making them has been the club's modus operandi under owner Jim Crane, who has stated that the Astros' contending window will not close during his tenure.

That both Brown and manager Joe Espada are in their final years under contract leaves little question of their desires to add at the deadline and try to jolt a foundering club. Not since 2014, when they finished with 92 losses, have the Astros had this low a winning percentage through 101 games.

Less clear is where the Astros might prioritize their trade pursuits, simply due to deficiencies across the roster. Its starting rotation has the third-highest ERA (5.20) in the majors. Its outfield has produced the third-lowest OPS (.669). Its leverage relief options shrank Sunday with Bryan King's option to Triple-A.

Before Sunday's 5-2 loss to the Orioles, Dana Brown told the Astros' pregame radio show the front office has "had some nice, heated debates as to what we're going to do going forward in terms of making this team better.

"We've got 60 games to go. It's a full sprint right now. And there's no room to give. There's no runway for anyone right now."

The abrupt postgame move with King, after a rough four-outing stretch, illustrated the latter point. Yet it followed a full-squad performance that hardly upheld that portrait of urgency.

Over three games against Baltimore, the Astros' offense totaled six runs, went 4-for-27 with men in scoring position and left 28 runners on base. Sunday, their pitchers allowed just six hits but issued seven walks, hit four batters and saw the Orioles steal four bases.

The latter included a double steal in the third inning, on which catcher Yainer Diaz threw to second base with Pete Alonso running and Gunnar Henderson scored from third. Espada said postgame Diaz was not supposed to throw through and "we talked to him about that."

Henderson had scored the decisive run Saturday from second base on a grounder that did not leave the infield, shortly after the Astros failed to score a run with the bases loaded and no outs in the 10th inning. Nor could they protect a one-run lead in the eighth inning Friday.

"I thought we could have won easily two of three, just things didn't go our way," Espada said. "But we need to flush it. We need to start playing better."

Regaining Peña and first baseman Christian Walker, who both left Saturday's game due to injury and did not play Sunday, could help. Peña said postgame Sunday he saw "no reason why I shouldn't" be back in the lineup for Monday's series opener against the Marlins but "we'll see." Espada said he hoped at least one of Peña and Walker would be able to play Monday.

Monday will mark two weeks until the trade deadline, a span that could dictate whether deviating from years of precedent is a possibility.

"Our division is up for grabs," Peña said. "We hope to come out swinging here in the second half. I think we have the guys necessary to get that done. We have the guys to make a push."

Subscribe

This article originally published at For reeling Houston Astros, two weighty weeks loom before trade deadline. 'Need results now'.