The final game of the homestand lasted 16 innings and ended with a Marwin Gonzalez two-run home run.
"What a great atmosphere for us," A.J. Hinch said of the game-ending two-run home run, "you go from having minimal energy to an adrenalin rush that can only come at home when you get a walk-off against a really good team, a really good pitcher, a really good pitching staff and we walk out of here feeling a little better about ourselves."
The Astros seem to be a whole lot closer to last season than any other point this season.
Below are three takeaways from the Indians series.
Pitching is legit!
Quality start after quality start, that's the hallmark of your week old baby brother's Astros team. It doesn't matter who goes back there, that pitcher is going to give the team enough to hang in and have a chance at winning the game.
Game three - Doug Fister, 7 innings, 2 earned runs.
Game two - Chris Devenski, 6.2 innings, 2 earned runs.
Game one - Mike Fiers, 7 innings, 1 earned run.
"Each guy is doing his best, and his assignment every fifth day, to go out there and get the job done," Doug Fister said of the team's pitching of late, "that's what happens when you have a starting staff that pulls for one another, we got a bunch of great guys here."
Over the past seven starts, the starters have allowed an ERA around 2.00.
Astros on the come up
Don't look now but that awful April is completely behind them. May, for the most part, has been pretty kind to them, posting a 7-4 record in the month.
What has spurred this solid play? Being at home helps a lot. But the team has also raised its game. The pitching has been there, the defense has been there and they haven't shot themselves in the foot (errors and bad base running).
"The defense has been there, the pitching has been there," Carlos Correa said of the way they have played of late, "hopefully the offense can keep going and score some runs and give them the run support need in order for us to win ball games."
In the month of May, the Astros are averaging about 4.9 runs a game.
If you take out that big 16 run game, the results look a little scarier, at 3.8 runs a game.
Whenever they finally they finally all meld together, hitting/defense/pitching, watch out world.
LOB base is still a problem
So this has not really gone away, this is still a pretty big problem. The Astros of last year hung their hat on scoring five-six runs a game.
This team has not reached that level yet. During the three-game series with the Indians, they left a combined 54 guys on base. Yea, I consulted with math and baseball experts, they concur, it's a lot.
The pitching staff has been excellent, but if you aren't pushing those guys across the plate, you make them have to pitch perfect. While that is working now, it will end up working against them down the road if they continue.
"(A loss in game three) would have been deflating just giving the opportunities that we created for ourselves," Hinch said.
In the final game alone the Astros had the bases loaded in the first two innings but came away with nothing. When looking at the issue you can see a common theme, the middle to the back of the lineup just isn't carrying their weight so far.
Carlos Gomez, Preston Tucker, Luis Valbuena, and whichever catcher they decide to put back there just isn't getting it done. When the top of the order is rolling and then they are counting on five through nine to drive them in, they aren't.
How do you fix it? aside from bringing guys up you really can't (not that bringing guys up is a cure all). The Astros are at even more of an impass with Evan Gattis out learning how to catch in double-A. So it there isn't many other options aside from play Marwin Gonzalez a whole lot more. They could try and tweak the lineup some maybe moving Correa and George Springer around. Once you do that, though you are almost waving the "we are worried" flag.
Below is George Springer's thoughts on the walk-off win and the homestand.
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