Two main characters in the American League postseason picture squared off this week as the Houston Astros welcomed the Boston Red Sox for a high-profile, three-game series. Few franchises have been the subject of more dramatic and unexpected upheaval over the past year than these two marquee clubs, and this series was an appropriate showcase of all the talent that has come together on these rosters to form two of the more intriguing contenders in the American League.
Monday’s series opener was the most competitive of three contests, as Houston jumped all over Garrett Crochet before the Red Sox stormed back from a 7-2 deficit with a big four-run seventh inning, only to come up short in the end and fall 7-6. Game 2 was a full-blown blowout in Boston’s favor, with every Red Sox starter recording a hit en route to 14-1 victory. Houston took the rubber match on Wednesday behind a strong Hunter Brown start, securing a much-needed series victory for the Astros, particularly after being swept at Fenway Park to open August.
Here are five major takeaways from this week’s series at Daikin Park that should influence the playoff race in the AL:
The Roman Anthony Experience
Rookie Roman Anthony’s first career trip to Houston offered exhilarating highs and frustrating lows.
It has all happened quite quickly for Anthony, who is already embracing his responsibility as an offensive engine atop the Red Sox lineup. It seems like a lot to ask for the youngest player in MLB — Anthony turned 21 years old in May — but such are the expectations for a supremely talented lefty slugger who has already signed a $130 million extension. It’s entirely fair for Anthony’s achievements and pitfalls be both celebrated and scrutinized more than the average rookie.
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On Monday, Anthony notched two hits, including a two-run homer off reliever Steven Okert, who had allowed just three extra-base hits to left-handed hitters all season, in the seventh inning to bring Boston within one run. But Anthony came to the plate again with two outs in the ninth inning and the tying run on second base and struck out against another tough lefty bullpen arm in Bennett Sousa to end the game. In Game 2, Anthony bounced back from his game-ending punchout in a huge way: He became the third-youngest player in MLB history to hit a home run and draw four walks in a game, with the only two younger being Mel Ott in 1929 and Ted Williams in 1939. Decent company. For Anthony to homer in a second consecutive game after hitting just two homers total over his first 50 career MLB games was especially encouraging.
There’s no doubting Anthony’s stupendous raw power — his 94.3 mph average exit velocity ranks fifth in MLB behind only Oneil Cruz, Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani — but actualizing that special juice into over-the-fence production is still a work in progress. Anthony’s 51.4% ground ball rate ranks near the top of the league and is in line with his career norms in the minors. Finding a way to lift the ball more consistently remains the most obvious way for Anthony’s production to take a sizable leap. Add in some elevated swing-and-miss tendencies — Anthony went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Wednesday’s series finale — and he is a long way from reaching his full potential. At just 21 years old, though, that’s completely understandable. And usually when players are this good this young, they tend to make adjustments faster than most. Don’t be surprised if Anthony starts launching balls airborne more routinely sooner rather than later.
Life without Josh Hader
Despite a narrow late lead in Monday’s game that seemed like an obvious opportunity to use star closer Josh Hader to slam the door, Astros manager Joe Espada opted to use Enyel De Los Santos and Bennett Sousa to secure the final three outs. Though Sousa was able to nail down the victory, his appearance raised questions about Hader’s availability, a concern which was quickly validated when Espada revealed postgame that Hader had reported shoulder soreness. Sure enough, Hader went on the injured list on Tuesday with a shoulder strain. Incredibly, it’s the first time Hader has been on the injured list in his major-league career (excluding a stint on the COVID-related IL in 2021). Espada said on Wednesday that Hader is still seeking more information about his injury and won’t be back in the next two weeks, suggesting that this probably won’t be a brief absence.
Hader’s removal from the roster at this critical juncture of the Astros’ season is yet another gut punch in a season that has largely been defined — but not yet derailed — by injuries. That Houston remains in first place in the AL West despite such a staggering number of ailments is a credit to every level of the organization, but losing a six-time All-Star in Hader right before the stretch run is an especially daunting proposition. At the same time, this is also an opportunity for Houston to flex its surprising depth in the bullpen. Bryan Abreu — who closed out Wednesday’s win for his first save of the season — has a proven track record of being an elite setup man, and is a natural replacement. But the Astros also boast multiple effective southpaws beyond the star lefty in Hader: Sousa (2.57 ERA), Okert (3.23 ERA, 0.849 WHIP), and Bryan King (3.10 ERA) all rate as upper-echelon lefty bullpen arms this season, providing an unexpected layer of lefty protection that most teams losing a pitcher like Hader could not match. To be clear, replacing Hader is no small task. His absence could have a cascading effect that forces Houston’s healthy relievers to carry a larger burden of high-leverage innings than they are equipped to handle. But on paper, this isn’t a bullpen that should be written off quite as quickly as you might assume considering the circumstances. At the very least, how Espada manages this unit without Hader will be one of the more fascinating Astros storylines moving forward.
Cristian Javier is back, with a new toy
A more positive development in the ever-expanding and exhausting world of Astros injury updates was the return of right-hander Cristian Javier to the rotation on Monday. Roughly 14 months removed from Tommy John surgery that cut his 2024 season short, Javier took the ball for the series opener and threw 85 pitches across five solid innings of work, allowing two earned runs and earning the win. Seeing a familiar face contribute to an Astros victory again after so long was refreshing in and of itself, but Javier’s return also featured a new wrinkle: a sinker.
Someone introducing a new offering is hardly newsworthy at a time when pitch design is a staple among modern organizations, but this one stands out more than most considering Javier’s prior trajectory and pitch mix. This is a pitcher who rose to prominence thanks in large part to a fantastic four-seam fastball that he threw nearly 60% of the time, one of the highest rates of any starting pitcher in baseball. A sweeper served as Javier’s primary secondary weapon, and those two pitches alone were good enough to make him extremely difficult to hit, exemplified most memorably in his six no-hit innings in Game 4 of the 2022 World Series. But Javier’s command and velocity wavered in 2023, leaving him especially vulnerable to the long ball and not nearly as effective as he was earlier in his career. He had started to emphasize his changeup more last season before his elbow injury, but a sinker, or two-seam fastball, was never part of his arsenal at any point prior to his return this summer.
Javier started throwing sinkers during his rehab outings in the minors, and clearly got comfortable enough to throw it 12 times in his first game back in the big leagues. Starters relying on two different fastballs to keep hitters off balance has become trendy recently. It’s especially interesting to see a pitcher in Javier whose four-seamer is so highly regarded on its own also introduce a multi-fastball approach at this next stage of his career. And if the sinker can help him coax more ground balls — his chief shortcoming as a pitcher, even when he was having success — that would be a massive development for an arm that now projects as especially important for Houston with October approaching.
Dustin May is different now, too
May’s second start in a Red Sox uniform since arriving at the trade deadline after nearly a decade in the Dodgers organization was much more encouraging than the first. May lasted just 3 ⅔ innings in his Boston debut against Kansas City on Aug. 6, marking his shortest start of the entire season, but he found redemption on Tuesday with six shutout innings in Houston, his first start of the year allowing zero runs. Though May was consistently eating innings with the Dodgers before the trade, his poor command and inability to coax whiffs or limit hard contact ultimately made him expendable, with Boston instead taking a flier on May to see if he could become more effective in its rotation with the right tweaks. So far, that has meant an uptick in cutters, a pitch that was previously a distant fourth in usage for May behind his sweeper, four-seamer and sinker. It’s just two starts, but cutters have accounted for 24.5% of his total pitches with the Red Sox after he used the pitch just 6.3% of the time with the Dodgers this year.
May’s arsenal is already fairly unique considering how sweeper-forward it is — there really aren’t many other starting pitchers who rely on a breaking ball as their most-used offering — but the evolution of the rest of his repertoire will likely play a much larger role in his ability to thrive for the Red Sox during this postseason run. The same goes for the long haul, with May scheduled to hit free agency this winter. Even if the sweeper remains May’s best and most used pitch, it’s clear he needs to figure out the best balance of his three fastball variants, none of which have been especially effective since he returned from elbow surgery — the velocity simply isn’t what it used to be, and that leaves May with less margin for error when attacking with his various fastballs. While the underlying metrics and movement characteristics don’t suggest that May’s cutter has long been some secret weapon waiting to be unleashed, it sure seems like Boston is intent on finding out if that pitch can help the rest of his pitches play up more in concert with each other. Through two starts, it’s been a mixed bag, but that cutter usage will be worth watching with each successive outing down the stretch.
Will these teams face off again in October?
There was no shortage of memorable moments in this week’s series, with Carlos Correa’s first home game since his shocking trade back to Houston coinciding with his former Astros teammate Alex Bregman’s first appearance at Daikin Park as a visiting player. And beyond all the historical context for some of the key characters, all three games offered ample reasons for optimism and concern for both clubs at a crucial time in the calendar. While the regular-season series between these two teams may be over, it’s hard not to wonder if a rematch could be in store. If the postseason started today, Houston would host the Yankees in the wild-card round, but the standings are close enough that it’s easy to envision a shake-up enabling an Astros-Red Sox wild-card series, with either Houston falling out of first place and into the top wild-card spot or Boston falling to the third wild-card spot and facing the AL West champion Astros. We’ve seen these clubs face off three times in October — the 2017 ALDS, 2018 ALCS, and 2021 ALCS — and based on the potential personnel involved this season, another high-stakes showdown would surely be tremendous theater.
