Houston Astros: Five most important players to the 2018 season
By T.A. Mock
The Houston Astros 2018 season didn’t end with a World Series victory but it was still successful. Here are the five most important guys to this season.
Let’s flashback a year for a second. Yesterday, November 1st, was game seven of the World Series. Houston was alive all night long because the Houston Astros just won their first championship in team history.
George Springer launched a home run to tie a World Series record and truly become an October legend. It was a high of all highs. Especially after a devasting few months beginning the road to recovery from Hurricane Harvey.
Now, let’s get back to the present. The Red Sox knocked off the Astros in five games in the ALCS including ripping off three in a row in Houston. The Red Sox went on to do the same thing to the Dodgers in the World Series. This year, unfortunately, was Boston’s year and Houston fell short.
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However, that shouldn’t take away from the phenomenal season that the Astros had in 2018. They were able to avoid the championship hangover a lot of teams seem to suffer from. The season appeared to be worse than last year’s, however, that was just the competition, namely the A’s, getting better.
The Houston Astros had to battle all year long, which was different from last year, but it made the team better in the long run and they still ended up winning the division by a decent margin. By the end of the season, the Astros not only had a better year than last year but, the best season in franchise history with 103 wins to only 59 losses.
The 2018 season sung a different tune than the 2017 season did. The 2017 season was predicated on a historic offense that could tear apart any pitcher. The 2018 season was led by one of the most dominant pitching staffs in league history.
That being said, let’s get to the five players who were the most important to the team and their success this year. Keep in mind, players traded for and traded away will not be included in this list as they did not spend the majority of the year with the club.