Houston Astros Preview

Get ready for the 2006 season with our Astros preview. 

The Houston Astros made an incredible run to finish the 2005 regular season, stealing the Wild Card and defeating conference rival St. Louis in the playoffs on their way to the World Series. Having to win to make the playoffs got the Astros playing great baseball and gave them good momentum heading into the postseason. We saw this same effect with the Steelers this past NFL season when they had to win do or die games for over a month to make the playoffs. While other teams were coasting, such as St. Louis, Houston was playing to win.

20% Signup Bonus when depositing via eCheck at SportsInteraction!

Many analysts were saying that the Astros ran out of gas in the World Series. Realistically, they ran out of bats. They struggled to support their elite pitching staff all season long, and I don’t see big changes on the offensive end on the horizon. It really hurt this team to lose Beltran and Berkman’s numbers suffered slightly because of it as his 2005 stats were below his career averages.

The Astros have started slow the past several seasons and have caught fire down the stretch. They have especially struggled early on versus left handed pitching as they started last season winning just 4 of their first 18 against south paws and just 1 of their first 12 on the road versus lefties. It would be wise to take a look at this team in the early going to see if a similar trend develops.
 

2006 Baseball Previews

Free Baseball Picks by Jimmy Boyd