The Houston Astros clinched the American League West with a 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners Tuesday night in Houston, their seventh division title in the last eight years. (The only time they didn’t win the division was the truncated 2020 season, so the last time they didn’t win the West in a full season was 2015.) During this run, the Astros have won at least 100 games four times. They won’t get there this season and might not even match last year’s 90, the previous low win total of their AL West titles. Still, a division title counts regardless of the number of wins.
It does seem like the Astros are headed to the wild-card round of the playoffs, as they are most likely to slot as the third seed in the American League behind the Yankees and Guardians. That pits them against the sixth seed (third and final wild-card) of the AL.
The journey this season to the division crown was one of the tougher ones the Astros have had. They started the season a woeful 12-24. They trailed in the division by as many as 10 games after a loss on June 18 dropped them to 33-40. The Mariners collapsed a bit to give the Astros an assist here, but since that low point the Astros have gone 53-32 (a full-season 101-win pace)…