Astros' quest for a repeat title falls short

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

They won more regular-season games than any team in the franchise's 57-year existence. The accolade is admirable, but will never be accompanied by a championship.

Not since the Yankees in 2000 has a team repeated as World Series champions. The Astros extended the streak, dropping a lifeless 4-1 Game 5 decision to the Red Sox, who dogpiled and posed for photos as a dazed Minute Maid Park crowd filtered out.

The fact is, the Red Sox were the best team in Major League Baseball, with 108 regular season wins under their belt. It was understood that the Astros would have to get past them to get back to the World Series, and in order to do so, they would have to play flawless baseball.

They didn't.

Some of the same problems that had plagued the Astros all season - not providing enough run support for Verlander, and not being able to consistently win at home - came back to haunt the Astros in the ALCS. An Astros pitching staff that had performed so well throughout the season melted down against Boston. It didn't help that Jose Altuve was hobbled by a leg injury throughout the ALCS, or that he was robbed by the umpires of a two-run homer that very well could have changed the course of the series.

The Chronicle lists these problems, and others, as among five reasons why the Astros lost the ALCS; one reason is simply that it's hard to win in baseball:

There’s a reason nobody has repeated since the 1998-2000 Yankees. So much must go your way during a 162-game regular season and then a postseason that’s often a crapshoot. The Astros were able to find the magic last year, whether it was Alex Bregman’s Game 4 homer at Fenway Park in the ALDS, Jose Altuve’s dash around the bases to win Game 2 of the ALCS, Marwin Gonzalez’s series-changing homer off Kenley Jansen while one out away from a 2-0 deficit in the World Series or all the twists and turns in that epic Game 5 against the Dodgers. Or Charlie Morton picking up two Game 7 victories that Astros fans never will forget. 

Instead, this year saw a hotly debated fan-interference call that wiped out a two-run homer in arguably the series’ swing game and Andrew Benintendi rob Bregman of a walkoff hit in Game 4 that would’ve tied the ALCS. For whatever reason, the magic was gone during the final four games of this series against Boston.

There's nothing for the Astros to do now except get themselves up off the plate, dust themselves off, and try again in 2019.