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Dusty Baker and the Houston Astros are clinging to a 1.5 game lead in the AL West right now. The defending champions are marching towards another postseason berth and they're poised to get there and potentially secure a first-round bye. They have a ways to go, and their most recent loss only hampered their chances of doing so.
They had a late lead against the Baltimore Orioles and surrendered it in stunning fashion. In the top of the ninth, outfielder Cedric Mullins crushed a three-run home run that gave them an 8-7 lead off of Ryan Pressly.
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It was a crushing lead that shrunk their AL West lead, over both the Texas Rangers and Seattle Mariners, a little more. It also pushed Baltimore further into the lead for the American League's top record.
Via The Athletic, Baker opened up on the loss which was snatched from the jaws of victory:
“It was devastating, but you have to get over it. You can’t bring it back. That hurt a lot... There’s more urgency, but you can’t panic, either. It does no good. It does your players no good. You try to do the same and just improve."
With the Mariners and Rangers hot on the Astros' tail, losses like these are unfortunate. Losing to the Orioles, which many teams have done, is not, but losing in that fashion is.
Dusty Baker and Houston Astros marching towards postseason
Despite the loss, Dusty Baker's Houston Astros have by far the best chances of any AL West team to make the playoffs. Fangraphs gives them a 95.4% chance of making it, while the Rangers (63.8%) and the Mariners (61.7%) are considerably lower.
The Los Angeles Angels and Oakland Athletics have both been eliminated already. All three teams could make it into the postseason via a division leader and two of the three Wild Cards.
However, if one of the three is going to make it, it looks like it's going to be the Astros. The defending champions got off to a relatively slow start, but they've turned it on and morphed back into a dominant force.
