The boos started early Tuesday at Daikin Park.
By the end of the second inning, the Astros were already on their third pitcher and trailed the Chicago White Sox 3-0 in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series. Some of the 34,011 fans in attendance let them hear about it.
The boos returned later, and at least two Astros players made it clear afterward that they did not appreciate them.
Christian Walker called the reaction “extremely frustrating,” saying the Astros needed cheers and energy from their home crowd. Bennett Sousa was more direct, saying he was “pretty pissed off” and suggesting Astros fans have been “spoiled” by years of ALCS and World Series runs.
“This team has laid a lot on the line to be in this position to give the fans a playoff game—a playoff series,” Sousa said. “We want their support.”
The fans appear to have an answer: We have been supporting you. That’s why we’re frustrated.
This Didn’t Start Tuesday
Houston’s 6-3 loss wasn’t simply a bad night in front of an impatient crowd.
It was the Astros’ eighth consecutive postseason loss at Daikin Park.
The streak began in Game 2 of the 2023 ALDS against Minnesota. Houston then lost all four home games of that year’s ALCS against Texas and both home games of the 2024 Wild Card Series against Detroit. Tuesday’s loss to Chicago extended the streak to eight.
The Astros haven’t won a postseason game at Daikin Park since Oct. 7, 2023.
That doesn’t make booing right or wrong. It does provide some context for why the reaction Tuesday may have been about considerably more than one bad inning.
Fans Have Seen This Bullpen Before
The frustration also appears to be directed less at the entire Astros roster than at the pitching problems fans have watched throughout the season.
Houston opened Tuesday with AJ Blubaugh, who walked three batters and recorded only two outs before being removed. Bryan King followed and allowed four hits and two earned runs while getting one out.
By the time Miguel Ullola entered, Chicago led 3-0.
Ullola steadied things with three innings of one-hit ball, but the White Sox eventually stretched their lead to 5-0. Sousa entered in the seventh after posting a 6.00 ERA during the regular season. He allowed two hits and a run, with the run scoring on a wild pitch, and heard boos during the inning.
The reaction online afterward was pointed.
Some fans argued that the boos were aimed as much at the people making the roster and pitching decisions as at the players themselves. A recurring source of frustration has been watching Joe Espada return to the same bullpen combinations after they have struggled in similar situations, with King and Sousa drawing particular criticism. For those fans, Tuesday felt less like one bad pitching performance than another version of something they had watched repeatedly throughout the season.
Another Astros fan said they don’t boo their own team but still considered the frustration justified. Others pointed toward the season-long problems with the pitching staff and the lack of reinforcement at the trade deadline.
Some of the frustration extends higher than the dugout. Fans also pointed toward ownership and the front office, arguing that Jim Crane helped establish the standard against which the Astros are now being judged. Expecting another World Series every season may be unrealistic. Expecting the organization to maintain the standard it spent years establishing is something else.
These weren’t people who showed up hoping to turn on their own team. They put on Astros jerseys, paid for parking and postseason tickets, bought ballpark food and drinks, and—in many cases for a 4 p.m. Tuesday start—left work early to be there. The frustration wasn’t evidence that they didn’t care. Arguably, it was evidence of exactly the opposite.
The common thread wasn’t indifference. It was exhaustion.
Two Sides of the Same Frustration
Walker’s point isn’t difficult to understand.
The Astros endured an extraordinary number of injuries, remained in a division race until Game 162, and somehow emerged with an eighth AL West championship in 10 years despite finishing 81-81. The players who made it through that season understandably wanted their home crowd behind them when the postseason finally arrived.
The fans’ frustration isn’t difficult to understand either.
They watched an 81-81 team stagger into the postseason. They watched recurring pitching problems throughout the season. Then they paid postseason prices, arrived for a 4 p.m. Tuesday game, and watched the Astros fall behind 3-0 before the second inning was over.
And some of them booed.
One fan response offered another way of looking at it: silence would have been worse. Booing, unpleasant as it may be for the players hearing it, is still a reaction from people emotionally invested in what happens on the field.
There wasn’t much silence Tuesday.
There also wasn’t much patience left.
Houston gets another chance Wednesday, with Hunter Brown starting Game 2 and the Astros’ season on the line. A win would force a deciding Game 3 Thursday.
It would also give the fans at Daikin Park something they haven’t had in almost three years: a postseason home win.
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