The Houston Astros spent 162 games talking about fight.
They fought through a disastrous start, injuries, inconsistency, and a late-season collapse. Somehow, they survived all of it, finished 81-81, won the American League West, and reached the postseason.
They never made it to October.
The Chicago White Sox beat Houston 7-3 Wednesday at Daikin Park, completing a two-game sweep of the AL Wild Card Series and ending the Astros’ season on September 30.
In truth, this one felt over long before the final out. It felt over in the first inning.
Brown and the Astros Unravel Immediately
The Astros gave the ball to Hunter Brown with their season on the line.
He recorded two outs.
Chicago sent nine batters to the plate in a first inning that featured five hits, two Houston errors, a wild pitch, a walk, and four White Sox runs.
Sam Antonacci opened the game with a double, and Kyle Teel singled him home. Nick Allen then committed a fielding error, allowing Miguel Vargas to reach and extending an inning that was already beginning to unravel.
After Brown struck out Munetaka Murakami, Andrew Benintendi singled to center. Teel scored, and Lucas Spence’s throwing error allowed Vargas to score as well. Benintendi advanced to second on the error.
Tristan Peters followed with another RBI single, bringing home Benintendi and making it 4-0.
Brown eventually loaded the bases with a walk to Colson Montgomery, and Joe Espada came out to get him. AJ Blubaugh retired Antonacci to finally end the inning.
Brown’s postseason start lasted two-thirds of an inning. He allowed five hits and four runs, three earned, with one walk and two strikeouts on 36 pitches.
Then came an image that seemed to sum up more than just Brown’s afternoon.
He walked slowly back toward the Astros dugout, head down, as boos came from the crowd at Daikin Park.
There were still eight innings to play. Peña would homer moments later, and Houston would eventually pull within a run.
But watching Brown make that long walk back to the dugout, the Astros already looked defeated.
Three Homers Make It Close
The Astros did respond on the scoreboard.
Jeremy Peña led off the bottom of the first with a solo home run to left-center, cutting Chicago’s lead to 4-1.
Cam Smith homered to left with two outs in the second, and Jose Altuve added another solo shot in the fourth.
Suddenly, the Astros were within a run at 4-3.
But all three runs came on solo homers. Houston never put together the kind of sustained offensive inning that might have changed the tenor of the game.
Their best opportunity came in the fifth.
Smith was hit by a pitch, and Peña singled to put two aboard with one out. After Yordan Alvarez lined out, Isaac Paredes walked to load the bases for Altuve.
Anthony Kay got Altuve to fly out to right.
Three runners stranded. The tying run left 90 feet away.
The Astros would not record another hit.
Meidroth Ends Any Hope of a Comeback
Peter Lambert had steadied the game after replacing Blubaugh, giving Houston three scoreless innings and allowing the offense an opportunity to crawl back into it.
Then came the sixth.
Lambert walked Andrew Benintendi, who was replaced by pinch-runner Luisangel Acuña. Acuña stole second, and Lambert walked Peters before Espada called for Bryan Abreu.
Acuña and Peters immediately executed a double steal, putting runners at second and third.
Chase Meidroth made the situation academic.
He drove Abreu’s pitch over the left-field wall for a three-run homer, stretching Chicago’s lead from 4-3 to 7-3.
Houston never threatened again.
Abreu retired the next three batters and struck out the side in the seventh. After issuing a two-out walk in the eighth, he gave way to Josh Hader, who recorded the final four outs without allowing a run.
The bullpen kept the White Sox from adding anything else.
By then, it didn’t matter.
The Offense Goes Silent
Houston finished with five hits and 15 strikeouts.
Peña and Altuve had two hits apiece. Smith’s home run accounted for the other.
The rest of the lineup combined to go 0-for-21.
Alvarez went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. Yainer Diaz went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts. Christian Walker went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
After Altuve’s fourth-inning home run, Houston had only two baserunners the rest of the night: Paredes’ fifth-inning walk and his eighth-inning hit-by-pitch.
The Astros went hitless over the final five innings.
Houston’s postseason struggles at home now stretch back nearly three years. The Astros have lost nine consecutive postseason games at Daikin Park, with their last home playoff victory coming against the Minnesota Twins on Oct. 7, 2023, in Game 1 of the ALDS.
Walker struck out to begin the ninth. Spence flew out. Smith struck out swinging.
And the season was over.
The Fight Was Closer to Home
For months, the Astros talked about fighting.
They fought back from a 20-31 start. They fought through a season filled with injuries and upheaval. They survived a September collapse that nearly cost them the postseason and finished 81-81, yet still won the AL West for the eighth time in 10 seasons.
But somewhere along the way, the fight seemed to turn inward.
General manager Dana Brown was fired during the final weeks of the season. Yordan Alvarez called a team meeting after the Astros were swept at home by Atlanta, just seven days before the end of the regular season. After Tuesday’s Wild Card loss, frustration spilled publicly toward the fans over attendance and boos, leaving Espada to address the controversy with his clubhouse before Wednesday’s elimination game.
Then the Astros took the field with their season at stake and unraveled almost immediately.
Two errors. Four runs. Brown gone before the first inning was over.
Peña, Smith, and Altuve gave them enough power to make the score close. For a while, they even gave Houston a path back into the game.
But the sense of fight that had supposedly defined this team all season never really arrived.
The Astros spent 162 games fighting their way back to the postseason.
They didn’t make it to October.
Maybe the fight they spent all year chasing was never entirely with the teams in the other dugout.
By the end, too much of it was with themselves.
And they lost it.
