HOUSTON (AP) — For the first time since 2016, the Houston Astros failed to win a playoff game. And that’s not OK with general manager Dana Brown. A day after the Astros were swept by the Detroit Tigers in their AL Wild Card Series , stopping a streak of seven straight trips to the AL Championship Series, Brown detailed his top priority for the offseason.
“First of all, one of the things we want to make sure we do is get back deep into the postseason,” he said Thursday. “That’s going to be our vision, that’s going to be our focus.” When it comes to fulfilling that goal, "we’re not taking anything off the table,” he said.
The Astros, who won the World Series in 2017 and 2022, looked as if they might fall short of the playoffs altogether at the beginning of the season. They got off to a 7-19 start, falling 10 games behind Seattle in the AL West. But they finished with an 88-73 record and won their seventh division title in eight years, with the only exception coming in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Manager Joe Espada, who was hired after Dusty Baker retired, was impressed with Houston’s resiliency this season. “A team gets tested and you see the character of your team,” he said. “Through adversity and the way we were tested early, I knew that this team was strong enough to make a push and get us into the postseason.
” Now they’ll look to return to the playoffs and make another long run next year. The first step could be re-signing star third .
