A Look At The Astros Upcoming 29 Games in 30 Days

Astros reach critical stage with season on the brink

The longest stretch of baseball for the Astros in 2024 starts today against the Yankees and will see the Astros play 29 games in 30 days.

During this stretch, they’ll play nine different series and eight different teams.

This will be a quick look at each series coming up during this important (and hopefully good) stretch for the Houston Astros. 

5/7-5/9, @ Yankees (3 Games)

The Astros’ 29-game in 30 days stretch begins in New York, facing off against the Yankees.

New York is always a hostile environment for the Astros, and in previous years, Houston seems to deliver in that hostile environment. They’ve played four games in New York in the past two seasons, and split in both games.

Meanwhile, earlier in the season, the Yankees swept the Astros in a very close and painful four-game series. Not only do the Astros probably want some bragging rights over the Yankees, but if the Astros get swept or lose two out of three, it would somewhat erase all the progress that the Astros made when they swept Colorado and took the series from Cleveland.

This upcoming road trip (and this series) will be an important marking point for this season.

Today, Verlander will face Luis Gil, tomorrow, Arrighetti will face Carlos Rodon, and on Thursday, Blanco will face Marcus Stroman. 

5/10-5/12, @ Tigers (3 Games)

The 2nd Leg of the upcoming road trip sees the Astros flying to Detroit. An educated guess would be that Valdez, Brown, and Verlander would be on track to start against Detroit, not confirmed yet of course.

Besides 2022, the Tigers always seem to play well against Houston despite their poor record in previous years.

This year, the Tigers have started pretty decently. At one point, Detroit was 18-13. However, they’ve had a four-game losing streak as of the writing of this article, getting swept by the Yankees and losing the opening game to the Guardians.

There are very few easy games for the next week or two, so if the Tigers are struggling entering this weekend series, it’ll be good if the Astros can pounce on them. 

5/13-5/16, vs Athletics (4 Games)

After a week on the road, the Astros will come home for their first of two three series homestands, and the longest overall game-wise (at ten) will start.

Houston will see two AL West teams whom they haven’t faced yet, one being the Oakland Athletics.

In their final year in Oakland, the A’s have actually started the year off decently. After starting 17-50 in 2023, the A’s were able to start 17-17 in 2024 (although as of today, they’ve lost their last two).

The Astros played decently against the A’s last year besides the final series of the year against them, where the Astros lost two out of three, and risked losing a playoff spot for a little bit.

This is not the only time the Astros will face the A’s during this stretch of games.

 

5/17-5/19, vs Brewers (3 Games)

Another good team that the Astros will face, the Brewers have been a decent little surprise team so far in 2024.

After trading Corbin Burnes, many people thought Milwaukee would take a step back and start a rebuild or at the very least a retool.

The Brewers instead have jumped out to a 20-14 (again as of May 7th), and are currently 1st in the NL Central. The Astros and their fans will get their first look at Jackson Chourio, Milwaukee’s top prospect entering the 2024 season. While he hasn’t performed too well, it should still be a fun series to watch overall.

Also, the Brewers have gotten into a few bench-clearing fights this year. It might sound weird, but this might be a chippy series.

Did anyone really think that the Brewers and Mets and Brewers and Rays would get into fights before the season started?

Updated Projections - Game 34 of 162

5/20-5/22: vs Angels (3 Games)

Last but not least for the Astros homestand, is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, California.

The Angels did their typical Angels thing. They had a good week or two to begin the season (they started 6-4 in 2024), then they suffered a massive cratering, going 6-18 in their last 24 games.

Mike Trout also tore his meniscus 29 games into the season, and he’s now out indefinitely.

This should be a good series for the Astros to win, if they aren’t exhausted after playing thirteen straight days previously. 

5/23, Off Day: 

After 16 straight games, the Astros will finally have their second and final off day of May on the 23rd.

Of course, there’s nothing really to talk about since it’s an off day, but I will say it’ll be interesting to see if Altuve, Tucker, Yordan or Pena get any off days during this stretch of games, because Espada was a big off day supporter earlier in the season, and we haven’t seen that, due to the awful 12-22 record as of May 7th. 

5/24-5/26: @ Athletics (3 Games)

This is the 2nd Oakland series during this 29 games in a 30-day stretch, this time in Oakland.

With news that the Athletics will be moving to Sacramento next year (and eventually Vegas by 2028), this will be the second to last time that the Astros will ever play Oakland Coliseum.

One thing I failed to mention in the original A’s entry is that one of the Athletics’ best players, Zack Gelof, suffered an oblique injury (something the Astros were quite familiar with oblique injuries last season) and will miss time. Will he be back in time for this series? Only time will tell.

Former Astro Abraham Toro is also getting playing time in Oakland this year. 

5/27-5/30: @ Mariners (4 Games)

This will probably be the most difficult and important series for the Astros during this long stretch. The Mariners recently snapped their streak of 20 straight games where their starting pitcher allowed two earned runs or less.

Let’s just look at who the Mariners are trotting out. This weekend we just saw George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, and Bryce Miller. Gilbert was mowing down the Astros on Saturday. The only two Astros hits came from two Yordan Alvarez infield hits. George Kirby gave up one run through six innings, on Friday.

Lastly, Bryce Miller ended up giving up two two-run home runs to Kyle Tucker and Jon Singleton. Sorry, Jon Homerton is actually his name. But until those two home runs, Miller was pretty dominant as well. Heck, he looked similar to Gilbert in that the Astros didn’t have a hit out of the infield until the 6th inning.

The two pitchers Houston didn’t get a look at this weekend were Luis Castillo and Emerson Hancock. Castillo is very good of course, and while I personally think Hancock is the weak link of those five, that is still a very good rotation.

The Mariners also have the 2nd best bullpen in all of baseball with a 2.96 Bullpen ERA. Of course, their offense is the weak part of their team which is why they’re only 19-16 despite this pitching dominance. But this is one of the most important series for the Astros, because the Mariners rotation is really good, the Mariners are a team that they need to make up ground on, and it’s a lengthy four-game series.   

5/31-6/2: vs Twins (3 Games)

This is another seemingly good team that the Astros are facing. After starting a disappointing 7-13, the Twins rattled off twelve straight wins, and after their streak was snapped on Sunday, they  just beat the Mariners last night. They did most of this with Carlos Correa on the IL. The Astros will be back in Houston after a seven game road trip and Correa will once again return to Houston. This could be another important series as the Twins are a possible wild card team, and the Astros will want to make up ground on them (and every other wild card team) as well. 

6/3-6/5: vs Cardinals (3 Games)

Last but not least, we have the Cardinals. The Cardinals look like some of their 2023 struggles have bled into 2024.

The Cardinals last year were similar to the Astros this year so far. The Cardinals were seen as a good, but aging team that had been successful in many years past. St. Louis seemed to end up with an above .500 record no matter what happened to them.

However, their poor rotation led to the early undoing of the Cardinals, similar to the Astros. Where the Astros hope to differ is their rotation has been injured to hell and back in 2024. The Cardinals last year had a mostly healthy rotation that was just bad.

This series could rekindle an old NL Central rivalry, and with the Cardinals looking similar in 2024 to what they looked like in 2023, this could be a good series that the Astros should look to win. 

What do you think the Astros record during this 29-game stretch will be?

Let us know in the comments below, or tweet your answers to us @astronomic1!

Thanks for reading!