2025 Houston Astros

2025 Houston Astros / Franchise: Houston Astros / BR Team Page

Record: 87-75, Finished 2nd in AL Western Division (2025 AL)

Managed by Joe Espada

Coaches: Jason Bell, Alex Cintron, Dave Clark, Michael Collins, Tommy Kawamura, Omar Lopez, Joshua Miller, Bill Murphy, Tony Perezchica and Troy Snitker

Ballpark: Daikin Park

History, Comments, Contributions

The 2025 Houston Astros were coming into the season with a string of eight straight postseason appearances, during which they had won two World Series titles, but on paper the team did not appear to be a juggernaut. They had been forced to trade one of their best offensive performers, RF Kyle Tucker, after concluding that they would be unable to re-sign him after he became a free agent at the end of the season - something that had just happened to another team mainstay, 3B Alex Bregman. Most of the talk of spring training was the decision to move franchise icon José Altuve from second base, the position he had played his entire career, to left field. They also had new players at a number of key positions: 1B Christian Walker, 2B Brendan Rodgers, 3B Isaac Paredes and RF Cam Smith. It was quite a lot of change and unusual for a team that had been very stable over the previous decade.

They started the season playing decently, going 2-2 in March and 14-12 in April, but DH Yordan Alvarez, one of the key holdovers, went down with a hand injury on May 2nd, and then suffered a setback during his rehabilitation. They were also without two key pitchers, Luis Garcia and Cristian Javier, both due to Tommy John surgery, and two of the young pitchers counted upon to replace them went down with injuries, J.P. France with a shoulder injury in spring training, and Spencer Arrighetti with a broken thumb in early April. Still, the Astros managed to hold together. They went 15-13 in May, then got scorching hot in June when their record of 19-7 was the best in the majors. They finished the month at 50-34, with a 6 1/2 games lead on the second place Seattle Mariners. Hunter Brown, who was leading the majors in ERA at that point, was named the American League Pitcher of the Month while SS Jeremy Peña was having a great season, batting .322 with 11 homers after 82 games. Unfortunately, the team suffered another blow on June 27th when Peña was hit in the ribs by a pitch; at first x-rays were negative, but additional imaging revealed a small fracture and he was placed on the injured list on July 1st. The question was whether the team had enough momentum to overcome the absence of its best player.

Peña was out of action until August 1st and with Alvarez also out for that entire period (he came back on August 26th), the Astros were much more vulnerable. The Mariners slowly climbed back into contention and managed to reach a tie for first place on August 12th. That long climb seemed to have exhausted the Mariners however, as they lost seven of their next eight, but Houston failed to take advantage of that swoon, as they had only built back their lead to one and a half game by its end. The lead eventually reached four games on September 4th, but the Astros began spinning their wheels once again at that point, even though Peña and Alvarez were both back, as well as starting pitchers Cristian Javier and Luis Garcia both back following an extensive absence caused by Tommy John surgery. The Astros lost five of seven games to allow the Mariners to catch up once again on September 11th. The race would go down to the wire. However, the unthinkable happened during a three-game series against the Mariners at Daikon Park on September 19-21: Seattle swept the series, and at the end of the three days, not only did they have a three-game lead with just six games left to play, but the Astros would be out of the postseason had the season ended that day. The Astros' run of eight straight postseason appearances officially ended on September 27th, when the Cleveland Guardians and the Detroit Tigers - the two teams Houston still had a possibility of catching for the final wild card spot - both won. That rendered Houston's 6-1 win over the Los Angeles Angels purely academic, as those two teams would finish ahead of them no matter what happened on the season's final day.

Awards and Honors

• All-Stars: Hunter Brown, Josh Hader, Isaac Paredes and Jeremy Peña
• AL Gold Glove: Mauricio Dubon (UT)

Further Reading

• Will Leitch: "Astros are STILL the AL West’s team to beat. Here’s how", mlb.com, June 11, 2025. [1]
• Brian McTaggart: "What to watch for with Astros in 2025", mlb.com, January 3, 2025. [2]
• Brian McTaggart: "Stros go to the moon with City Connect uniform 2.0", mlb.com, March 19, 2025. [3]
• Brian McTaggart: "Astros eliminated from playoff chase, ending 8-year postseason streak", mlb.com, September 28, 2025. [4]

2025 MLB season by team