MLB playoffs 2023: Even in a week of chaos, the Astros find a way - ESPN

MINNEAPOLIS — In this October of chaos, of 100-win teams swept and a winless American League East and lower-seed dominance, there is but one constant. The Houston Astros are doing what the Houston Astros do, which is to say they are owning the most important month on the baseball calendar.

In this time when there is bellyaching about the game's playoff format, in which the best teams sit for a week while the laggards fight for their season in the wild-card round, there is the outlier. The Astros illustrated that a bye does not necessarily equal bye-bye.

In this moment of profound questions across the sport, about strategy and analytics and the challenges of building a team to succeed in the playoffs like it does over a 162-game season, there is the team that for seven straight years has found itself in the American League Championship Series. The Astros were once upon a time the most analytically inclined organization in baseball. Even as in recent years they've receded from that, they still just win.

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Baseball is on one. Up is down and right is left and sliders are sweepers and nobody can quite put together what's going on. The 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks are in the National League Championship Series after dismantling the Los Angeles Dodgers, who finished 16 games ahead of them in the NL West. The 104-win Atlanta Braves are on the precipice of getting beat after their shortstop loud-talked Bryce Harper in the clubhouse, a reporter printed the ill-advised chirping and Harper had the vengeance game to end all vengeance games that staked his Philadelphia Phillies, who finished 14 games behind Atlanta in the NL