The Astros have been what some would call "hot" lately. They've won their last five series and with the effort, they've managed to bring themselves to within respectable margins of the NL Central title (4.5 games back) and the NL Wild Card (4 games back). Sure it's just the middle of June, but this is actually a marked difference from the last time we checked in on what the various models had to say about the Astros chances at sniffing postseason air (they had lost eight of their last ten at that time). So what can a streak of five straight series do for a team's chances to make the postseason?
| Model | Odds |
| BPro Unadjusted | 4.72629% |
| BPro Schedule Adjusted | 8.25818% |
| BPro PECOTA ADJUSTED | 4.09795% |
| Cool Standings | 5.5% |
|
SCS Weighted |
2.5% |
| SCS 50/50 | 12.3% |
These odds are vastly improved over last time:
| Model | Delta |
| BPro Unadjusted | 2.47542% |
| BPro Schedule Adjusted | 6.04488% |
| BPro PECOTA ADJUSTED | 3.89258% |
| Cool Standings | 4.1% |
|
SCS Weighted |
2.1% |
| SCS 50/50 | 6.8% |
The last time I did this, every column was negative, and by quite a bit; this time, it's all positive. So that's what streaking can do for us. The obvious caveat is that a) it's the middle of June and b) the Astros just played a relatively easy portion of the schedule. However, the Astros also did this with a beleaguered bullpen and with both Wandy Rodriguez and Roy Oswalt having the yips/injury bugs, so it's tough to say these games were a breeze through. With interleague play getting underway today, stealing a few games from the usually dominant AL would be a good way to help us keep sneaking up the standings and bumping those odds up...and now, you know.