

ANAHEIM, Calif. – It was sometime in March, before the slog. Carlos Pena sat in a small locker room in Lakeland, Fla., the season coming, expectations lower than a tugged slider. The Houston Astros had been stripped down for market, then stripped further after they were sold, leaving them with little to defend themselves with in the American League. It didn't look good.



Pena turned up his expressive brown eyes and said, "I create my own reality."

It's June and the Astros have won 18 games, four of those in the past week. Nobody pitches worse, a frailty that can suck the soul from a ballclub. The Texas Rangers are long, long gone in the AL West. Back at home, fans almost certainly would like to believe in the plans of the new owner, new general manager and new field manager, and yet facts are facts. It's been more than three weeks since the Astros drew as many as 20,000 to Minute Maid Park. If the plan – to make the Astros consistently competitive and somewhat self-sustaining – is going to work, it may not include many of the young men currently wearing the uniform.

So, I wondered how Carlos Pena's reality was doing.

"You gotta be a little bit crazy," he offered. "You have to ignore what most humans pay attention to. So it's not normal."

Two months in, the Astros gamely ignore the hopelessness.

So do their T-shirts, which state, "I'm all in," or "Process," or "27 outs," or something about "The vision" and "The grind."

View photos

So does the gambling wheel, which travels with them, and whose flapper might clack to a stop at "Focus," or "Attitude," or "Astros win." There are two triangles displaying World Series trophies. Just Friday afternoon, bullpen coach Dennis Martinez gave the wheel a flick, watched eagerly, and when it stopped circling he read aloud, "Have fun! Hey, everybody, have fun!" Five hours later, Martinez's curiosity got the best of him, and he gave the wheel another turn. "Commitment!" he shouted.

The Astros lead the league in inspirational T-shirts and old-school gaming devices. The rest has been a little choppy. They are, however, riding their second three-game winning streak of the season. They've won eight of 15. And they happen to be the only thing standing between the Los Angeles Angels and a winning record, having beaten the Angels four times in seven games.

The focus lately has been on next week's draft, which the Astros will lead off again. At the top of the list: Oklahoma pitcher Jonathan Gray, Stanford pitcher Mark Appel, San Diego third baseman Kris Bryant, North Carolina third baseman Colin Moran.

Still, the season trundles along. The plan ages. Meantime, somebody – a bunch of somebodies, actually – is required to go out and play the schedule. They're happy to do it. The fringe benefits are good, the pay is better. A few will survive it. But, on a given night, the future of the Astros is so far from the current Astros that one of those minor-league buses might not get you there in two days. Club management has weighed its long-term responsibility to the organization against its short-term responsibility to the league, and the choice was as simple as it was obvious. The Astros may be good one day, but for now they've been outscored by 92 runs – the worst differential in baseball.

But, then, anybody could point out the deficiencies.

Story continues