Houston Experienced a Blackout

Just before the top of the ninth, with the Astros trailing the Tigers, 5-2, in the second game of the AL Wild Card series, something caught my eye. Several somethings, actually. Will Vest, who despite his more than 200 career appearances has just five saves, was taking a moment on the back of the mound to rub the baseball and breathe. The low third base camera found him, and it was hard to differentiate between the routine, meditative acts that Vest always uses to calm himself before an appearance, and the twitches and tics that might only be surfacing now, during the biggest moment of his career.

When Vest determined that the ball had been sufficiently rubbed, he put his glove back on and tossed the ball into it. He adjusted the left shoulder of his jersey, then his hat, then the right shoulder. He rubbed his fingertips against his thumb and his palm to disperse the sweat, and then rubbed his whole hand against his pants leg. He took shallow breaths as he gently worked his foot into the dirt in front of the rubber. He dumped the ball from his glove back into his pitching hand, then pressed it against his right hip in order to wedge it securely into a changeup grip. He brought his glove to his belly and briefly touched the back of his hand to his butt before nesting it in his glove. He came set, then lifted his left leg ever so slightly and came set again.

I didn’t catch all that the first time; my attention was focused on the background. Those several somethings were flickering in gold, setting off tiny lens flares all around the screen, but because Vest was the hero of the shot, they were out of focus and blurred. I puzzled over what they might be, wondering at first whether the Houston fans were shining their cell phone flashlights, holding some sort of vigil for the team’s flatlining season. It took me a moment to remember the King Tuck crowns.

Astros fans, especially those in right field, started wearing gold crowns to honor Kyle Tucker during the 2022 season. Tuck, you see, almost sounds a little bit like Tut. It’s unclear why Friar Tuck, which makes so much more sense, never caught on, or why the play on King Tut bears no traces of its ancient Egyptian roots. The crowns haven’t endured because of the dubious wordplay, but rather because they’re fun and because Tucker really does play like someone blessed with the divine right of kings. They have proliferated as he’s ascended from rising star to perennial All-Star to MVP candidate. With the afternoon sun pouring in from left field, the crowns glinted mesmerically in the background while Vest, in the foreground, centered himself for the 1-2-3 inning that would end Houston’s season.

Gold, as you surely know, is the hardest hue to hold. Even after two championships, seven straight ALCS appearances, and yet another division title, it’s fair to wonder what will happen to the Astros dynasty. Jose Altuve is still hitting like a star, but he’ll be 35 next year and he graded out as the worst defensive second baseman in baseball. Carlos Correa has already left, and Alex Bregman and Justin Verlander are now entering free agency. Key pieces like Framber Valdez, Ryan Pressly, and of course Tucker will enter free agency following the 2025 season. Owner Jim Crane has waded into player acquisition decisions, and while spending money always helps, that kind of process-circumvention rarely works out as intended in the long run.

Retaining Tucker seems like the surest way to keep the championship train on the tracks. This year, even as he missed about half the season because of a foul ball that fractured his shin in June, Tucker authored arguably his finest campaign yet. His 4.2 WAR wasn’t a career high, but it was enough to make him a top-30 position player in baseball despite being limited to just 78 games. While playing above-average defense in right field, Tucker ran a 180 wRC+, which tied him with Juan Soto for the third-best mark among players with at least 300 plate appearances, behind only Aaron Judge (218) and, by one point, Shohei Ohtani (181). Tucker had a 176 wRC+ before the injury, and he was somehow even better after, once again, breaking his leg. He finished September with a 193 wRC+.

I hate to admit it, but as brilliant as Tucker is, his style has always left me somewhat cold. There’s something stilted, almost mechanical about his perfection. At home in Houston, his height allows him to rob home runs while barely leaving his feet, in the process turning what should be one of the most thrilling plays in the game into just another humdrum fly ball.

At the plate, he never quite looks settled, waving the bat and his rigid arms around in a circle and repeatedly lifting his front foot as he waits for the pitch. Once the pitch is coming, he shuts down the mechanical hum, executing a quick toe tap before unleashing a short, powerful swing with no holes and plenty of pull-side power. It’s jarring, this anxious pre-swing whirligig transforming instantly into a cold-blooded, maximally-efficient power stroke that looks like it was designed by Bain & Company. He’s not so much a one-man wrecking crew as he is a one-man hostile takeover. Watching your team try to contain Tucker elicits all the joy of playing chess against the computer with the difficulty turned too high.

And yet in the short, brutal Wild Card series, Tucker went 0-for-7 with a walk. His last plate appearance came in the seventh, when he grounded into an inning-ending double play. The Astros wouldn’t reach base again. So dawn goes down to day. As the crowns behind Vest splashed the warm October sunlight around the park, Tuck was still six batters away. He’d never make it to the on-deck circle.