The last time the Astros played a real baseball game — with roaring fans — inside their ballpark in downtown Houston: 527 days ago.
A.J. Hinch was still the manager.
Jeff Luhnow was still the general manager and architect of the Astros’ golden era.
And Zack Greinke was pulled with one out in the top of the seventh inning during Game 7 of the 2019 World Series, with the Astros holding a 2-1 lead against the Washington Nationals …
OK. Let’s not go too far back into the past.
Thursday night’s 2021 home opener against the Oakland Athletics has been a long time coming.
And all the above is just another way of saying Dusty Baker has waited too long to be cheered as the Astros’ manager inside Minute Maid Park.
Booing what remains of the 2017-18 Astros was still a thing in Oakland and Anaheim, Calif., during the first week of a new season. Baker’s 2021 club answered the silly stuff the same way it fought through the 2020 playoffs: by dominating opponents and emerging as one of the hottest teams in Major League Baseball.
The Astros (5-1) are tied with the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds at the top of the sport. Their plus-27 run differential was the second best in MLB, while Alex Bregman had started a new 162-game campaign by hitting .429, Yuli Gurriel was back with a strong .409 average, and Jose Altuve was at a refreshing .320.
Which is all just another way of saying these Astros — your Astros — are 99.9 percent guaranteed to be showered in proud cheers when Minute Maid Park finally allows paying fans back in the stands and a baseball game in downtown Houston looks and feels much more like real life instead of some weird, forgotten zombie flick from the 1950s.
How well did the first week go for Baker’s newest club?
Kyle Tucker has only five hits in hits initial 26 at-bats. But three of the hits were home runs, and Tucker leads the Astros with nine RBIs.
The Astros' hitters ranked first in MLB in homers (12) and fourth in batting average (.295) and OPS (.893). The pitching staff ranked fifth in ERA (2.72).
An even more telling set of numbers: Baker is 34-32 leading the Astros in the regular season and 8-5 in the playoffs, including an inspiring 2020 run that saw his socially distanced team stun MLB by reaching Game 7 of the American League Championship Series after going 29-31 before the playoffs.
But in several key ways, Thursday will mark Baker’s first “real” day as the Astros’ second-year skipper in the team’s official home.
The buildup.
The buzz.
The local cheers … instead of screaming, trash cans and more trash cans.
The Astros aren’t going full Rangers yet during the coronavirus pandemic. But Minute Maid Park at 50 percent capacity would push attendance past 20,000, and Thursday’s home opener is approaching a sellout.
Going on and on about the power of fans in the stands can be overdone.
Home-field advantage didn’t push the Astros past the Nationals in the final innings of Game 7 of the 2019 World Series.
When Baker’s club took down Minnesota and Oakland in the 2020 playoffs, then pushed Tampa Bay to Game 7 of the ALCS, everything was on the road when the Astros played their best ball of the season.
But there’s also nothing comparable to a roaring, optimistic, proud ballpark, and it’s a sound that’s been missing in this city for too darn long.
This could be Carlos Correa’s final season in local orange and blue.
He will hear the cheers.
Michael Brantley — who was still playing for Cleveland in 2017-18 — chose the Astros again when he could have left all the outdated booing behind.
He will hear the cheers.
The same for Lance McCullers Jr., Greinke and Baker.
He will hear the cheers. And the 71-year-old manager who has kept his Astros moving forward, inning by inning and game by game and day by day, deserves to be surrounded by a home opener roar.
More than 500 days after Oct. 30, 2019, ended, Minute Maid Park will finally sound like a major league ballpark again.
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