1969 Houston Astros season

Offseason

• October 14, 1968: Nate Colbert was drafted from the Astros by the San Diego Padres as the 18th pick in the 1968 MLB expansion draft.
• December 2, 1968: Bo Belinsky was drafted from the Astros by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1968 rule 5 draft.
• December 4, 1968: Mike Cuellar, Enzo Hernández, and Elijah Johnson were traded by the Astros to the Baltimore Orioles for Curt Blefary and John Mason.
• January 22, 1969: Rusty Staub was traded by the Astros to the Montreal Expos for Jesús Alou and Donn Clendenon. Clendenon refused to report to the Astros. The Expos sent Jack Billingham, Skip Guinn, and $100,000 to the Astros on April 8, 1969, as compensation.
• February 12, 1969: Byron Browne was purchased from the Astros by the St. Louis Cardinals.

Regular season

Summary

April—May

On April 8, the expansion team Padres hosted the Houston Astros at San Diego Stadium, who preceded the Padres in the then-most recent expansion class of 1962 to take part in the first-ever game in Padres history. The Astros rapidly kicked off the scoring in the top of the first inning when Doug Rader singled in Joe Morgan off Padres starter Dick Selma, to assume a 1–0 lead. Don Wilson, the Astros' Opening Day starting pitcher, kept the brand new franchise from realizing their first hit and run until the bottom of the fifth inning, when Ed Spezio cranked a home run to tie the score, 1–1. However, the Astros neither scored for the rest of game, losing 2–1, nor for the rest of the series, the victims of shutout by the Padres on consecutive 2–0 decisions for the final two games. Hence, the Padres swept the Astros in their very first series, in a mirror image of how the expansion Houston Colt .45s dispatched their very first opponent, the Chicago Cubs, during their inaugural series.

Having dropped their first five contests to start the season, on April 13, the Astros defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5–2, to secure their first win of the 1969 campaign. Don Wilson authored a masterpiece, going the distance with 10 strikeouts, a game score of 80, while surrendering two unearned runs to earn his first victory of the season. Denis Menke took Don Drysdale deep in the bottom of the second, and in the next inning, Doug Rader belted a three-run home run off Drysdale before he exited two batters later. Jimmy Wynn added a home run in the fifth inning. This began a three-game winning streak.

Juan Marichal led a four-hitter against Houston on April 27 as the San Francisco Giants won, 2–1. He struck out eight Astros. Willie Mays starred offensively, belting his 590th career home run, while also collecting a single in the fifth inning and later scoring.

On April 30, Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds tossed a no-hitter to lead an outright embarrassment of Houston by a 10–0 score at Crosley Field. Maloney whiffed 13 Astros and walked five, the final intentionally to Jimmy Wynn with the bases empty and two outs in the ninth inning. Maloney then fanned Doug Rader to polish off the contest, securing the no-hitter to punctuate a losing streak for Houston that slid to eight games, their lengthiest losing streak of the year. Moreover, the Astros had won just once in their previous 15 contests.

During their first month of divisional play, the Astros floundered, exiting April with a record.

Don Wilson's no-hitter

The day after being no-hit, on May 1, Don Wilson returned the favor to the Reds at Crosley Field, achieving just the second instance in major league history that successive no-hitters transpired. Wilson's second career ho-hitter, he had yet to turn 25 years old, and became the first pitcher in club history to fire two no-hitters. He punched out 13 as Houston triumphed, 4–0, to halt the Astros' already season-long losing streak at eight games.

Wilson's no-hit effort made him the 21st major league pitcher to toss multiple no-hit outings during his career. The hurler who had preceded Wilson in this execution was none other than Maloney, by one day. Maloney had thrown his first no-hit game in 1965.

Rest of May

With the Astros down 1–0 on May 3 at the Astrodome, catcher Don Bryant hit a deep blast off Bobby Bolin with Jesús Alou on second to give Houston a 2–1 lead during the third inning. This was the first and only home run of Bryant's career. The Astros did not relinquish the lead, and held on for a 4–3 win over the San Francisco Giants. On May 4, first baseman Curt Blefary participated in seven double plays, an MLB record for first basemen during a 9-inning game.

Down 6–1 after seven innings on May 8, the Astros rallied for three runs in the eighth and continued the uprising with another three-run frame in the ninth to claims a 7–6 road victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Catcher Johnny Edwards drove in the game-winning run with a two-run single.

The Astros ventured to Jarry Park Stadium in Canada on May 13 for their first-ever international game to face the Montreal Expos, another expansion club playing out their inaugural season. Infielder Doug Rader knocked 3 runs batted in (RBI) to lead a 10–3 victory for Houston.

On May 27, Don Wilson had tossed a 13-strikeout gem keeping the score tied 2–2 with the Phillies going in the bottom of the ninth inning. Doug Rader proceeded to hit the game-winning grand slam for a 6–2 Houston win. The slam was also the first of Rader's career and 11th career home run overall. The following game, an analogous scenario repeated for Rader, when he strode to the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning with the score tied 6–6 on May 28 versus the Phillies. The bases were loaded, and Rader reprised his role by inducing the walk-off play, this time he drew a base on balls to thrust home the winning run to decide a 7–6 victory for Houston. Moreover, the win brought Houston to their first-ever 10-game winning streak.

June—July

Starting June 4, and continuing until August 3, Jimmy Wynn scaled an on-base streak to 52 games to set the franchise record. He batted .322, with a .500 on-base percentage (OBP) and .586 slugging percentage (SLG), garnering 56 hits and 63 bases on balls (BB). Wynn's streak trailed the NL record by 6 games, held by Duke Snider, who reached base at least once each game from May 13–July 11, 1954. Meanwhile, from June 25–August 18, 1975, Greg Gross proceeded to reach base 52 consecutive games, which equaled Wynn for the franchise record.

On June 5, Joe Morgan's 4-fort-4 day with a home run and four runs scored led a Houston win over the St. Louis Cardinals, 11–6. Astros starter Larry Dierker, on 24-hour leave from duty with the Army on June 8, outdueled Cardinals ace Steve Carlton over 11 innings. Dierker capped off the night by hitting the game-winning run batted in (RBI) for a 2–1 win.

Wynn established a club record starting July 6 by drawing at least one base on balls in each of 11 consecutive contests, enduring until July 15. Wynn drew 18 total walks with this active streak, while slashing.294 / .538 / .647 / 1.186. He also slammed 4 home runs and acquired 4 stolen bases. Exactly one year after Wynn commenced his streak, Morgan began his own record-tying period, while Alex Bregman achieved the same in 2019.

MLB All-Star break

Houston entered the All-Star break even with a 48–48 record on the heels of a 10–9, 11-inning defeat to the Reds. The Astros scored 5 in the top of the 4th to mount an 8–0 lead, capped by Denis Menke's two-run single. They added another in the top of the sixth courtesy of Menke's single to score Sandy Valdespino to go up 9–0. However, Cincinnati answered with nine of their own, including rocking relievers Jim Ray and Skip Guinn for six, capped by a two-run double by Pete Rose and three-run home run by Bobby Tolan. In the bottom of the tenth, Ted Savage singled off Jack Billingham to score Tony Pérez for the walk-off.

The following day, the Apollo 11 mission, launched by NASA, landed on the Moon. By extension of the presence of the at Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Astros baseball club was named in honor of space exploration (the astronaut).

Rest of July

Houston swept a July 30 doubleheader from the New York Mets. In the opener, Denis Menke and Wynn both connected for grand slams in the same inning to cap a double-routing of the Mets, 16–3 and 11–5, at Shea Stadium. The double slam by one team was the first to occur in the National League in 79 years. In the nightcap, Dierker took Nolan Ryan deep, and reliever Fred Gladding, mired in a decade-long slump at the plate, laced a bloop single for the only hit in his major league career.

August—October

The Astros season from August 26 to October 2 was featured in Jim Bouton's book, Ball Four. On September 19, Bouton struck out Tony Pérez of the Cincinnati Reds and made baseball history. With that strikeout, the pitching staff of the 1969 edition of the Houston Astros broke the then-National League record for most strikeouts in a season with 1,123 strikeouts. The Astros were the second team to have three pitchers with 200 strikeouts, with only the 1967 Minnesota Twins having accomplished the feat. Since then, only the 2013 Detroit Tigers have accomplished the feat. The three hurlers who realized the 200-strikeout threshold for the Astros in 1969 included Wilson (235), Dierker (232), and rookie Tom Griffin (200).

Dierker attained his 20th win on September 17 to become the first Astros pitcher to do so in one season, leading 2–1 triumph over San Francisco. Meanwhile, Willie Mays—the main attraction for Giants fans on the cusp of his own milestone—remained temporarily stalled in his quest for a 600th home run. Dierker and Bouton combined to limit Mays to a single and two bases on balls. The win put the Astros back to five games over .500 while trailing first place by games.

Performance summary

The Astros concluded the premier season of division play with an record, for fifth place and 12 games behind the NL West division-champion Atlanta Braves. For the first time in franchise history, the Astros reached the .500 mark which simultaneously represented a then-franchise record for wins, following the period during which they lost at least 90 games in each of their first seven seasons of play. The 12 games behind was also their closest-to-first place finish.

In 2018, the Astros would reprise their status as the league record-holders for strikeouts by a pitching staff in a single season; in fact, they broke the all-time MLB record with 1,687 whiffs.

Meanwhile, Dierker became Houston's first-ever 20-game winner to lead the club's first regular-season record as high as .500 and 81 wins. His 20 wins ranked fifth in the National League. Dierker set other club records, including 20 complete games and innings pitched.

Wilson's 235 strikeouts established a new club record, while Dierker (232) also passed the prior record of 203 set by Turk Farrell in Houston's augural season of 1962 and equaled by Mike Cuellar in 1966. Wilson's remained the club record until J. R. Richard whiffed 303 in 1978.

Wynn drew 148 bases on balls to tie Eddie Stanky of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1945 for the National League record. At the time, the major league record of 170 was held by Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees in 1923 in the American League (AL), and other hitters who were ahead of the NL record included Ted Williams (3 seasons), Eddie Yost, Eddie Joost and Ruth again (1923).

Joe Morgan led the Astros by pilfering 49 bases, also tying the then-club record. This was the first of a franchise-record nine successive campaigns featuring at least one baserunner with 40 or more stolen bases.

Griffin was named The Sporting News NL Rookie Pitcher of the Year, the first Astros rookie pitcher to be recognized for the award and was preceded by Morgan in 1965 (position player) as the second Astros rookie overall to be so named.

Season standings

Record vs. opponents

Notable transactions

• May 7, 1969: Oscar Zamora was signed as a free agent by the Astros.
• June 5, 1969: Pitcher J. R. Richard was selected by the Astros in the first round (second pick) of the 1969 Major League Baseball draft.
• August 24, 1969: Dooley Womack and Roric Harrison were traded by the Astros to the Seattle Pilots for pitcher Jim Bouton.

Roster

Player stats

Batting

Starters by position

Note: Pos = Position; G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Other batters

Note: G = Games played; AB = At bats; H = Hits; Avg. = Batting average; HR = Home runs; RBI = Runs batted in

Pitching

Starting pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Other pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; IP = Innings pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Relief pitchers

Note: G = Games pitched; W = Wins; L = Losses; SV = Saves; ERA = Earned run average; SO = Strikeouts

Awards and achievements

Grand slams

;Pitching achievements

• No-hit game: Don Wilson—May 1, 1969 (Astros 4, Cincinnati Reds 0)
• Single-season franchise records
  • 20 wins —Larry Dierker—until 1979: Joe Niekro 21 wins
  • 20 complete games—Larry Dierker—incumbent
  • innings pitched—Larry Dierker—incumbent

;Offensive achievements

• Franchise record:
  • On-base in consecutive games, 52: Jimmy Wynn, June 4–August 3—tied, Greg Gross, 1975
  • Single season, 148 bases on balls: Jimmy Wynn——until 1999, Jeff Bagwell, 149

;Awards

• Houston Astros Most Valuable Player (MVP): Larry Dierker
• MLB All-Star Game:
  • Reserve pitcher—Larry Dierker
  • Reserve infielder—Denis Menke
• The Sporting News NL Rookie Pitcher of the Year. Tom Griffin

;NL batting leaders

• Bases on balls: Jimmy Wynn (148—led MLB)

;NL pitching leaders

• Saves: Fred Gladding (29)
• Strikeouts per nine innings pitched (K/9): Tom Griffin (9.558—led MLB)
• Wild pitches: Don Wilson (16—led MLB)

Minor league system

Notes

References

References

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