Astros’ discount gets them a Texas-sized pennant race

Jim Crane wanted no part of the American League.

Houston was a National League town. As Crane completed his purchase of the Astros in 2011, Commissioner Bud Selig asked the new owner whether he would move his team to the AL West. Selig pitched the lure of the Texas Rangers as division rivals; Crane worried about tradition, and about playing so many road games in Anaheim, Oakland and Seattle, where many games would start at 9 p.m. Houston time.

Selig won — but so did Crane. In exchange for Crane’s consent for the Astros to move to the AL, the sale price was discounted from $680 million to $610 million.

The Astros joined the AL West in 2013, from the NL Central. In 2013, the Astros lost 111 games; they would have finished last in any division. In 2014, they lost 92, more than any team in the NL Central.

Today, the Astros are 77-67, a record that would be put them in fourth place in the NL Central but puts them in first place in the AL West. And, better yet, the Astros and Rangers are fighting for the AL West title — the kind of drama you never could get in interleague play.

The Astros and Rangers play four games this week in Arlington, Texas, and three more next weekend in Houston. The Rangers won the first game on Monday, 5-3, on a tiebreaking home run from Prince Fielder in the eighth inning.

The Astros have led the AL West for 139 days this season, but they could fall into second place Tuesday. The Rangers are half a game behind — and fully engulfed in what the Fort Worth Star-Telegram called “finally the mother of all Texas sports rivalries.”