Astros Struggle vs Losing Teams: Fact or Fiction

Due to the past few days of the Astros going 1-3 vs the 2 worst teams in the league, I've seen an increase in the "Astros struggle against losing teams" comments. I've also believed this but decided to finally look at the official numbers. So from 2017 to today, (excluding 2020 b/c obviously) I have compiled the W-L record and winning percentage (WP) of the Astros each season based on if their opponents have winning records.

Note: I used MLB.com standings and they have the record vs teams > .500 only. So I did some subtraction to get the record vs teams at or below .500; it's not perfect and doesn't tell us how well they fare vs incredibly bad teams but it still gives an overall summary of how they perform.

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Year	Overall Record (WP)	Record vs >.500 (WP)	Record vs @ or <.500 (WP)	WP Difference between @/<.500 & >.500
2017	101-61 (.623)	18-15 (.545)	83-46 (.643)	+.098
2018	103-59 (.636)	41-38 (.512)	62-21 (.747)	+.235
2019	107-55 (.660)	35-28 (.556)	72-27 (.727)	+.171
2021	95-67 (.586)	45-32 (.584)	40-35 (.533)	-.051
2022	106-56 (.654)	42-27 (.609)	64-29 (.688)	+.079
2023	83-65 (.561)	40-43 (.482)	43-22 (.662)	+.180

Based on this chart, only 2021 is when the Astros fared worse against .500 or worse teams than >.500 teams. And funnily enough, the years the Astros won the WS the WP difference was <.100.

Now some of you may be saying, "Well no duh they do better vs weaker opponents but they still don't do as well as they should do against them." which is fair. So for comparison's sake, I gathered the same numbers for each division winner from the same time period and combined them as a point of reference. Again, it's not perfect, but just to give us some comparison.

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Year	Overall Record (WP)	Record vs >.500 (WP)	Record vs @ or <.500 (WP)	WP Difference between @/<.500 & >.500
2017	488-322 (.602)	148-132 (.529)	340-190 (.642)	+.113
2018	477-333 (.589)	202-188 (.518)	275-145 (.655)	+.137
2019	498-312 (.615)	214-186 (.535)	284-126 (.693)	+.158
2021	483-327 (.596)	173-172 (.501)	325-155 (.677)	+.176
2022	496-314 (.612)	208-179 (.537)	288-135 (.681)	+.144
2023*	437-298 (.595)	233-189 (.552)	204-109 (.652)	+.100

*As of the morning of 9/16/2023

Would it have been better to use each individual division winner each season? Oh 100% but I'm tired and this was supposed to be fun and I am so very tired. While the WP difference may generally be higher for the misc. division winners, keep in mind how well the Astros have done vs winning teams compared to them; they've set a higher bar. In conclusion, I believe the narrative of "The Astros play down to their competition" is fiction. 2021 is an outlier.

TLDR; Astros don't do worse vs weaker opponents aside from 2021.