We have liftoff: Astros' ridiculous offense on pace for historic 2nd half

When Zack Greinke arrived in Houston earlier this month, having been acquired by the Astros in a trade-deadline blockbuster with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the decorated right-hander knew he'd joined a juggernaut.

"Maybe the best team I’ve played with," Greinke said at his introductory press conference. "And I’ve been on some good teams.”

However, joining arguably the best club in the American League came with one minor annoyance: now, Greinke spends an inordinate amount of time on the bench, watching his team hit.

"Yeah, it's kind of boring," the 2009 Cy Young Award winner told ESPN after watching his new teammates put up 11 runs in his victorious Aug. 6 debut with Houston.

Those half innings drag on because the Astros' offense is, at the risk of being hyperbolic, a remorseless behemoth with a bloodlust that can't be sated.

This is nothing new. In 2017, the Astros - propelled by Carlos Correa, George Springer, Marwin Gonzalez, and eventual American League MVP Jose Altuve - fielded the best offense since the 1931 New York Yankees, and then bullied their way to the franchise's first World Series title. The following season, despite marked drop-offs from Correa, Springer, and Gonzalez, they still finished sixth in the majors in runs per game.

In 2019, they're a juggernaut once again, leading the bigs in OPS (.842) and weighted on-base average (.352), while managing an even better wRC+ (124) - which adjusts for park effects and conveys how a team fares relative to the rest of the league - than they did two seasons ago. They pretty much are the Murderers' Row Yankees right now.

And even though Houston hitters have tormented American League pitchers for three years now, their success at the plate over the last seven weeks is truly mind-boggling.

Since the All-Star break, the Astros have outscored every team in the majors, even the comparably prolific New York Yankees, who have played two more games than Houston. As September looms, the Astros are averaging a whopping 6.6 runs per game in the second half, which is almost two more than the league-wide average (4.85) for 2019. They've recorded double-digit runs nine times during that span while being held scoreless just once, getting blanked by Lance Lynn in the first game after the break. And, earlier this month, the Astros set a new franchise record for runs in a game when they plated 23 against the Orioles at Camden Yards.

Just in case that didn't get the point across, perhaps a quick look at the individual wRC+ leaderboard for the second half (minimum 130 plate appearances) will more effectively illustrate just how agonizing it must be to face the Astros right now.

There are four Astros in the top five. Four! Since the All-Star break, nearly half of Houston's lineup - including Alvarez, a rookie less than three months into his big-league career - has out-hit Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Cody Bellinger, and ... well, everyone except Cruz, the Twins' ageless wonder.

These aren't flukes, either. Altuve has been one of the game's top hitters since 2016, and the six-time All-Star is now barreling the baseball more frequently than ever. Bregman, who smashed 31 homers and led the majors with 51 doubles last year, is doing an even better job of hitting the ball in the air. Same goes for Gurriel, whose adjustments have vindicated the Astros for giving him, at the age of 32, a five-year, $47.5-million contract. And Alvarez, a consensus top-50 prospect coming into the 2019 campaign, is squaring the ball up more regularly than every hitter except Cruz, Gary Sanchez, and Trout, according to Baseball Savant.

It's not just those four who've been en fuego of late. Michael Brantley, a veteran outfielder currently in the midst of his finest season in a half-decade, has hit .348/.413/.589 since the All-Star break, putting him in the top 15 of wRC+ (166) over that span. Correa owns a .929 OPS in 23 games since returning from the injured list July 26, while Springer's sits at .903 for the second half. For context, Springer would lead the Chicago White Sox in second-half hitting; in Houston, he ranks sixth.

As such, the Astros (and the 2019 Yankees, it should be noted) are flirting with history right now. With four weeks left in the regular season, Houston boasts the best second-half OPS ever at .894, which is just slightly ahead of New York's post-All-Star-break mark.

(Source: Baseball-Reference Play Index)

Additionally, barring an uncharacteristically anemic showing over the next couple of days in Toronto, the Astros will set the MLB record for OPS in the month of August.

(Source: Baseball-Reference Play Index)

To be fair, on-base plus slugging isn't normalized, and the disproportionate representation of 2019 clubs on both of those leaderboards suggests the playing field in this respect isn't exactly level. (The baseball is juiced, folks.) Still, that shouldn't detract from the fact that the Astros are utterly ridiculous right now, and that they only stand to improve when Correa returns from a back injury that returned him to the injured list last week.

Pray for whichever team is unfortunate enough to meet Houston in the postseason.

While you're at it, pray that Greinke can find a way to entertain himself between innings.

Jonah Birenbaum is theScore's senior MLB writer. He steams a good ham. You can find him on Twitter @birenball.