Houston Astros to retire Billy Wagner's No. 13 in August
Wagner was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame last month in his final year of eligibility. He will become the third player to wear an Astros cap on his plaque, joining longtime teammates Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio.
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Wagner's No. 13 will be the 10th number retired by the franchise. The team had paused retiring numbers upon unveiling the Astros Hall of Fame in 2019. Houston had not retired a number since hanging Biggio's No. 7 in the rafters in 2008. Biggio, Bagwell, Nolan Ryan, Jim Wynn and José Cruz are among the other Astros with retired numbers.
Wagner's number will be retired during a series against the Baltimore Orioles from Aug. 15-17.
Wagner accrued 225 of his 422 career saves with the Astros, who chose him in the first round of the 1993 draft. Wagner had a 2.53 ERA across his nine seasons in Houston and three of his seven All-Star appearances came with the Astros.
(Photo of Wagner as an Astro: Bob Levey / Getty Images)
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That team of personalities as divergent as they were big called themselves 'idiots' all the way to a World Series championship, as Francona let his stars play and their personalities flow. The secret to all that second-half growth with his new teams? 'I don't know,' Francona said. 'If I knew, we'd play better in the first half.' If he pulls it off again this year, it might even be more impressive than either of those two. Forty of the Reds' final 60 games were against teams with winning records, including the defending-champ Dodgers in town this week. Actually, he may never pull off what his first Phillies team did in his first year as a big league manager in 1997. That team won barely 28 percent of its games in the first half: 24-61. 'They were running a daily (update on) if we were going to have a worse record than the (1962) Mets,' Francona said, referring to the Mets' all-time record for losses in a season that the White Sox broke last year. 'Every day. 'That's always fun.' 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There's a great understanding of what he wants from us,' Trevino added. 'It takes some time. It's just like anything." Just in the past week, he pulled the lever on trying Noelvi Marte in right field to create a way a get two of his more trusted right-handed bats in the lineup, with Santiago Espinal, and potentially get tighter fielding out of two positions (also third). Marte had never played in the outfield in his professional career. Three days later, Espinal played first base for the first time in his career. These aren't moves that would have been made in April. 'He's constantly setting guys up to succeed,' Trevino said. 'Constantly.' Whatever is next, the Reds seem ready for anything the manager might ask. That much trust seems to be there five months in. Whether it leads to another one of those second-half surges, they seem to be ready for that, too. 'He has that reputation of getting the best out of his players,' first baseman Spencer Steer said. 'He's had a couple meetings where we've been in a little bit of a rut or not playing well, and he says, 'This is when it gets fun. This is when it really gets fun. You see what you're made of. This is when it really matters about playing for the guy next to you and really caring about the ultimate goal of winning. When it gets tough, that really comes out.' 'That's kind of where we're at,' Steer said. 'We're not in the perfect spot by any means. But we've got life. And as long as we've got life, there's a chance.'
