Lawless foresaw Astros' rise to top

But Tom Lawless was right in the middle of it then. He says he knew at the time the Astros were on the verge of something special.

Lawless, now the manager of the Batavia Muckdogs of the New York-Penn League, served as Houston's interim manager in September 2014, right after Porter was given a pink slip.

The Astros went a respectable 11-13 under Lawless and finished the 2014 season at 70-92. Lawless, at Bruno Stadium for this week's series against the Tri-City Valley Cats, said he could tell then Houston was about to turn the corner.

"Oh yeah,'' he said. "We had all them young kids that were phenomenal players. You're talking about a Correa and a Springer and Bregman, add a piece here. You had Keuchel who was coming up on the scene. So you knew they were close. You had a core of young players that were really good. I knew they were going to be successful at that level. So they made a couple of trades, made themselves better, and they're at the top of the game now."