Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker is not a person who gives motivational speeches to his players to get them going before a series or game.

He talks to them about the things he has observed from his seat in the dugout and his numerous conversations with his coaches to help the players improve.

Baker has been around baseball for over 30 years as a player, manager, and coach and has seen just about everything that can happen in a baseball game. So, when he perused the schedule before the end of the first half of the season and saw his opponents starting the second half, it did not phase him at all.

He knew that his team had to go against the best team in baseball, according to the record of the New York Yankees, in a doubleheader to start the second half season.

That would be followed by a three-game series against the hottest team, the Seattle Mariners, at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. The Mariners carried an MLB season-high 14-game winning streak into the break and had cut the Astros’ lead in the A.L. West to nine games.

It appeared that the baseball gods had been unkind to the Astros with the way the first five games were set up.

What speech could Baker give his club to prepare them for the difficult task at hand to start the second half? What motivational tool could he use to make sure they were ready to play a short gauntlet of games?

“I don’t really give them a message; I just tell them to go play,” said Baker after the second game of the day against the New York Yankees last week. “You can give a message all you want, but talk is cheap most of the time. Execution is what it is all about, followed by production.

“I don’t have to give these guys pep talks or anything like that. Number one you are playing the Yankees, so you don’t have to give them a pep talk. Number two, you are playing a team that is hot (Mariners). Inevitably, when you are playing a team that is super, super hot. That is usually followed by a cold streak somewhere in there.”

Whatever tactic Baker used must have worked because the Astros have won five games in a row after the All-Star break sweeping both series. They have pushed their lead in the division back to double digits (13) and are 1.5 games back of the Yankees for the best record in MLB. If they manage to secure the best record by the end of the season, the road to the World Series will run through Minute Maid Park.

Houston will now travel to Oakland to take on the A’s in a three-game series before heading back home for seven games, starting with the Mariners and finishing with the Boston Red Sox. But no matter who the opponent is, the Astros will be prepared.

“We just show up to the field, and we expect to win every day,” said Astros reliever Ryan Pressly who set a club record by retiring his 30 consecutive batters. “That’s the mentality that we have, so regardless of who we’re playing, we just want to go out there and win. The mentality of this club is pretty good.”