Is the Ted Cruz Astros Curse Real? What We Know

The Houston Astros lost to the Texas Rangers last night at a game that Senator Ted Cruz attended, despite some fans asking him to stay away because of a supposed curse affecting the team.

Cruz strongly denied the existence of a curse on social media site X, formerly Twitter, ahead of the game on Monday, and he slammed a report from Rolling Stone sayingthat Astros fans on social media were "begging him to stay home."

Some fans appear to believe that the Astros perform poorly when Cruz, a Republican and the junior U.S. senator from Texas, shows up at their games, and that belief may have been strengthened after the Texas Rangers beat the Astros 11-4.

The win means the Rangers reached their first World Series since 2011.

Despite the fans' concerns, it seems unlikely that Cruz is somehow to blame. The senator responded to Rolling Stone's report before the game on Monday by pointing out that the Astros have won games that he attended.

"Lying hacks @RollingStone," the senator wrote. "For 7 years, Catherine & I have attended nearly EVERY Astros home playoff game. If they're going to blame me for our recent home losses, pls also credit us for TWO World Series Championships & SEVEN consecutive ALCS's—we were there cheering Stros on!"

Cruz is correct that the Houston Astros have had significant recent success. The team recovered from injuries to win its sixth American League (AL) West title in seven years in 2023 and went on to their seventh consecutive American League Championship Series (ALCS).

The team won the World Series in 2017 and 2022, but following their loss on Monday, they won't be heading to the World Series this year. Monday's match up was game seven of the 2023 ALCS and the Texas Rangers won the seven game series against the Astros by four games to three.

Newsweek has reached out to Cruz's team via email for further comment.

During the game, attorney and former Republican Ron Filipkowski shared a post from Mike Leslie, sports anchor at WFAA in Dallas, that reported the Astros were down 10-2.

"Astros fans begged Ted Cruz not to curse the team by going to the game. He went anyway. A brief update ..." Filipkowski wrote on X, indicating Leslie's post.

"The Astros went 0-4 this series with Ted Cruz in attendance," wrote X user @GonsolinRBW.

The senator acknowledged the Astros' defeat on X following the game and congratulated the Texas Rangers.

"Congrats to the @Rangers!" Cruz wrote. "I'm a life-long Astros fans—tough night—but Dallas won it with a fantastic performance in game 7. They earned it. And we have a Texas team in the #WorldSeries So, go Rangers!!!!"

"We just didn't play well enough at home," said outfielder Chas McCormick, according to a report from MLB.com

"That's what finished our season. We didn't win at home. Game 5, when we came back and won, I was like, 'We have this. We're going back to the World Series.' It's a different taste in the mouth just because I've been in the World Series my first two years in the big leagues, so it's different," McCormick said.