At their best, the Astros are the best in the league
The Astros are the most well-rounded team in baseball right now
May 6, 2019, 6:50 am
Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images
Despite a tough 3-3 week where they dropped three of four in Minnesota against a tough Twins team, the huge display of power in Mexico over the weekend put things back in perspective; the Astros can beat anyone, anywhere. With the second full month of baseball underway, I took some time to break down what has been going right for the Astros so far in 2019:
Catching fire at the plate
Granted, the Astros just scored 24 runs over a two-game span against the Angels in Monterrey, but nonetheless, it's a sign that this potent offense is shaking off the early-season dust and finding their swing. If we would have been told going into the 2019 season that Jose Altuve would be hovering around a .250 average after 34 games, most of us probably would have considered that a symptom of the team at large struggling on offense. Instead, we've seen quite the contrary with other key players at the top of the lineup stepping up in big ways.
One of those key players is Michael Brantley. He has been nothing short of fantastic in an Astros uniform and currently leads the team in batting average at .336, which as of this writing was seventh-best in the majors. Pair that with his team second-best 24 RBIs and Houston's new cleanup hitter has fit in perfectly. Speaking of RBIs, the owner of first place on the team is George Springer, whose 27 RBIs and 10 home runs so far this year has him tied for eighth in the league in both categories.
Something that would pair well with these two guys getting hits is someone that can reliably get on base. Enter Alex Bregman. His .400 on-base percentage leads the team and is good for ninth-best in the American League. Much of that has to do with his patience at the plate which has led to 22 walks in 2019, tied for ninth-most in the league.
While the before-mentioned players come up with a lot of big hits, another noticeable part of this lineup that has had a surprisingly good start to the year is Josh Reddick. Reddick is not far behind Brantley in batting average, sitting at .330, and not far behind Bregman in on-base percentage, sitting at .380. After having his struggles at the plate last season he has had a hot start to 2019.
Throw all those bats in the mix with a rising Altuve and Carlos Correa, and it's no surprise that Houston's order has worked their way to the top of the league's leaderboard in team average at a combined .271, third-best in on-base percentage at .344, and third-lowest in strikeout percentage at 19.5%.
Don't forget the guys on the mound
Although the offense may generate most of the highlights on any given night, the pitching staff for Houston deserves a lot of credit for where this team is now and can go the rest of the year.
It starts with ace Justin Verlander, who I won't break down in great detail here since I did just that last week, but for argument's sake let me just highlight that he's 5-1 with a 0.87 WHIP (third-best in the league), 60 strikeouts (third-best in the league), and .176 average against (fourth-best in the league). His biggest fault so far has been giving up too many home runs.
Behind him, you've got the league-leader in strikeouts, Gerrit Cole, who currently sits at 65 and is a start behind most of the leaders since he'll pitch tonight for his eighth game of the year. He's had a big bomb to his numbers after that horrible start against the Rangers earlier this year, but his numbers are still great and have him near the top of the charts.
While the 3-4-5 guys of Collin McHugh, Wade Miley, and Brad Peacock may not be as high on the leaderboards or putting up the kind of numbers that Charlie Morton did for the Astros, they have done their job on the whole of keeping Houston ahead or close enough for the bats to get them back in it.
Behind these starters is an excellent bullpen. The two relievers leading the way and having the most impact are Ryan Pressly and Roberto Osuna. Pressly passed Astros-great Roy Oswalt on Sunday by recording his 33rd-straight scoreless inning, giving him a new franchise record. While the streak is historic in and of itself, it's the result of inning after inning of Pressly being in command and imposing his will against batters. He's just another great addition the Astros have made in recent years that compliment the rest of the team, making him one of the best eighth-inning setup guys in the league.
Osuna, Houston's closer they acquired in 2018, has been phenomenal with his new team since joining after his suspension ended last year. While his signing and the situation surrounding it is still rightly debated when you look purely at his work on the mound it has been electric. He has not blown a save since joining Houston, and in 2019 he's allowed just one unimportant run in his 14.1 innings of relief to go along with just three hits and zero walks and eleven strikeouts.
Again, when you put all these pieces together, you get a team ERA of 3.57 (fifth-best in the league), 9.44 strikeouts per 9 innings (eighth-best in the league), and 2.57 walks per 9 innings (best in the league) which if you want to summarize by WAR (wins above replacement), comes out to a 4.7, fifth-best in the league.
Looking ahead: is there even a ceiling?
While their play so far may not have them as the undisputed best team in baseball, all indications are there that they are without question in the conversation, and could easily win a series against any team. It will be interesting to look back at some of these points at both the half-way point of the year when many of these guys are likely named to the All-Star team, then again at the end of the season when they put all their effort into the playoff push and beyond.
With this Astros roster, the only ceiling we may be discussing in October could be Minute Maid Park's, and where to hang another World Series banner.
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Through 20 games, the Houston Astros have managed just six wins and are in last place in the AL West.
Their pitching staff trails only Colorado with a 5.24 ERA and big-money new closer Josh Hader has given up the same number of earned runs in 10 games as he did in 61 last year.
Despite this, these veteran Astros, who have reached the AL Championship Series seven consecutive times, have no doubt they’ll turn things around.
“If there’s a team that can do it, it’s this team,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said.
First-year manager Joe Espada, who was hired in January to replace the retired Dusty Baker, discussed his team’s early struggles.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “It’s not what we expected, to come out of the shoot playing this type of baseball. But you know what, this is where we’re at and we’ve got to pick it up and play better. That’s just the bottom line.”
Many of Houston’s problems have stemmed from a poor performance by a rotation that has been decimated by injuries. Ace Justin Verlander and fellow starter José Urquidy haven’t pitched this season because of injuries and lefty Framber Valdez made just two starts before landing on the injured list with a sore elbow.
Ronel Blanco, who threw a no-hitter in his season debut April 1, has pitched well and is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three starts this season. Cristian Javier is also off to a good start, going 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA in four starts, but the team has won just two games not started by those two pitchers.
However, Espada wouldn’t blame the rotation for Houston’s current position.
“It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster how we've played overall,” he said. “One day we get good starting pitching, some days we don’t. The middle relief has been better and sometimes it hasn’t been. So, we’ve just got to put it all together and then play more as a team. And once we start doing that, we’ll be in good shape.”
The good news for the Astros is that Verlander will make his season debut Friday night when they open a series at Washington and Valdez should return soon after him.
“Framber and Justin have been a great part of our success in the last few years,” second baseman Jose Altuve said. “So, it’s always good to have those two guys back helping the team. We trust them and I think it’s going to be good.”
Hader signed a five-year, $95 million contract this offseason to give the Astros a shutdown 7-8-9 combination at the back end of their bullpen with Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly. But the five-time All-Star is off to a bumpy start.
He allowed four runs in the ninth inning of a 6-1 loss to the Braves on Monday night and has yielded eight earned runs this season after giving up the same number in 56 1/3 innings for San Diego last year.
He was much better Wednesday when he struck out the side in the ninth before the Astros fell to Atlanta in 10 innings for their third straight loss.
Houston’s offense, led by Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, ranks third in the majors with a .268 batting average and is tied for third with 24 homers this season. But the Astros have struggled with runners in scoring position and often failed to get a big hit in close games.
While many of Houston’s hitters have thrived this season, one notable exception is first baseman José Abreu. The 37-year-old, who is in the second year of a three-year, $58.5 million contract, is hitting 0.78 with just one extra-base hit in 16 games, raising questions about why he remains in the lineup every day.
To make matters worse, his error on a routine ground ball in the eighth inning Wednesday helped the Braves tie the game before they won in extra innings.
Espada brushed off criticism of Abreu and said he knows the 2020 AL MVP can break out of his early slump.
“Because (of) history,” Espada said. “The back of his baseball card. He can do it.”
Though things haven’t gone well for the Astros so far, everyone insists there’s no panic in this team which won its second World Series in 2022.
Altuve added that he doesn’t have to say anything to his teammates during this tough time.
“I think they’ve played enough baseball to know how to control themselves and how to come back to the plan we have, which is winning games,” he said.
The clubhouse was quiet and somber Wednesday after the Astros suffered their third series sweep of the season and second at home. While not panicking about the slow start, this team, which has won at least 90 games in each of the last three seasons, is certainly not happy with its record.
“We need to do everything better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “I feel like we’re in a lot of games, but we just haven’t found a way to win them. And good teams find a way to win games. So we need to find a way to win games.”