THE PALLILOG
How latest landscape changes shine new light on Astros trajectory
Jun 15, 2023, 4:29 pm
Jose Abreu is showing some positive signs. Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images.
In Major League Baseball terms the week starts with Monday not Sunday. Some series wraparound through Monday, but no series starts on a Sunday. So that established, it’s been a sigh of relief week so far for the Astros. Off a lousy road trip (two wins, five losses) made much worse by the loss of Yordan Alvarez, the Astros have taken advantage of the lowly Washington Nationals by winning the first two games of this nine game home stand while the Texas Rangers have dropped two out of three. The Rangers’ losses are a two-sided coin since they’ve come against the Angels. The Astros have whittled their season-worst five game deficit in the American League East to three and a half games, but they are only two games ahead of the Angels in the AL Wild Card race.
Another tough break for McCullers
It certainly shouldn’t surprise anyone that Lance McCullers’s latest major arm surgery means he won’t throw a pitch this season, or throw one well into 2024. The odds don’t favor McCullers ever again being a sustainable pitcher. He collects 17 million dollars each of the next three seasons. Maybe when the Astros and Rangers open their four game series June 30 McCullers and the Rangers’ Jacob deGrom can each throw out a ceremonial first pitch. Left-handed. To their agents. deGrom recently underwent his second Tommy John surgery. Which ended his year after six starts the first season of the absurd five year 185 million dollar free agent contract the Rangers held their breath, crossed their fingers, and pipe-dreamed in giving him.
With McCullers’s fate sad but not shocking, the harsher reality dealt the Astros is the loss of Alvarez for at least a month, probably until after the All-Star break. For a guy who doesn’t turn 26 years old until June 27th, the Cuban missile launcher sure has a troubling injury resume. Fortunately, Yordan’s knees have held up fine since he missed all but two games of the short 2020 COVID season because of knee problems that required arthroscopic surgery.
Last year and early this year there have been sore hand issues. Now, the oblique. Attendance is part of the grade and durability is one component of greatness. It would be horrible if those elements undercut Alvarez fulfilling his potential, which is Hall of Fame slugger. Last season Alvarez played in 135 games, meaning he missed exactly one-sixth (27) of the games. If not back before the All-Star game, Alvarez will have already missed 34 games. At the time he went down Yordan was not a top three AL Most Valuable Player candidate this season, but he certainly was within striking distance of at least matching his third place finish in 2022. He now has no virtually no chance at that, which is a downer, albeit of much lesser importance than what his absence means for the Astros’ lineup.
Signs of life
Here’s to Jose Abreu showing a pulse the past week. One good week doesn’t undo more than two brutally inept months, but he had to start somewhere. 11 for 27 (.407) with three homers over six games is somewhere. Abreu’s season remains a disaster overall to this point, but the Astros did not make a mistake moving on from Yuli Gurriel. Yuli was awful last season. His strong postseason didn’t make his lousy regular season inconsequential toward plans going forward any more than Jeremy Pena’s superstar postseason established him as a superstar going forward.
That the Astros could have kept Yuli for maybe three million dollars sounds good relative to the 19 and a half million given to Abreu for not only 2023 but each of the next two years, but the Astros signed a guy who was the significantly better player last year and certainly projected to be better this year. Alas, projections sometimes don’t come anywhere close to hitting their targets. The money is one thing, the personnel decision was not wrong. The now 39-year-old Gurriel’s numbers with the Marlins are not good.
Up next
After finishing with the Nationals Thursday night, the Astros get the Reds at Minute Maid Park for the weekend. The Reds finished 62-100 last season, but could win the lackluster National League Central this year. With a 34-35 record they are within a couple games of the first place Pirates. The Pirates? Yes the Pirates, who like the Reds lost 100 games last season. Setting aside their 31-29 mark in the short 2020 season, the Reds have had seven losing seasons in their last eight. However they now have some dynamic young talent, with two especially notables worth catching this weekend. 21-year-old shortstop/third baseman Elly De La Cruz debuted last week and has already demonstrated a breathtaking breadth of skills.
He’ll have his struggles along the way, De La Cruz has struck out 15 times in 34 at bats. But at six feet five inches tall he is an eye-popping combo of power, speed, and agility. Think of it this way: the Astros would trade Jeremy Pena for him in a heartbeat. The Astros would trade any player in their organization for De La Cruz, with the probable exception of Yordan. The Reds’ starting pitcher Saturday is 23 year old Hunter Greene. The second overall pick in the 2017 draft is still developing his craft, but throws more pitches 100 miles per hour plus than any other pitcher in MLB. Over his last three starts Greene has 28 strikeouts against seven walks.
After the Reds it’s the New York Mess in for three. Slated to start Tuesday for the Mets, some guy wearing a Justin Verlander uniform. After an injury-delayed start to his season, Verlander sits 2-3 with a 4.40 earned run average in eight starts.
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It’s May 1, and the Astros are turning heads—but not for the reasons anyone expected. Their resurgence, driven not by stars like Yordan Alvarez or Christian Walker, but by a cast of less-heralded names, is writing a strange and telling early-season story.
Christian Walker, brought in to add middle-of-the-order thump, has yet to resemble the feared hitter he was in Arizona. Forget the narrative of a slow starter—he’s never looked like this in April. Through March and April of 2025, he’s slashing a worrying .196/.277/.355 with a .632 OPS. Compare that to the same stretch in 2024, when he posted a .283 average, .496 slug, and a robust .890 OPS, and it becomes clear: this is something more than rust. Even in 2023, his April numbers (.248/.714 OPS) looked steadier.
What’s more troubling than the overall dip is when it’s happening. Walker is faltering in the biggest moments. With runners in scoring position, he’s hitting just .143 over 33 plate appearances, including 15 strikeouts. The struggles get even more glaring with two outs—.125 average, .188 slugging, and a .451 OPS in 19 such plate appearances. In “late and close” situations, when the pressure’s highest, he’s practically disappeared: 1-for-18 with a .056 average and a .167 OPS.
His patience has waned (only 9 walks so far, compared to 20 by this time last year), and for now, his presence in the lineup feels more like a placeholder than a pillar.
The contrast couldn’t be clearer when you look at José Altuve—long the engine of this franchise—who, in 2024, delivered in the moments Walker is now missing. With two outs and runners in scoring position, Altuve hit .275 with an .888 OPS. In late and close situations, he thrived with a .314 average and .854 OPS. That kind of situational excellence is missing from this 2025 squad—but someone else may yet step into that role.
And yet—the Astros are winning. Not because of Walker, but in spite of him.
Houston’s offense, in general, hasn’t lit up the leaderboard. Their team OPS ranks 23rd (.667), their slugging 25th (.357), and they sit just 22nd in runs scored (117). They’re 26th in doubles, a rare place for a team built on gap-to-gap damage.
But where there’s been light, it hasn’t come from the usual spots. Jeremy Peña, often overshadowed in a lineup full of stars, now boasts the team’s highest OPS at .791 (Isaac Paredes is second in OPS) and is flourishing in his new role as the leadoff hitter. Peña’s balance of speed, contact, aggression, and timely power has given Houston a surprising tone-setter at the top.
Even more surprising: four Astros currently have more home runs than Yordan Alvarez.
And then there’s the pitching—Houston’s anchor. The rotation and bullpen have been elite, ranking 5th in ERA (3.23), 1st in WHIP (1.08), and 4th in batting average against (.212). In a season where offense is lagging and clutch hits are rare, the arms have made all the difference.
For now, it’s the unexpected contributors keeping Houston afloat. Peña’s emergence. A rock-solid pitching staff. Role players stepping up in quiet but crucial ways. They’re not dominating, but they’re grinding—and in a sluggish AL West, that may be enough.
Walker still has time to find his swing. He showed some signs of life against Toronto and Detroit. If he does, the Astros could become dangerous. If he doesn’t, the turnaround we’re witnessing will be credited to a new cast of unlikely faces. And maybe, that’s the story that needed to be written.
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