WAITING GAME
Everyone is thinking it, we just need to bite the bullet
Jul 7, 2020, 4:56 pm
Composite image by Brandon Strange.
I certainly understand – and agree with – players who are refusing to go to Orlando to restart this NBA season interruptus. What I don't get is, why baseball is so hot to get a shortened, bizarre season with weird rule changes underway. And why not push the NFL and college football back to 2021, when there may be a vaccine for COVID-19 or at least a better handle on the pandemic?
When hopefully sports can pick up, where they left off, safely with stands filled with cheering fans.
Sports are dangerous in 2020. Coronavirus is a highly contagious, dangerous disease that we still know very little about. Testing is unreliable, with possible false negatives, and results are taking an extra-long time to come back. Six NBA training facilities have shut down because players and staff are testing positive. A bubble isn't 100-percent guaranteed to keep players safe from catching COVID-19. I hear the NBA say the bubble in Orlando will be "as safe as possible." That's not very comforting … "as possible."
Baseball is our most statistic-driven sport. With a season shortened to an unnatural 60 games, and teams' schedules based more on geography than rivalry, fans won't – or shouldn't – take 2020 seriously. What if a player hits .400 for the 60-game season, like when Chipper Jones was hitting .408 after 60 games in 2008? Would anybody accept that a player in 2020, not Ted Williams in 1941, is the last player to top .400 for a season? How will it look if a starting pitcher, who gets only 10 starts the whole season to protect his arm, wins the Cy Young Award with a 7-3 record? Every plate appearance, every pitch thrown, will have a big fat, silly asterisk attached to it.
The Astros won't be traveling to New York to face the Yankees and their angry fans. The current plan has no fans anywhere. You won't hear "Get your peanuts" and "kill the ump" and, depending on the city, "cheaters!" Baseball is a game that thrives on sound as much as images. Baseball will be a silent movie in 2020.
Unless you're LeBron James chasing Michael Jordan's six NBA titles, or the Freak going for back-to-back MVP trophies, or James Harden and Russell Westbrook putting an exclamation point on their Hall of Fame careers, what's to be gained by entering a boring, claustrophobic bubble to complete the 2020 NBA season?
You don't have to be a risk-management expert like George Costanza to know resumption of the NBA season is fraught with danger. San Antonio Spurs star DeMar DeRozan is 30 years old and can be an unrestricted free agent next season. The Spurs currently are 27-36, on the outside looking in for an unlikely playoff spot. DeRozan already has been paid $20 million of his $27.8 million salary for this season. He is on Forbes list of the 100 highest-paid athletes in America. He could be in line for another huge-money contract next year. So he's going to go to Orlando, probably to play eight meaningless games, and risk an injury that could cost him a long-term max contract in a few months? DeRozan already has made $121 million over his 10-year career. He doesn't need to travel to Orlando, live in a social experiment environment, to pick up a few measly millions. For what, for the Spurs to clinch a non-playoff spot?
DeRozan, and every other player, isn't just risking a career-ending knee or Achilles injury. We don't know everything about the long-term health consequences of COVID-19. The disease could leave behind lifelong kidney problems or reduced lung capacity. Basketball is a sport that requires ultimate cardio conditioning. Most NBA players will be eligible for free agency, and more and more money, in the next few years. The NBA says no player will be punished if he decides to pass on Orlando. I'd sit out Disney for sure. Pro sports stars are used to living privileged, posh lives. They live in mansions and drive luxury cars and eat in private rooms at the best restaurants. They're going to have trouble cooped up in hotels with guards at the doors to keep them inside. You really think Mrs. Star Athlete isn't going to the salon for the next four months.? I know "normal" women who can't go two weeks without getting their toes done.
I talked with a high school football coach recently. He said football is the perfect petri dish for spreading COVID. We do know that the No. 1 way to spread coronavirus is for an infected person to cough or breath on other people. That's the whole idea behind social distancing and wearing masks. We've all seen football games played in cold weather, where you see the cold, misting breath of opposing lineman collide only inches apart. Then the players huddle up with their helmets practically touching. Prominent college coaches reportedly are OK with delaying the season until spring. Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley describes a spring season as "very doable." So why not "doable" it?
A few baseball teams, including the Houston Astros, had to cancel practice this week because there was an unexpected delay in getting back players' coronavirus test results. Is this any way to run a major sport? Mike Trout, the best player in baseball, isn't sure he will play the 2020 season. Trout and his wife are expecting their first child. Other stars like Kris Bryant and Buster Posey aren't confident that their health will be protected if they play this year. David Price and more have flat out said no to 2020. One pro soccer team had to quit the MLS season because so many of its players have tested positive for coronavirus. Boston Celtics star Gordon Hayward's wife is pregnant. Hayward already has promised to leave the Orlando bubble when his fourth child is born in September. NBA players are physically fit young men. Many have wives and girlfriends, sometimes both. It's not natural, certainly not fun, for players to enter a biosphere without their partners.
And for what? To play games without fans, with fake crowd noise pumped into arenas to simulate "real game" conditions in crunch time? The games will be televised, possibly on tape delay because some players will be mic'd up and the league doesn't want fans at home to hear naughty language? Eavesdropping on what really is said on the court and during timeouts may be the best part of televising these games. And they're taking that away from us, too?
A big part of 2020 already is a washout. Sports, athletes and fans, should wait until it's safe to come out and play.
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.
We have so much more to discuss. Don't miss the video below as we examine the topics above and much, much more!
The MLB season is finally upon us! Join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday!
*ChatGPT assisted.
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