I was surprised last week when USA Today baseball writer Bob Nightengale suggested that a couple of the Astros star players have complained privately about Joe Espada’s communication skills.

Nightengale’s blind item: “The Houston Astros plan to give rookie manager Joe Espada plenty of time to see if they turn their season around, particularly with their pitching injuries, but two prominent players have privately expressed complaints about Espada’s communication skills in recent weeks.”

Only two? I was surprised that it wasn’t the entire team. The Astros were a disappointing 15-25, mired in fourth place in the American League West, on the day Nightengale’s little scoop ran. Somebody has to take the heat for the upside-down season and Espada is the easiest target.

It was President Kennedy who said “victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan.”

Little orphan Joe Espada.

True story: when I was little, my mother overheard the sports anchor on TV say that the Yankees had fired their manager. Now my mother made a fantastic chicken soup but when it came to sports she couldn’t tell you the shape of the object that pitchers throw toward home plate. She said, “Why did they fire the manager? He told the players to hit home runs. They should fire the players.”

I’ll bet Espada’s communication skills have improved now that the Astros have won four of their last five games and Alex Bregman bashed two homers and a double Monday against the Oakland A’s.

I used to work with Bob Nightengale in Phoenix. We played on the same intramural basketball team. I don’t doubt for one second that two Astros bitched about Espada off the record. But nothing succeeds like success and the Astros have crept to within six games of division-leading Seattle. The Astros just started a 10-game homestand, including six more very winnable games against the A’s and Angels. Espada could be a silver-tongued devil in no time.

It’s hard to figure out baseball, especially when it comes to figures. You want weird? The Astros have stunk this season, right? OK, so which team has the highest batting average in all of MLB? Of course it’s the Astros who are hitting a collective .263.

The Astros actually are hitting significantly better, at least as far as batting averages go, than they did last year when they won the American League West. The 2023 Astros batted .259, fifth overall in MLB.

In 2022, the year they won their second World Series, the Astros hit a mediocre .248, 12th among MLB teams.

In 2017, the Astros first World Series year, the team led MLB with what’s now a ridiculously high .282 average.

So what does all this mean? It means don’t give up on the Astros. Don’t give up on Espada. Don’t count on numbers. And players who squawk about the manager should put their name on it.