FACT VS. FICTION
Sorting fact from fiction after Houston Astros troubling start
Apr 3, 2024, 6:29 pm
It's not time to panic! Composite Getty Image.
The Astros have been ahead or tied in the seventh inning of all six games they’ve played this season.
They’re 1-5, including Tuesday night gut-punch 2-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.
So obviously there is trouble in River City. A team is its record. But there’s nothing about the Astros that won’t correct itself over the long haul. A 1-5 start is worrisome to be sure, but it’s not a death knell. There will be more 0-4 losing streaks and 1-5 stretches over a 162-game season.
The weirdest thing swirling around sports talk radio, mainly on the caller side of the dialog is … did the Astros make a mistake letting former manager Dusty Baker go and hiring inexperienced Joe Espada?
Let’s set the record straight - that is crazy talk.
Remember last season when fickle, memory-challenged fans groaned when Baker insisted on starting Martin Maldonado at catcher over hot-hitting rookie Yanier Diaz? Baker said that one day Diaz would thank him for that. Remember the frustration with Baker, seemingly in a pique of ego, sitting Chas McCormick? Remember Baker dissing the fans during talk show appearances, saying “if you listen to the fans, pretty soon you’ll be sitting with them?” It’s OK for a manager to think that, just don’t say it.
So while the Astros 1-5 record is down, let’s look up.
Yanier Diaz is hitting.476. Fans have practically turned him into a folk hero. They remember last year how Dusty, some might say, took out his anger with management by sitting Diaz on the bench. During Tuesday night’s “Fan Poll” on the Astros telecast, the question was, which player’s fast start has you most excited? The overwhelming winner was Yanier Diaz.
Meanwhile, Maldonado is up to his old tricks in Chicago where he is batting a robust .000 with no hits in 11 at bats as the White Sox starting catcher. It’s not a challenge to imagine, if Baker had been retained in Houston, that Maldy would be the starting catcher here with Diaz wasting away again.
The starting pitching, thought to be a weakness heading into the season, has been excellent. The rotation’s earned run average, including Ronel Blanco’s no-hitter Monday and Framber Valdez’s seven-plus inning of shutout ball Tuesday, is at the top of all MLB teams.
Jose Altuve is back doing Jose Altuve things. Jeremy Pena is hitting .381 and fielding lights out. Kyle Tucker is hitting .318 and ready to break the Astros bank for a long-term deal.
This isn’t to ignore the fact that Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman need to get their bats going, and the bullpen better get its act together. The bullpen, supposedly the Astros strength especially in the seventh inning on, is a crime scene.
But the most glaring sore thumb is at first base where Jose Abreu is becoming the Astros 2024 version of Martin Maldonado 2.0.
Abreu, who signed a three-year $58.5 million contract with the Astros last year, is batting .105, with only two singles, no RBI and six strikeouts in 19 at-bats. In 2024, coming off the worst season of his career last year, Abreu is a no-tool guy. It’s painful watching Abreu flail at low outside pitches. He has difficulty catching up to big league fastballs. Fans groan at him striking out with runners on base in key spots, like Tuesday night in the ninth inning. He looks done.
How much longer will Espada stick with Abreu? Earlier this week, on a national broadcast, an announcer was lauding Abreu’s grit, saying, “He refuses to miss a game.” Seriously? Who’s minding the store around here? I heard a fan tell me, while defending Abreu mind you … “his replacement is worse.”
Will Espada die on the Jose Abreu Hill like Baker did last year with Maldonado?
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after a 4-8 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.