Major League Baseball players always enjoy a day off, even guys or teams on a hot streak, since days off are not plentiful over the six months of the regular season. The Astros no doubt savor Thursday’s respite a little more than usual since it comes at the end of a stretch of having played 29 games in 30 days. The Astros went 16-13 over the 29 games, which is okay, but absolutely not a good enough win rate over the remaining 99 games on their schedule to make the postseason for an eighth year in a row.

Failing to finish off a sweep of the Cardinals has the Astros opening the weekend in Anaheim with their record seven games under .500 at 28-35. As I put it on our Stone Cold 'Stros podcast this week, the great golfer/philosopher Ty Webb would characterize the Astros by saying “You're not.....you're not.....you're not good.” The last time the Astros were within four games of even-Steven they were 4-8. They then gave up 36 runs over their next three games in losing them all to tumble to 4-11. Since then the Astros have gone 24-24. Meh. It’s time for the Astros to mount a charge toward the break-even mark if they are serious about getting back to the playoffs. After finishing up with the crappy Angels, the Astros move up the California coast for three at the losing San Francisco Giants. Splitting the six-game trip wouldn’t be awful, but it’s not a good trip unless the Astros take at least four of the six. Six of their next eight series are against an opponent currently carrying a losing record.

No time to waste

Not helpful to the cause, the loss well into the 2025 season of pitcher Cristian Javier thanks to Tommy John surgery. After the usual Astros’ annoying obfuscation in discussing injuries, the reality settles in of a big blow to their starting rotation. Javier is in year two of his five year 64 million dollar contract extension. Jose Urquidy is also done courtesy of his own blown-out elbow, though in his case expecting much this season was more hope than reasonable expectation. Urquidy has no contractual safety net. He is arbitration eligible for 2025, but the Astros could well non-tender Urquidy and make him a free agent.

General Manager Dana Brown should be kicking tires left and right trying to add a back of the rotation starter. Luis Garcia is making strides in his Tommy John recovery, but is at best more than a month away. Quality performance upon return is very far from a given. Who knows re: Lance McCullers. It’s not as if the Astros are inoculated against injury or performance issues with the remaining healthy guys. Regularly starting 41-year-old Justin Verlander on four days rest isn’t a wise plan. Back-to-back poor starts aren’t catastrophic, but regression from Ronel Blanco was inevitable. There was no chance of Blanco pitching to the 1.99 earned run average guy he was over his first nine starts. Hunter Brown has met the definition of “quality start” in his last three outings. Spencer Arrighetti’s command is still not nearly good enough but he shows legit promise. Framber Valdez still induces agita more often than ideally would be the case, but he’s been solid to excellent in five of his seven starts since returning from the injured list.

On the plus side, Yainer Diaz ended a distressingly long stretch where he hit more like Brad Ausmus than the young Mike Piazza power impression he put forth last year. 13 games into his season Diaz was batting .333 with three home runs. 39 games played and 142 at bats later, Yainer was still sitting on three homers with a pitiful .529 OPS over those 39 games. Now Yainer has gone deep in three consecutive games.

Since last week’s column, it’s been another minus week on the books for Jose Altuve. Over his last 28 games Altuve is batting .219. He has struck out a shocking 28 times in those 28 games. Altuve’s OPS for the season has sagged to .783. Excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season in which Altuve was terrible, the last year he finished with an OPS below .812 was 2013 (.678). 2013 is the only full-length season of Altuve’s magnificent career in which he wasn’t a good player. A .783 OPS is good, but also a precipitous drop from the .921 and .915 Altuve posted the past two seasons.

If you knew nothing about the Astros other than that they trotted out a lineup June 5 with Jake Meyers batting cleanup and Jon Singleton fifth, you’d likely think “Yikes!” There they were Wednesday. Get well soon Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman. Like, immediately. Meyers’s hot streak was a good story but he has flattened out with just five hits in his last 34 at bats (.147 average). The Singleton/Jose Abreu job share at first base is increasingly sad.

Game respects game

It was heartwarming to see Martin Maldonado pay tribute to former teammate Jose Abreu by sinking his batting average to .079 (Abreu wears number 79). No, no, that wasn’t it. Even by Maldonado standards his offense has plunged to new depths of ineptitude. Now batting .076 with the White Sox, Maldonado has seven hits in 92 at bats this season. He has struck out 37 times in those 92 at bats. Maldonado recently started wearing glasses. No punchline attached.

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 The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.