THE PALLILOG
A way-too-soon celebration is already in order for the Houston Astros
May 31, 2022, 12:33 pm
The Astros’ schedule is really soft. Composite image by Jack Brame.
Congratulations to the Astros for wrapping up a playoff spot for the sixth year in a row! Obviously with two-thirds of the season still to be played there’s nothing official about it and it's a bit early for a magic number countdown, but we’re just past Memorial Day and the Astros are basically a cinch. It remains to be seen whether the Angels will be legitimate season long challengers for the American League West title (doubtful), but even should the Halos swipe the division crown it would take a string of horrific developments for the Astros to not land a Wild Card berth, especially with there now being three of them in each league.
With the owners watering down the postseason field for additional revenue, the third-best division winner in each league now has to survive a best-of-three series against the third wild card qualifier. An awful team can take down a great team in a two out of three, so the third wild card taking out the third-best division champ would be no big upset. The third division champ is the home team for all games vs. that third Wild Card but that is no insurmountable obstacle, so the Astros have a clear objective of not just winning another division title, but securing one of the two best division winning records in the AL.
It’s not quite ironic, but for all the sturm and drang and wrongdoing involving the Astros and trash cans a few years ago, it’s at least amusing that the Astros are in the midst of an epic stretch of sanitation engineering. They are taking out the trash left and right. Since finishing off a sweep of the Twins in Minneapolis May 12, the Astros’ schedule has been an absolute marshmallow and will remain so until the back half of June. When the Astros get home from their current road trip they will have taken the field 22 consecutive games against an opponent carrying a losing record. Then they’ll quite likely play at least nine more against losers! Next week’s homestand features three games vs. the Mariners and three vs. the Marlins. Then the Astros pop north for three with the Rangers, who while the Astros roll toward postseason number six in a row, are on target for their sixth straight losing season. Home from Arlington the Astros play the White Sox who are presently 23-23, so conceivably the Astros could make it 34 straight games vs. losing teams. I don’t know what the record is (get cracking Elias Sports Bureau!) but 34 is quite a number. The Mets are here June 21 so at the latest that would end the streak.
The Astros don’t/won’t win every series they play against crappola competition, but they’re simply vastly better than the majority of teams they face. Their measuring stick is the good teams, the kind of teams they’ll face in October.
What's going on with Yuli?
While the Astros are rolling merrily along it’s not all peaches and cream of course. The offense has been a mediocrity. The putrid catcher combo plate of Martin Maldonado and Jason Castro wasn’t expected to be good. Yuli Gurriel on the other hand… La Piña has been El Limón so far in 2022. Gurriel was wretched in 2020, but that 60 game short COVID season produced a lot of eyebrow-raising stats that could be asterisked. Jose Altuve’s performance was god-awful in 2020 too. Both were excellent in 2021. Altuve remains excellent in 2022. Gurriel has fallen off a cliff in what is his final season under contract. He’s fallen, will he get up? Yuli turns 38 next week. It’s plausible that Father Time has made a big move.
Gurriel’s plate discipline has eroded badly this year. Before winning the American League batting title at .319 last season, Gurriel three times came close to hitting .300 without doing it (.299, .291, and .298). No doubt a big part of the leap last year was swing selection. Gurriel drew 59 walks last season. Previously he’d never drawn more than 37. So far this season Gurriel has walked a woefully puny seven times. He’s striking out at a higher rate than in any prior season. He just has not made consistent good contact with the baseball. Even with the Astros lineup diminished elsewhere, the clock has to be ticking toward Dusty Baker stopping slotting Gurriel fifth in the batting order. Right Dusty? There is time to turn it around, but know that since joining the Astros late in the 2016 season, Gurriel had never gone consecutive months batting below .256. April this year: .224. May: .213.
This Astros’ squad clearly has World Series winning potential but it is not an unstoppable super team that should play a pat hand. If Gurriel doesn’t pick it up significantly, General Manager James Click should get after landing an upgrade for the stretch drive, postseason, and beyond.
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No, we have not been transported back in time to 2012 and are again stuck with an atrocity of an Astros team heading for well over 100 losses. I’m pretty sure anyway, even though the Astros are in our nation’s capital for the weekend looking so far this season about as dysfunctional as the federal government often seems to be. At 6-14 this is a dung heap of a squad to this point. The Astros are two and a half games behind the A’s! The rightfully heralded back end of the bullpen has already lost four games the Astros have led after six innings. They are 5-4 in games they led after six, which is awful.
Last season the Astros were a good team, not close to a great team. The 2023 Astros finished 72-6 in games they led after six. Then there’s the offense which has some nice raw stats, but been weak with runners in scoring position (.686 OPS ranks 19th among the 30 Major League teams), weaker with runners in scoring position with two outs (.631 ranks 22nd), and demonstrated meager come from behind ability. The Astros have zero wins in games they have trailed after six (0-8). They are 0-5 in one-run games. But hey, good thing they kept the roof closed for all six games of another failed homestand. Going back to last season the gruesome ledger over the Astros last 42 home games reads 11 wins 31 losses.
As bad as things have been, those already seeking a priest to administer last rites for this season, chill! Be worried, be angry if you’d like, but chill. At least a little. The Astros are fortunate that no one is off to a great start in the American League West, the worst division in MLB over the season’s first three weeks. Obviously the Astros need to pick it up, or they will wind up dead and buried, but the plug will not be pulled on playoff chances in April. They have stunk, but it is also a fact that over the 20 game flop start, the Astros have played zero games against a team currently carrying a losing record. Furthermore, on the subject of 20 game schedule portions, the Texas Rangers had a 20 game stretch last season over which they went 4-16.
JV returns
41-year-old Justin Verlander will be no savior, but starting his regular season Friday night at the Nationals is certainly a welcome sight. We’ll see when Framber Valdez returns. This is the Astros’ second series in Washington D.C. since sweeping three games there during the 2019 World Series. Then they came home, yada, yada, yada. In the four seasons since, the Astros have been to four more American League Championship series and won it all for the second time in 2022. Since taking down the Astros to win the 2019 Fall Classic, the Nationals have posted four straight last place finishes in the National League East. The Nats are off to an 8-10 start this season.
Altuve has been a bright spot
Once before, Jose Altuve has finished April with his OPS over 1.000. 2016 was the season in which he elevated from star to superstar. Altuve awoke May 1, 2016 batting “only” .305 but with an OPS of 1.011. With nine games left this month the numbers could change markedly, but wow what a start to 2024 for him. Altuve carries a .388 batting average into the weekend with an OPS of 1.137. That’s a whopping 225 points higher than Yordan Alvarez’s second best on the team OPS of .912. Of course Altuve won’t finish batting near .388 but if wondering what’s the target number if a career best is in play, in Altuve’s AL Most Valuable Player Award-winning 2017 season he wound up batting .346 which won his third AL batting title. The under on .346 for this year is the highly likely outcome, but wouldn’t feel totally comfortable emptying out the retirement fund to bet on it.
The Abreu dilemma
Between Manager Joe Espada and General Manager Dana Brown I believe they have blown through their 2024 quota of “look at the back of his baseball card” references to pedantically expect everyone to believe that hapless Jose Abreu will be just fine. Jeff Bagwell has used that line too. Guess what fellas? Take a look at the back of Bagwell’s baseball card. He was an awesome offensive player. Until he wasn’t. Ditto Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, and a multitude of other players greater than Abreu was at his best and better at their worst than this mess Abreu is now. At some point, washed up is washed up.
Here's a plausible Abreu scenario. He comes up with “back problems” and goes to the Injured List. That’s followed by a handful of games with Sugar Land and/or Corpus Christi. Then he rejoins the Astros. If he then resumes performing at or close to the rotting corpse level of performance he’s produced through the first 20 games, then the Astros release him. Obviously, Jim Crane prefers to not cut checks of 35 million dollars to Abreu for him to not play for the Astros. Paying him to continue to play is worse. It’s doubling down on damage.
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.