Jose Altuve’s return puts the Astros in charge of the AL West

Jose Altuve is ready to return from the DL, and last year’s AL MVP brings his big bat and fearless attitude to an Astros club that is in a tight division race.

Let’s take it back to July 25. That was the day Jose Altuve went to the DL with a sore right knee. In that moment, the Houston Astros were 67-37 and had just started to separate themselves from the then second place Seattle Mariners. They were five games up on the Mariners and 6.5 on the Oakland Athletics. It looked like they would be just fine winning their division.

Fast forward to today. Entering play today, Aug. 20, nearly a month later, the Astros are not doing as comfortably. They are now 75-49, with just a one-game lead over the Athletics. Oakland is coming after Houston in trying to win the AL West, and the A’s are giving them a real run for their money. They just took two out of three games from Houston. After making moves at the trade deadline like acquiring Jeurys Familia, Shawn Kelley and Mike Fiers, Oakland has shown that they are going for it.

Houston’s slump since Altuve went down has allowed the Athletics back into the division race. It is evident from their 8-12 record. Not much more really needs to be said about their play, but we can. It isn’t outwardly the pitching staff’s fault, as they have allowed the eighth-lowest ERA in baseball over that time period. However, it is most definitely the fault of the hitting. Houston has the third-lowest batting average in baseball since Altuve went down. They still have the ninth-best batting average on the year, but that number will continue to fall if they hit they way they have been.

While it hasn’t directly been Altuve’s replacement’s responsible for the downward trend, bringing him back will fix everything. Expected to return tomorrow, he is everything the Astros need. The man with the thir- best batting average in the American League will come in and get on base. Then, that’ll allow the offense that has still hit the seventh-most home runs in his absence to start hitting home runs that mean something.

They have to hope that Altuve will be fully back to MVP form by the big series with the Athletics next week. His return should get the Astros back to their dominating ways and give them a cushion in the division.