Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- The Astros sit seven games below .500 but remains within striking distance of the division lead.
- Key injuries have destabilized their pitching staff, though several starters are now nearing returns, including Josh Hader.
- The next month will determine whether this team becomes a buyer, a seller, or simply fades from playoff contention.
A little known fact about sportswriters is that we only get a certain amount of ink to spill about certain teams per year without incurring the wrath of malevolent cosmic forces. And man am I running out of ink for the Houston Astros. But there’s still more to be said!
The Astros are sitting in the mother of all awkward spots. Seven games below .500 but also only four back in a hyper-competitive American League West, the Astros are one a few AL preseason contenders trying to figure out what the heck happened to their season before deciding if they’re sellers or buyers at the trade deadline. I’m now leaning towards them figuring things out, but they also have to go out and do it before it’s too late.
The Astros have stabilized on several fronts, but is it too late?
For a chunk of April, the Astros hilariously had the worst team ERA but best team batting average in baseball — a wonderfully simple explanation of why they were underperforming so aggressively. And while the meat of their pitching problems was a completely uncompetitive walk rate, you could also say their pitching staff just wasn’t healthy. Hunter Brown went down immediately, so did Cristian Javier while closer Josh Hader missed the first two months of the season before returning on June 3.
The team is still second-to-last in ERA, but Hader has been unhittable (he literally has not given up a hit in his five games back) since he returned, and with Brown scheduled to start Tuesday’s game and Javier trudging through rehab assignments, the Astros hurlers are starting to approach the word “healthy.” But their hitting also no longer leads the Majors in any statistical category — Yordan Alvarez is still annihilating the baseball and making quite the case of AL MVP, but the rest of their lineup has been uninspiring since their hot start.
Houston probably shouldn't consider itself a seller yet
The other question the Astros will need to contend with is the value of their assets on the trade market. I don’t think you can trade Alvarez anymore; you’d essentially just be trading away lefty Aaron Judge at this point, not great business. But Christian Walker is probably worth something to someone, and Jeremy Peña, who has stitched his season back together a bit, would be worth something serious. Do the Astros think they are sufficiently screwed long term to actually be seller?
I doubt it. This team’s issues are so explainable by injury that if they can just put together a solid month they’ll be squarely in the postseason conversation. This isn’t the Boston Red Sox, who did lose Garrett Crochet and Roman Anthony indefinitely but also dug such a deep hole before and after their injuries that it doesn’t matter how healthy they get. Put simply, the Astros just aren’t in that deep of a hole.
There’s obviously time for the wheels to fall off, and the degradation of their non-Yordan Alvarez contact quality doesn’t necessarily bode well. But if Hader can stabilize the bullpen and Brown can be a true ace again, this could be a fine situation with room to get even finer. I see more reason to believe than not to.
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