Kyle Tucker painful foul tip sends Astros disaster season further down the hole

The Houston Astros disaster of a season could be continuing to head down the drain. Bad looks to be turning to worse in Houston.

In a 2-0 count while trailing the Cardinals 3-0, the Astros' current best player, Kyle Tucker, fouled a ball off his shin and it didn't look good. At all. Tucker collapsed in pain and remained that way for multiple minutes. Take a look:

Kyle Tucker exits game after a painful foul tip in Monday night's game

It certainly doesn't look good for Tucker or the Astros. The foul ball missed his shin guard by mere inches, smashing directly into the unprotected bone at an incredible velocity. The best-case scenario is a bad bruise, resulting in missing time based on pain and swelling.

Tucker tried his best to stay in the game for the Astros, attempting to walk and jog on his injured leg before ultimately, by his good judgment, coming to the conclusion that he would be done for the night. It's probably a good decision, just in case it's a more serious injury than he imagines.

The Astros will have to be careful with their star player, as they don't have a more impactful player at this moment in time. Tucker will likely undergo more testing tonight and tomorrow to judge the full extent of the injuries.

To this point, Tucker hasn't just been the Astros best player. He's actually been one of the best players in the entire game.

Tucker is slashing .263/.392/.582 with an incredible 19 home runs to this point in the year. His OPS has climbed near 1.000, good for an OPS+ of 178. There's truly nobody on the Houston roster that's been as valuable for the team than Tucker has.

Besides the two headed monster of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto in New York, Tucker has been at the top of the AL MVP race. Hopefully for him and the Astros, this injury is just a bad bruise. The game would hate to see such a talented player miss any extended time.

UPDATE: Joe Espada gave an update after the game, revealing Tucker has a right shin contusion and X-rays were negative.