First-place team faces its share of questions
Where does Trey “Home Run” Mancini fit?
Will Michael Brantley play again for the 2022 Astros?
Lance McCullers Jr. just threw five innings in Sugar Land. He allowed seven hits and five runs in a Class AAA game with Dallas Keuchel on the opposing mound, and Keuchel produced better numbers in a Round Rock loss. But McCullers also reached 86 pitches and is an $85 million fireballer for Houston’s MLB team. Should No. 43 rejoin Dusty Baker’s club as October approaches?
Questions, questions and more questions.
Not to mention the Astros’ ongoing center field dilemma and the fact the Los Angeles Dodgers, not the New York Yankees, are becoming the Astros’ biggest issue.
It’s not easy being one of the best teams in baseball again. Especially in 2022, when the grand ol’ game is increasingly defined by the haves and havenots and a top-heavy league could become a steel-cage match in the postseason.
“If you want to be there and you want to have a shot, the standards are really, really high,” Astros general manager James Click said last week, discussing the daily battle for supremacy in MLB. “The guys that we have on the field have done everything that they need to do to put themselves right up there, and you’ve seen it in the way that they’ve played against the (New York) Mets and the Yankees and some of the best teams in baseball.”
Click answered another question about the Astros’ strength this season by stating that everything will be defined in October.
Truer words have never been spoken.
The Astros fell a few innings short of a world title in 2019. Last season, they roared through the American League Division and Championship Series. Then the Fall Classic favorite dropped Game 1 inside Minute Maid Park (again), trailed the Braves 3-1 in an Atlanta suburb, and ultimately fell two victories short of a championship.
When you get that painfully close, everything matters.
Brantley’s long-term status after the trade deadline has ticked away.
Jake Meyers hitting .223 with a .606 OPS and striking out 42 times in 112 at-bats.
Mauricio Dubón (.204, .567) regularly appearing in the Astros’ lineup and going hitless in a 1-0 road defeat to Cleveland on Sunday that featured just two hits from the AL's second-best team.
The good news: The Astros are still a really good team, should get hot again soon, tower over Seattle in the West, and entered Monday trailing the Yanks by only a half-game for the best record in the AL.
The other news: The Astros are 6-8 in their last 14 games, New York’s recent struggles are the main reason the Astros have remained close, and the Dodgers lead the Yankees by 5½ games for MLB’s best record.
The deadline should have provided certainty for the Astros. During the initial days that followed, it only created more question marks.
Mancini has three home runs and seven RBIs for the orange and blue when he’s played.
The first part of the previous sentence should be the obvious key. The latter has been the issue, as the Astros have somewhat struggled to fit him into a lineup that clearly needs a boost.
There’s no reason Mancini should sit while the light-hitting Dubón and Meyers receive time, especially with Brantley missing in action.
Can the Astros win a World Series by relying so much on Dubón? That’s another pressing question.
But they have spent 110 games lacking a true locked-in center fielder, and now Mancini’s “inexperience” in left field — he played the position in 98 games with Baltimore in 2018 and has recorded 293 total games played in the outfield during his sixyear career — is seemingly an issue.
Shouldn’t the Astros have had a better plan for fitting in Mancini before they traded for him?
New catcher Christian Vázquez also has only nine at-bats in four games since trading dugouts, leaving Boston and becoming an Astro.
Vázquez’s new team is tied for 15th in batting average (.241) and tied for seventh in OPS (.738). The Dodgers are third in average (.260) and first in OPS (.781). Advantage in August: Los Angeles.
Mancini and Vázquez were acquired to make the pitchingloaded Astros more dangerous at the plate. So they should both regularly be playing, right? Of course, it’s not that simple. Factor in that manager Dusty Baker dealt with COVID-19 while the Astros dropped their last two games in Cleveland and scored only one run in the defeats, and the second-best team in the AL returned home facing unanswered questions.
Activate McCullers or experience 2022 without him?
Will Brantley take another swing this season?
How will Mancini and Vázquez be balanced with Dubón, Meyers, Chas McCormick, Aledmys Díaz and Martín Maldonado?
A great team will trade the questions for statements.
The Dodgers already have 75 wins with two months left in a 162-game campaign. The Yankees are vulnerable and going backward for the first time this season.
If the Astros are going to be better than both in 2022, the answers must start arriving in early August.