Astros hopeful
Slow-starting team thinks it has the talent to recapture magic of 2015 season and return to playoffs,
After a rough West Coast swing that saw them drop two series to division rivals, the Houston Astros have a chance to recover with a 10-game homestand that began Monday against the American League’s worst team in the 7-18 Minnesota Twins.
Then again, the Astros, at 8-17, were just a game better.
The bumpy start has been as unexpected as the Astros’ playoff run last season. After six consecutive losing seasons, they won over converts by keeping a fivemonth stranglehold on first place in the AL West before settling for a wild-card entry into the postseason, then pushing the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals to the limit in an AL Division Series.
No less than a continuation of such progress figured to follow, and with emerging superstar Carlos Correa and multitool outfielder George Springer available for a whole season, Houston was the preseason forecasters’ darling.
Predictions of a return to the playoffs might prove accurate, but first the Astros will have to reverse troubling trends from a 717 April.
Houston finished the month with the league’s worst ERA (4.97) — both the starters (5.10) and relievers (4.75) ranked last in that department — and the strikeout-prone offense was unable to make up for such dismal pitching.
“Hopefully this early part of May we’ll see a little transformation and get back to the brand of baseball we played last year,” says staff ace Dallas Keuchel, who watched his teammates avoid a sweep with a 2-1 victory Sunday against the Oakland Athletics, closing the Astros trip at 2-4.
Doug Fister, who gave up one hit in 62⁄ innings in Sunday’s 3 win, says he senses the starters are beginning to get into a groove after holding Oakland to five runs in 182⁄ innings. Yet it will take 3 more such performances to lift the Astros to the break-even mark, let alone to the division’s upper echelon.
Keuchel, the AL’s reigning Cy Young Award winner, and Collin McHugh combined to go 39-15 last year. They’re both 2-3 in 2016, and Keuchel’s 4.41 ERA only looks good in comparison to McHugh’s 6.65.
Moreover, Houston has played sloppily at times and has not won as many as two games in a row.
“The way the American League is this year, if you do give an extra out or if you do give extra bases, it comes back to bite you,” manager A.J. Hinch says. “It’s been that way for us. We’ve made enough mistakes — and enough mistakes have burned us — to create an uphill battle now to get back to where we need to get.”
Although he’s 21, Correa will be counted on to lead them back into the winning ranks. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 draft earned that kind of respect during his AL rookie of the year season in 2015, when he topped all major league shortstops with 22 home runs in 99 games.
Correa blasted three home runs in this season’s first two games but has yet to go deep since then, a stretch of 22 games.
A healthy on-base percentage of .379 and 15 walks indicate Correa has maintained his plate discipline even as his batting average has dipped to .264. But he was also striking out once every 4.29 plate appearances, compared with once every 5.54 last season.
That’s only part of the reason the Astros are averaging just 3.75 runs a game headed into Sunday, 21st in the league.
Much of the blame lies in their .200 batting average with runners in scoring position, second worst in the AL, and their inability to put the ball in play (a league-high 246 strikeouts). In addition, the bottom of the order has become a wasteland, with the likes of Preston Tucker, Luis Valbuena and Jason Castro all batting below .200.
But Correa recognizes that to whom much is given, much will be required.
“There’s a lot on my shoulders, being the third-place hitter, and I just focus on doing my job,” says Correa, whose nine RBI tied him for sixth among AL shortstops. “The first month wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad either, but it wasn’t what I would want.”
Correa thinks the Astros need to do a better job of picking each other up, such as a pitcher inducing a double-play grounder after a fielder makes an error or the offense delivering in the clutch to bail out a pitcher having a tough game.
“We haven’t done that,” he says. “We make an error, and everybody gets down. Or we fail to bring in a runner in scoring position with less than two outs, and everybody gets down. Baseball is more than that. You have to get through those tough moments and help each other so we can win.”
Given the talent level on the roster, there’s every reason to believe the Astros will get on track soon.
They certainly have an outstanding catalyst in Jose Altuve, who has led off four games with home runs this season.
After improving by 16 wins last season, the Astros are not going to let one bad month diminish their swagger, even if their “Club Astros” celebrations have been considerably less frequent than in 2015.
“We have a good team. We’re going to hold our chests out,” Hinch says. “We’re going to have to be dealt with by a lot of teams. Certainly we haven’t put ourselves in a terrific position at the end of April, but that’s why it’s a six-month season and not a onemonth trial.”