SLUMP? WHAT SLUMP?
Altuve’s teammates not concerned with superstar’s hitless series against the Mariners
Astros catcher Martín Maldonado took offense to the “s” word when asked about leadoff hitter Jose Altuve’s lack of offense in the postseason.
“You think that’s a slump?” Maldonado responded to a writer Tuesday afternoon in the Astros’ clubhouse at Minute Maid Park. “A couple of bad games, I would say. I wouldn’t say that’s a slump.”
Webster’s defines a slump as a “period of poor or losing play by a team or individual” and, in an aside and unrelated to sports, “a downward slide of a mass of rock or land.”
The Astros are merely hoping their rock belts his way out of a surprising downward slide in the postseason. Altuve was 0for-16 in the Astros’ three-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners in the American League Division Series, with half of those outs coming in Houston’s 1-0 victory in Game 3 covering 18 innings in Seattle.
Across the way in the clubhouse on Tuesday, Astros third baseman Alex Bregman was in the middle of answering a question about Altuve’s mini-slump when New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge — whom Altuve beat out for 2017 American League Most Valuable Player — belted a home run in the Yankees’ 5-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians in an ALDS Game 5.
The Astros will face the Yankees in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series starting Wednesday night at Minute Maid Park, and Altuve’s teammates know they need their typically hard-hitting second baseman to find his swing again in the postseason. They believe he will, and the stats back them up (at least the numbers from 2017-20).
“I’m not worried about (Altuve) at all,” Bregman said. “He’s one of the best players I’ve ever played with, if not the best. I’m just super excited for how good he’s going to be for us the rest of the year.”
Altuve, who’s hitting .000 in the postseason with six strikeouts in the 16 at-bats after hitting .300 in the regular season, was a scant 14-for-67 (.209) in the postseason a year ago, when the Atlanta Braves prevailed in six games over the Astros in the World Series.
In the four postseasons prior, however, Altuve hit .310 in 2017 when the Astros won the World Series, .265 in 2018, .329 in 2019 when the Astros lost the World Series in seven games to the Washington Nationals, and .375 in 2020. Each season the Astros advanced at least to the ALCS, and their sixth consecutive appearance this year is an AL record.
“I stay positive (and) calm no matter the situation,” Altuve said Tuesday following an Astros workout. “I like to go out there and play my game, regardless of the result.”
Altuve, 32, was asked if perhaps his swing or stance was a little “off ” in the ALDS. “Yeah, maybe,” he said. Asked if he had worked his way out of his hitting issues, Altuve added: “We’ll see (Wednesday).”
Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker described Altuve, whose 23 postseason home runs are second only to Manny Ramirez’s 29 in MLB annals, as “a phenomenal player and hitter.”
“Seattle was a tough pitching matchup for us … I’m not worried about Jose at all,” Tucker said. “He’ll come around.”
Astros manager Dusty Baker echoed his players’ prevailing sentiment about perhaps the most prominent player in franchise history, a 5-foot-6 slugger who was AL MVP the year the Astros won their lone World Series title five years ago.
“Sometimes, no matter how great you are, sometimes there are down times,” Baker said. “It’s how you deal with the down times versus how you deal with the good times. It’s easy to deal with the good times. But the mentally strong have a way of dealing with the down times.”
Baker, too, considers Altuve one of the mentally toughest players he’s mentored in his quarter century of managing.
“I’m expecting big things out of Altuve, because he expects big things out of himself,” Baker said. “I don’t put any pressure on him. … The way I look at it, the laws of averages are on our side, because you can tell I believe in the laws of averages.
“Water seeks its own level, and it’s about to seek his shortly.”