Offensive Struggles and Excellent Run Prevention: A Review of the First Sixth of the Season
The bad news: The offense has slumped through the first 27 games of the season. The good news: Excellent pitching and defense has taken up the slack. The result: A winning record (barely).
The Astros blitzed the Royals on Sunday, with Yordan Alvarez hitting a 3-run homer to start off the scoring and Yainer Diaz contributing his own solo shot. The Astros won 7-3.
It moved the Astros to 14-13 after 27 games of the season. That represents one-sixth of the season, and is when we can start to maybe have enough of a sample of the season to do useful analysis of a baseball team.
And based on that we can say that Sunday’s game is not very representative—the Astros are not winning games because of their offense. Instead, they are winning because of their pitching and defense, which have been excellent.
The games in Kansas City on Friday and Saturday—both of which the Astros lost 2-0—are more representative of the Astros losses. They are losing because the offense has slumped so far this season.
I’ll address the bad news part of the story first—addressing the Astros woeful offense—before turning to the good news part of the story—the Astros ability to prevent runs.
A Struggling Offense
There are a lot of numbers to explain the offense, but they are all bad.
Entering yesterday’s game, the Astros had scored 3.54 runs per game. That’s the 26th best in all of baseball. The two home runs the Astros hit yesterday were only the 20th and 21st homers for the team this season. Entering yesterday, the Astros were 28th in the majors in homers.
The Astros were slashing .230/.302/.338 for the season. That’s a .640 OPS. I could tell you how that ranks among MLB teams, but you already know it’s not good.
Who is responsible for the slumping offense? One answer is just about everyone. Only two Astro hitters—Isaac Paredes and Jeremy Pena—have an OPS over .700. The average major league hitter this season has an OPS of .702, and 11 of the 13 Astro hitters are below that number.
While each of those 11 are responsible for the poor offensive numbers, extra notice should go to the performance of Yordan Alvarez and Yainer Diaz. Alvarez was slashing .200/.298/.306 on the season before yesterday’s game, while Diaz was slashing .165/.195/.266. Alvarez and Diaz are supposed to be big sluggers in the middle of the Astros order. So far, they are hitting like #8 and #9 hitters.
Excellent Run Prevention
This has been a negative article so far, as it has focused on the poorly performing part of the Astros. But despite the Astros offense, the team has a winning record and a positive run differential. The reason for that is the pitching and defense.
The Astros have allowed only 3.26 runs per game so far this season. Entering yesterday, that was the 4th best rate in the majors.
Opposing hitters are slashing .206/.273/.342 for a .616 OPS. Again, you don’t need to know where that ranks among MLB teams to know that is good. But it worth noting that the Astros OPS allowed—which is .273—is the best among any team in the majors. The Astros allow fewer baserunners than any team in the majors.
Part of the Astros success at preventing runs is their defense. The Astors are 3rd best in the majors in defensive efficiency. That’s a very simple stat that measure the percentage of balls in play that are turned into outs. The Astros do that 73.3% of the time. For context, the Astros were at 70.4% in defensive efficiency in 2024.
The pitching effort has been led by Hunter Brown, who allowed only 1 run on Sunday while striking out 6 in 9 innings. Such a performance is not surprising at this point; it’s what Brown as done all season. So far on the season, Brown has allowed only 5 earned runs in 6 starts. He’s now thrown 37 innings across those 6 starts, striking out 40 and walking only 7. He’s been excellent.
But so has the Astros bullpen, which has allowed only 29 runs this season, which is tied for the 2nd lowest in the majors. The Astros have been keeping runs off the scoreboard when they turn to their bullpen.
Run prevention has been a team effort in the Astros bullpen. Four relievers have an ERA below 1.00 so far this season—Josh Hader, Steven Okert, Bennett Soura, and Forrest Whitely. Two addition bullpen arms have an ERA below 2.00—Ryan Gusto (in his innings before he was moved to the rotation) and Bryan King. There ae even two more who have an ERA below 3.00—Bryan Abreu and Logan Van Wey.
Put it together, and that is 8 relievers with ERAs under 3.00. The team has only had three pitchers post an ERA above that 3.00 mark, and one has already been traded—Rafael Montero—and one was sent to the minors—Luis Contreras.
Which Trend Will End Sooner?
So far, the combination of a struggling offense and an excellent defense has produced a winning record for the Astros. Well, a barely winning record. The Astros are one game above .500 at 14-13. Since the 27th game is one-sixth of the season, it’s pretty easy to calculate the team’s race—multiple 6 times the 14 wins, and the Astors are on track to win 84 games this season.
To get to the playoffs, the Astros will need to improve on the winning percentage they have shown so far this season. 84 wins is unlikely to get them to the playoffs. But the good news is they are well positioned to do so at 14-13 right now. They do not need to play much better to do that.
One certainly expects that the Astros will hit better over the remaining 135 games of the season. At some level, they can’t hit any worse. We saw some of the team’s potential for better offense yesterday when Alvarez and Diaz broke out of their personal slumps to hit home runs.
The bigger question to me is will the pitching and defense keep being one of the top units in baseball. Hunter Brown looks improved but is unlikely to have an ERA below 2.00 all season. The bullpen has gotten excellent performances from some major league journeymen and prospects with little pedigree. The Astros pitching development system has proven itself time and again and will have to do so again to keep the team at or near the top of the AL West.
For the first sixth of the season, the Astros have neither taken a strong position within the playoff chase nor have they dug a hole so deep they will be challenged to return to average. We’ll have to watch more baseball before we can really start making conclusions about the 2025 Astros.