The Alvarez Injury Compounds the Bad News from a Bad Series
The 3 losses were bad. The McCullers setback was worse. The Yordan injury is even worse. But despite the bad news, I identify reasons for optimism.
The hits just keep on coming for the Astros.
On Monday, the hits came in the form of singles, doubles, and home runs. The Astros pounded out 19 hits, including 4 home runs on the way to an 11-4 win over the Blue Jays.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the hits came in losses, as the Astros offense went back into a shell and the team scored 3 runs while dropping a pair of games.
On Thursday, the hits took on different forms. The first was in not-unexpected news. During the day on Thursday, General Manager Dana Brown announced that Lance McCullers, who has been out all season with an arm injury, will undergo an MRI today. This prompted Chandler Rome to conclude that “Lance McCullers Jr.’s season is in limbo, if not in jeopardy.”
Another hit came with a loss, and one in which the team played particularly poorly. Jeremy Pena failed to run out a ground ball he could have reached on. Jose Abreu got backpicked off of 2nd base. Both out killed potential rallies in a one-run game.
And that wasn’t the worse hit. Slugger Yordan Alvarez suffered discomfort in his oblique while swinging the bat in the first inning. This afternoon, the Astros announced that they had placed Alvarez on the injured list.
“That’s a tough blow right there,” Baker said. “We just have to regroup and try to figure out how we’re going to win some ballgames and get through this.”
This Sucks
Or maybe it blows. I’m not really interested in a semantic discussion at this point.
The losses—which fit with the yearlong pattern of a middling offense working against the team’s excellent pitching—are of course unpleasant. The team was just one game off its 2022 pace before losing 4 out of the last 5. Now, they are at the same pace as the 2021 team.
And the injuries are worse. McCullers was penciled in as the #3 starter in the playoffs when he returned from the IL. Now, Hunter Brown moves to the #3 starter and Jose Urquidy is, at the moment, the #4 starter. If McCullers (or Urquidy) cannot come back, then starting pitcher becomes THE priority at the trade deadline.
The Alvarez injury is a big blow to the offense, for obvious reasons. Alvarez is credited with 18.4 adjusted batting runs, according to Baseball Reference. The next highest Astro is Kyle Tucker, who has been worth 5.4 batting runs. On a team whose offense has been mid-tier at best this season, losing its best hitter creates a great deal of difficulty.
And of course, the entire context for the frustration of Astros fans is their position in the division race—now 5 games behind the Rangers. The Rangers have started the season hot and thanks to a dominant offense, have the second best record in the AL so far this season.
In short, the Astros season has gotten worse over the last 3 days in a context where that really matter.
Reasons for Optimism
With all the pessimism of the last section, there are still lots of reasons for optimism for Astros fans about the 2023 season.
First of all, as noted above, the Astros have the same record after 63 games that they did in 2021 at 36-27. The 2021 team won 95 games and the current pace is 93 wins. The 2021 team played at essentially this same pace all season as the 2023 team.
There are good reasons to think that the Rangers will not hit as well as they have over the course of the season and will drop back from their torrid pace. The Rangers will not get Jacob de Grom back and do not have great options should another one of their starting pitchers goes down with an injury. In short, they are likely to come back to the pack.
And the Astros still have an outstanding pitching staff, even with their injuries. They lead the American League in the fewest runs allowed. The Alvarez injury means they will be even more of a pitching-first team.
Over the short term, the team will suffer greatly from losing Alvarez from the lineup. We do not have any information about his recovery, but because he went on the IL so quickly, it is likely he will be out for more than the minimum 10 days for his IL stint. The longer it goes, the worse it is for the Astros.
But with a strong bullpen and top of the rotation, the team can stay afloat during Alvarez’s absence. A hot streak from hitters who have been struggling—e.g. Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, Jose Abreu—would be really timely right now.
It was a bad three days. Let’s hope it doesn’t go any longer than that.