Thoughts About the Astros & Blue Jays After 6 Games
The Blue Jays look to be one of MLB's best teams this season, and our boys lost a bunch of one-run games to them. Where the team and the offense stands after this tough series.
The Astros lost a frustrating game to the Blue Jays earlier today. The Astros played the Blue Jays in 6 of their last 10 games, separated only by a 4 game road set in Arlington.
I don’t feel that I have a full narrative on the series in Toronto or the six games against the Blue Jays. But I have a set of thoughts, and rather than try to form them into a half-baked column, I figured I would list out a set of bullet points of my various thoughts based on watching 6 games of the Blue Jays facing off against the Astros.
I certainly liked it better when George Springer hit homers and made diving catches for, rather than against, the Astros.
The Astros outscored the Blue Jays 27-26 over the 6 games.
They played 5 one-run games against the Jays, and lost 4 of them.
Mostly, the results of one run games are luck. So we Astro fans shouldn’t read too much into losing so many of them to the Jays.
Overall, the Astros are 4-5 in one-run games, so they are 3-1 in one-run games against all other teams.
The Blue Jays look like a very good team so far (though they are now 9-2 in one-run games). So if the Astros are playing them even, it bodes well for the future.
Chandler Rome expressed the sentiments of many--we could see this series again in October.
That being said, the Astros lost these one-run games because they couldn't score enough runs.
The scored 8 and 11 in their 2 wins. And no more than 3 in all of their losses.
They entered Sunday at 10th as a team in the AL in runs scored, 10th in OBP, 8th in SLG and 8th in OPS.
The team is hitting worse than it should, both from a standpoint of the historical expectations of this set of players and expectations based on batted ball data. But even with that, the offense as a whole is is below where the offense was in 2021.
Yuli Gurriel had a career high 9.8% walk rate in 2021, and that was the key to his bounce back season. He has only walked twice this season, and has a 2.9% walk rate.
Kyle Tucker was slashing .224/.277/408 entering today, for a .685 OPS. But offense is down in major league baseball, so that is a 102 OPS+. That it, it is an above average OPS, accounting for park factors.
Altuve should be back tomorrow, which will help.
The team comes home for a 7 game home stand against the Mariners and Tigers. They have only played 6 home games so far this season, so getting back to Minute Maid will be helpful.