Going into a key series with the Mariners this weekend, the Astros are 6-7, with a +1 run differential. After sweeping Boston, they have lost five of their last six games to weak sisters, the As and Rockies, who just swept the Astros.
Their opponent this weekend, last year’s AL West champs, is struggling even worse, currently with a 4-9 record in last place.
The Astros have so far confounded predictions of weak hitting and strong pitching. So far, they are crushing the ball, and getting crushed in return. Here are a few fun and not-so-fun facts about the Astros in this young season. Of course, all that follows is subject to the standard small sample size limitations.
Fun Fact: The Astros lead the league in runs scored with 79, four more than the second-place Dodgers.
Not-so-Fun Fact: The Astros lead the league in runs allowed with 78, tied with the Washington Nationals.
Fun Fact: The Astros are first in the AL in OPS at .824.
Not-so-Fun Fact: The Astros are worst in the AL in ERA at 6.05.
Fun Fact: The Astros lead the AL in home runs with 16
Not-so-Fun Fact: The Astros lead the AL in home runs allowed with 20.
Fun Fact: The Astros lead MLB in walks with 67. Last year, they were near the bottom in this category
Not-so-Fun-Fact: The Astros are second-to-last in the AL in walks allowed and WHIP. (70 and 1.63, respectively)
Fun Fact: Yordan Alvarez leads the AL in OPS, walks, and is second in home runs. (1.183, 13, 4)
Not-so-Fun Fact: Yainer Diaz is second-worst in MLB in OPS among catchers ahead of only – wait for it– Cal Raleigh. He is dead last in fWAR at -0.1.
Fun Fact: The Astros lead the league with three players currently hitting above OPS 1.000, Alvarez, Jose Altuve, and Christian Walker.
Not-so-Fun Fact: Astros closer Bryan Abreu is second-worst in fWAR among relievers at -0.5 in just 3.2 innings in five appearances. He is 280th out of 285 in ERA and 277th in xERA.
Fun Fact: Much to our surprise, the Astros are second in the AL in outfielder fWAR, at 1.2.
Not-so Fun Fact: Last year’s All-Star shortstop, Jeremy Pena, ranks 27th in fWAR out of 30 qualifying shortstops at 0.1. Number two in MLB is Astros cast-off, Mauricio Dubon.
Fun Fact: Jose Altuve is second in MLB in walks with 12. He did not reach 12 until May 15th last year, his 42nd game. His current wRC+ is 204, more than twice as good as league average at 36 years old.
Not-so-Fun-Fact: The Astros bullpen has the worst ERA in baseball at 7.09, more than a run worse than #2. They have also surrendered the most walks and have the highest WHIP.
Fun Fact: Christian Walker is second among AL first basemen in OPS at 1.040. He leads first basemen in RBI with 13.
Not-so-Fun-Fact: The Astros’ two new starters, Mike Burrows and Tatusya Imai, have a combined ERA of 5.18. Hardly worthy replacements for Framber Valdez and the now-injured Hunter Brown.
Fun Fact: The Mariners are 30th in team OPS at .581. But they are second in the AL in team ERA at 2.62. It looks like their pitching against Astros hitting is classic, immovable object meets irresistible force. On the other hand, their hitting against Astros pitching looks puny force against round object.
Prediction: Mariners end hitting slump whereas the Astros bats look to be cooling off. Mariners take three out of four
If the mariners end their hitting slump, why can’t we end our pitching slump?
I’m going series split.
Because our pitchers aren’t very good whereas their hitters are are underperforming by career standards.
Burrows and Imai have pitched better than their ERAs so far this season. I think we get 3 QS this series and win 2 of them.
Alot of people have said the Astros pitching can turn it around, but like what is that based off of? Who knows how long Imai is going to take to adjust completely, Burrows is a ticking time bomb after 95 IP(hes never pitched more than 95 innings in the MLB. Lance is Lance who seems to possibly only be good at home again. He will pitch at Seattle in a couple days so we will see how that goes. Anything after that is just question marks. Spencer was atrocious last year and nothing special so far. JP, Gordon ceiling is like 5 era lol. Alexander the only one I actually like and hes not even with the team currently
“the slump” is only really with the BP
Starters are pitching normal as far as we know
I didn’t have HB going down before LMJ on my bingo card.
Can we get the team ERA to a 4.28 for the year? If we can, and our bats show the offense they had going, we could win deep in October. That’s the same era as the 2023 Rangers
considering the pitching matchups are
Imai 4.32 vs Hancock 0.71
road LMJ 6.75 vs Castillo 2.79
TBD vs Gilbert 5.40
Burrows 5.63 vs Kirby 3.60
Im going to err on the side of optimism and predict 1-3 with the only game we win is game 3
If we score 6 runs a game, we should be good to go.
is it sad I think our best chance to get a win this series is with a pitcher they havent determined yet 😂
Is France coming up for pen bolstering as long relief? Seems early to call him up to start Sunday.
I read on X that he wasnt even stretched out to be long relief. which it didnt make sense to me if they just called him up to be a strict reliever.