After another home stand that left them sitting at .500, the Houston Astros are back on the road for the final six games before the All-Star break, starting with a trip to Washington to face the Nationals. Houston enters the night 2.5 games back in the AL West and riding a two-game winning streak, with the club suddenly looking a lot more like the team that can make a push before the break.
The numbers over the last stretch back that up. According to Adam Wexler of SportsTalk 790 on X (formerly Twitter), the Astros are 25-16 over their last 41 games, the best record in the American League over that span by 1.5 games. During that run, Houston has also led MLB in home runs, ranked eighth in OPS, and sat 14th in team batting average.
A big reason for that surge has been Yordan Alvarez, who is heading to the All-Star Game as the AL’s starting designated hitter. He’s coming off a huge home stand, winning player of the home stand after hitting .435 with four home runs, 11 RBIs, and a 1.418 OPS.
Manager Joe Espada’s lineup against the Nationals has Jose Altuve leading off at second base, followed by Alvarez at DH, Isaac Paredes at third, Christian Walker at first, LaMonte Wade Jr. in left, Cam Smith in right, Yainer Diaz catching, Braden Shewmake at shortstop, and Brice Matthews in center field.
Shewmake is back from the injured list and will play his first game since May 30 against the Milwaukee Brewers. In 28 games this season, he’s hit .243 with three home runs and eight RBIs.
To make room for Shewmake, the Astros optioned Raynel Delgado to Triple-A, according to Chandler Rome of The Athletic. Delgado was batting .267 with one home run and four RBIs in 16 games.
Wade is still searching for his first hit since returning from the injured list. He’s 0-for-6 with three strikeouts in two games, though that quiet stretch didn’t stop Houston from taking the series against the Tampa Bay Rays. Even so, the Astros will want his bat to wake up before the break.
On the mound, Mike Burrows gets the start after making two appearances since rejoining the rotation. Houston has won both of those starts, and Burrows has logged 11 innings with a 4.09 ERA, six strikeouts and three walks across them.
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For Dana Brown, the challenge is balancing urgency with leverage. Houston wants rotation help and bullpen stability, but the club also has to decide which veterans and controllable pieces are most useful as trade currency, and which ones are too important to touch. The picture is still fluid, with several candidates drawing interest for different reasons and the final call likely to come down to how aggressively the Astros want to reshape the roster before the deadline. [Read more 🡒]
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For Astros fans, though, the more immediate reflection is on the difficult final chapter of his time in Houston, when injuries and decline made his departure feel less like a clean break than the closing of a painful book. Verlanders place in baseball history is secure, but his return to the spotlight has a way of reopening old questions about how that ending unfolded and what it meant for a team that once leaned on him as its ace. [Read more 🡒]
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The bigger concern for opponents is how complete the threat has become. Wood leads the majors in runs scored and is tracking toward a rare power-speed season for a player his age, the kind of profile that can change an inning before a lineup has fully settled in. Against Houston, he added to a stretch that has already made him hard to miss. [Read more 🡒]