The Houston Astros’ problem goes way beyond waiting for Yordan Álvarez to come back.
That’s the uncomfortable truth buried in their recent stretch. Since their last victory with at least 10 runs came on Aug. 14 against the Seattle Mariners - a 10-7 win in the first game of that home series - Houston has stumbled through a run of uneven offense, and the numbers have gotten uglier by the week. The Astros are 13-14 since then, and in 11 of those 13 losses, they’ve scored three runs or fewer.
The bigger issue is how they’re making contact. Houston leads MLB in Soft% at 18.1% and IFFB% at 15.4%, while dropping to 25th in Hard% at 32.6%, according to Statcast.
That pile of weak contact has helped drag the lineup to a .230/.295/.397 line with a 92 wRC+ over this stretch. Pitching has had its own share of issues, but the offense simply hasn’t done enough to carry its weight.
Even before losing again Saturday night to the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field, the Astros had gone 15-15 over their last 30 games and 11-9 over their last 20. After a 3-2 defeat that wasted a quality start from Peter Lambert, who worked six innings of three-run ball with four strikeouts and no walks, Houston fell to 15-16 in one-run games.
The team’s best run of the season came in late July and early August, when it ripped off six straight wins across back-to-back sweeps. That stretch started on the road against the Los Angeles Angels and continued at home with a convincing series over the Texas Rangers.
Houston left that series up 2.5 games on Texas. Thirty-six games later, the gap has shrunk to just two games, with the Rangers sitting at 73-76.
If there has been one steady source of offense during this slide, it has been Isaac Paredes. On Friday, he went 1-for-4 with a double, and on Saturday he got Houston on the board with a solo homer in the first inning off left-hander Ian Seymour.
It was Paredes’ 20th home run, giving him 20-plus in back-to-back seasons and in four of his seven major league seasons. He has also piled up 83 RBIs in 40 more games than he played last year, and every one of his 122 MLB home runs has been pulled.
Yordan Álvarez, meanwhile, has cooled off after his Triple Crown pace and now has just three home runs in his last 107 plate appearances, along with a .253/.383/.437 slash line. Even so, Paredes has driven the Astros with 21 RBIs over the last 27 games.
He hasn’t been alone, either. Yainer Diaz has been Houston’s most productive hitter by wRC+ at 160, while Christian Walker has 13 RBIs, Daulton Varsho has 11, and Cam Smith has 10.
Still, the Astros arrived in Tampa without Yordan, who has been sidelined with discomfort since twisting his right ankle while running the bases last Thursday in Philadelphia, and the lineup has not produced enough to win even when the pitching has held up.
Strikeouts have only made the problem worse. Houston has struck out at least 10 times in six of its last 11 games, including three of the last four - two against Philadelphia and Saturday’s game, when Astros hitters fanned 14 times.
They did win those two games in Philadelphia behind strong pitching, but the broader trend is hard to ignore. In games where Houston has struck out at least 10 times, it is 15-31. Only three teams have been above .500 in those games: the Milwaukee Brewers at 30-20, the Los Angeles Dodgers at 24-16, and the Atlanta Braves at 27-23.
With 13 games left, nothing is settled yet. Houston still has time to win the division, but it will take more than Yordan Álvarez’s return. The Astros have to clean up the contact, stop giving away outs, and get the offense back to something far more dangerous than it has been lately.
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The timing matters because the Astros are still sitting atop the AL West, and there is only a limited window left to sort out how Correa would fit back into the mix. Espada said the team may consider positional adjustments if Correa does return, which adds another layer to a stretch run that already has little margin for error. For Houston, the question is no longer whether the idea is realistic, but how quickly the team can make it work. [Read more 🡒]