The Astros have arrived at the kind of late-September moment nobody wants: a team meeting after getting swept at home, the division lead gone, and the margin for error basically erased. Houston dropped its final three home games to the Atlanta Braves, fell out of first place, and now sits one game behind the Texas Rangers in the AL West with six to play.
For most of the year, the Astros’ louder voices have been the usual suspects - Jeremy Pena, or Carlos Correa when he’s healthy enough to be part of the conversation. Yordan Alvarez has long been a leader in the room too, but he usually does it with his bat, not his voice. That changed Sunday night.
After the meeting, Alvarez explained what he told the team. “It was three slaps in the face that they gave us right in front of our fans,” Alvarez said, according to his translator.
"Use tomorrow to take it as a reset day of rest. The only thing left is to go out there and win the six games that we have left.”
That’s the tone Alvarez is trying to set now: urgent, direct, and stripped of excuses. The bigger question is whether the rest of the roster can match it.
The offense has been uneven for weeks. Ten of Houston’s 14 hitters are batting under .235 in September, and only three players have posted on-base percentages above .315 during the month. In practice, the lineup has leaned heavily on Alvarez, Isaac Paredes and Yainer Diaz, with Diaz splitting time with Christian Vazquez.
The pitching side has been even rougher. The bullpen has unraveled, and the names tell the story.
AJ Blubaugh has given up runs in five of his last seven appearances, with nine earned runs allowed in six innings. Bryan Abreu has surrendered damaging home runs in two of his last four outings.
Bryan King’s season has gone sideways since July 10, when his ERA sat at 2.03; it’s now 5.40. Enyel De Los Santos allowed two earned runs in each of his last three outings before landing on the injured list.
Tatsuya Imai has become essentially unusable. Ronel Blanco has given up 25 earned runs in 31.1 innings since returning from Tommy John surgery, including five earned runs in 4.1 innings on September 13, his last appearance.
Blanco, like Imai, is still on the roster even though neither has been a real option.
Alvarez has every reason to push harder than most. He’s in the middle of an MVP-caliber season, and he’s not interested in watching Houston’s year unravel the way last season did, when he was on the injured list and unable to do anything about it.
Now he’s trying to drag the group through one more week, with the division and a postseason spot still there to be won. The only issue is whether the team has enough left to answer him.
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