It's very easy to get to first in your division when you have to play the Angels and Red Sox and your opponent has to play the Yankees.
I'm not ruling out the connotation that the Astros are a good team this year. The way the league works, any team can bounce back at any point, and the way the Astros organization is built, enough pieces can recover from an injury-lost year to make you forget it ever happened. This current Astros front office is so good at putting the exact correct people in position to succeed, and even if last year showed the limits of that [Jason Alexander, Brendan Rodgers, Jesus Sanchez], it's still completely attainable, and it prevents the Astros from ever being truly counted out, even if they're logically past their window.
However. Even in a team that has begun the season 5-3, and has sole position of first in the AL East, there are visible signs that not everything is as solid as usual. And I generally mean the pitching.
Right now, the Astros' rotation consists of Hunter Brown, off to a terrific start, Lance McCullers, finally putting the injury period behind him, Mike Burrows, doing basically what he did in Pittsburgh, Cristian Javier, who may not be completely recovered from his injuries, and Tatsuya Imai, who got absolutely lit up in his first start. The bullpen is without Josh Hader, Bryan Abreu is nowhere near as dominant as he was last year, and it's been up to guys like A.J. Blubaugh and Kai-Wei Teng to be the difference makers. The team ERA is currently 5.45. If the team wasn't hitting .259 that'd stand out more.
Now, normally you can chalk a rough Opening Day rotation up to a large shelf of injured pitchers. But now you have to remember that Framber Valdez, Jose Urquidy and Luis Garcia are all gone. The only actual injured starters at the moment are Ronel Blanco, Brandon Walter and Hayden Wesneski. One can assume that Spencer Arrighetti is rehabbing in the minors and that's why he's not up with the team, but it's ideally just those three. Meaning Mike Burrows is your #3 man not because purely of circumstance...but because he really is the third best starter they've got right now.
That really is gonna be what the question is this year: can the Astros truly compete without the luxury of having an elite pitching staff? Because the hitting, as it looks at the moment, won't be much of a concern. Yordan Alvarez is 100% back, his poor 2025 completely behind him, and he's hitting .400 with 3 homers and 7 RBIs already. Jose Altuve, Christian Walker and Carlos Correa are all hitting again. The contact game is a little weak but the idea is that it'll get there, especially considering Cam Smith and Jake Meyers are still factors. There is a possibility that the lineup depth this team sported could also be diluted as well, and it may be down to a more power-centric focus than they've had in years. But right now they're coasting on Alvarez's success and hoping they can build out the rest. And if not, this will come down to how long the pitching can last. Because as good as Hunter Brown has been, he, like every other young pitcher, is a ticking timebomb headed towards the potential for an injury. It happened to Cade Horton, it could happen here.
The Astros' strong first week or so illuminates that they still intend to compete, and they still have some great assets. Those flaws are also very much on display, and if they don't have a plan to work around them, they could miss out on the playoffs for the second year in a row. And as much as I'd love to see that, I know this team's way too good to just let that happen.
Coming Tonight: Dude struck out 10 in his debut with a new team, years after being essentially written off by the league. Is...is he BACK?
No comments:
Post a Comment