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Astros 2024: The offense is wimping out

The Astros expended a lot of energy and had quite a bit of good fortune (they were chasing the equally inept Mariners) while getting back into the AL West pennant race. But lately their failures have revolved around an unexpected area of the team.

The starting pitching has been surprisingly good, considering it has consisted of one guy who was supposed to be good (Framber Valdez), one guy who was below average last year (Hunter Brown), two guys who were not on the radar last year (Ronel Blanco and Spencer Arrighetti) and one guy who was not on the radar this year (Jake Bloss – now replaced by Yusei Kikuchi). They’ve had two or three games where they were out of it in the last 20 games, but in general, they have performed admirably.

The bullpen, which is on the verge of fraying from overuse, has been solid despite Bryan Abreu (T-1st), Josh Hader (T-15th), Tayler Scott (T-19th), and Ryan Pressly (T-30th) all being in the top 30 in appearances in the AL.

But that hitting, especially the run scoring, has been bad. They have gone 7-11 since July 13, and in those 11 losses, they have scored – 1,2,4,0, 2,2,3,2,1,0, and 3 (in extra innings).

What has been happening? Well, let’s look at how some of our favorites have been doing.

  • Kyle Tucker—the famous Blutarsky 0.0—has not played since June 3, and doesn’t that feel like a year ago right now?
  • Jose Altuve—Since July 13, his BA has been a solid .283, but he has 0 HRs and 3 RBIs in his last 71 ABs. But has anyone actually been getting on at the end of the lineup for him to drive in?
  • Alex Bregman—He’s only been hitting .206 since July 13. In his last 73 ABs, he has had 3 HRs, all solo, and 5 RBIs.
  • Yordan Alvarez—Like Altuve, he has a solid .288 BA since July 13, but he has only 1 HR and 3 RBIs (two of them coming from that 1 HR) in his last 66 ABs.
  • Jeremy Pena – Has a surprising 9 RBIs since July 13 – along with a decent .269 BA and a couple homers. Of course, he had two RBIs Monday night on a tiny little dribbler and then on a hit-by-pitch, so there might be a bit of luck going on here.
  • Jon Singleton—Since July 13, he has hit a lowly .190 BA but has 2 HRs and 5 RBIs.
  • Jake Meyers – Similar to Singleton he is hitting .180 with 2 HRs and 5 RBIs since July 13.
  • Mauricio Dubon – He has only 32 ABs since July 13 and has not earned that much as he is hitting a Maldy-esque .094 BA with 1 HR and 3 RBIs.
  • Chas McCormick – In 27 ABs, Chas is hitting .222 BA with 1 HR and 2 RBIs. Ouch.
  • Victor Caratini – After coming off the IL, Victor has had 18 ABs and is hitting a robust (small sample) .333 BA with 1 HR and 2 RBIs.
  • Joey Loperfido – Joey is long gone, but between July 13 and the trade, he hit .140 with 0 HRs and 2 RBIs.
  • Trey Cabbage – It is only 18 ABs, but he has had barely more of a pulse than KTuck since July 13, hitting .111 with 0 HRs and 0 RBIs.
  • Yainer Diaz – We left the crown jewel for last as in 68 ABs, Yainer has hit .338 BA with 3 HRs and 11 RBIs. He carried what offense there was during this time period.

I skipped Aledmys Diaz and Pedro Leon due to small samples, but those small samples sucked too.

Needless to say (but I will say it anyway), the Astros’ offense has been the reverse of synergy; they are less than the sum of their parts. (Where is my sarcasm font?)

So, any thoughts out there? This made me a little nauseous researching and typing it.

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38 responses to “Astros 2024: The offense is wimping out”

  1. I’m curious about why you chose July 13 as the cutoff date in your statistical analysis, Dan. Not that I’m contesting it. Just curious.

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    • Decent question TOF.

      They had just closed the gap to 1 game back after winning 4 in a row. And then they started losing – I think 5 out of 7 – though the M’s were still playing bad enough that they caught them.

      I felt like it represented when they started losing more than winning and it was due to lack of offense.

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  2. About last night’s game… the fact that Espada put Hader in during the bottom of the ninth in a tie game solidified my fussing about that. After the Astros went ahead in the tenth, Espada had to bring in gas can Ferguson to pitch, instead of the CLOSER and Ferguson blew the game. Poor decision making by Espada.

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  3. Well, we have too many guys playing that are historically not very good hitters in the first place. We know who they are.

    We have Chas who is my biggest disappointment. After three pretty steady years, and a 2023 season when he really broke out, it’s like he’s forgotten everything he finally figured out.

    Bregman is still battling his slow start. I don’t know where the smiley face emoji is, otherwise I’d use it here.

    Pena is a tease.

    Singleton should have been replaced months ago.

    We’ve talked about this before and 1OP mentioned it earlier today. This club has no plate discipline. Even Bregman has lost his. The successful Astro teams of the past 8 plus years have historically been patient hitters that have run up pitch counts instead of making it easy on starting pitching and getting to suspect bullpens early.

    And last, we sure have not made any kind of an effort from the dugout in an attempt to manufacture runs during this slump.

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  4. So how sure are we that this isn’t really the transgendered women’s team from Lower Slobovia pretending to be the Astros?

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  5. Just tuned in to see Framber 1 out from a No-No but gives up a 2 run shot. Hader comers in and walks the first batter and gets the final out on a fly ball to the rt field wall. Yes it was a win but it’s never easy and we almost found a way to lose it.

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  6. Good morning! An excellent, almost essential win. Framber was at his quintessential best, even playing his position like a Gold Glove candidate. Can Bregman build on his last two games? Corey Seager should be walked.

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  7. Lots of thoughts here today

    • TOF – I’d totally forgotten that July 13th was the day of the assassination attempt – high coincidence there
    • Framber did what an ace does – he grabbed the Rangers by the throat and strangled them for 8.2 innings – I just think he had run out of steam at the end and Seager took advantage. Still it was a great start including a couple really fine fielding plays by Mr. Valdez
    • Yordan must have read this post yesterday and got hacked off and put one out.
    • Overall, the offense was again a series of frustrating innings. They lucked out with a couple bloops for the first run in the 4th and then thanks to Pena’s tremendous speed – he kept out of what looked like a sure double play and then scored easily on Meyers’ second two out run scoring single.
    • It feels to Dan like they are about to bust out. That would be nice.
    • I don’t understand this swing early deal. Yes, you should do it sometimes to keep the pitcher’s off balance – they should not think they can throw one down the middle on the first pitch and always get a strike. But I agree the team used to wear down the opposing pitcher. Now it needs to be said that the pitchers are not afraid of the last half of our lineup – kind of like back in 2015/2016. Singelton, Pena, Meyers, Chas, Dubon, and rookie du jour are not scary. Even the guys hitting for OK average are not scary and all of them are slumping right now.

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    • Yordan must have read this post yesterday and got hacked off and put one out.

      I think Crane, Brown, and Espada need to read this blog.

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  8. Keeping with the theme, a few sobering season stats from Jose Altuve.

    Exit velocity. 12% percentile.

    Hard hit. 12% percentile.

    Bat speed. 14th percentile.

    Chase rate. 8% percentile.

    He was a different hitter last year. The .915 OPS and the .393 OBP were two of the better such stats of his career. I have a hard time accepting that his decline might be so sudden. Rather he’s different hitter in 2024. He’s letting pitchers dictate to him instead of getting ahead in the count and waiting on better pitches to drive. On the flip side, he’s on pace to end the season with more hits than in any season since 2017. Is he already focusing on that 3000 number to the detriment of his overall stats?

    Range is 12%

    Arm is 8%

    We’re going to have to live with that. Ideally we find a more rangy first baseman going forward. But more importantly, we need a more disciplined Jose Altuve, the guy that works counts and uses the Crawford Boxes and keeps the OPS up.

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    • Dave – to be fair to Jose, his career norms are pretty much in those ranges. He has never been a high EV guy, always below league average. Most of his homeruns are pull pop flies into the crawfords. His career EV is 86.3, this year 85.1, so while a little concerning its still in line with the last 3 years of 85.4.

      If I was going to be concerned about something, it would be that chase rate. His walk percentage is down fairly significantly, his K rate is up slightly, and when you see that, there is usually a following season of decline before a season that goes off the rails. Not saying that will happen, just saying its a pattern in major league hitters across the board. But he has spent his entire career not being a guy that followed MLB averages. Have to hope that he can give us at least 4 of these next 6 at a star level of play and doesn’t limp into the finish line chasing 3000.

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      • Steven, I looked back at Jose’s stats today. And indeed, he’s never been a high velocity/hard hit guy. But yeah, the chasing is not helping. He’s getting less patient. I thought we were supposed to get more patient as we age. One thing that surprised me a bit. He’s lost a fair amount of his running speed at the age of 34. But again, we can live with that if he keeps getting on base.

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  10. Snitker/Cintron are 6 yrs coaching this lineup I believe. How much of this decline can be laid on their shoulders? Don’t paid professional athletes have to motivate themselves as well to improve? Some guys are just stuck, an incremental improvement here and there, but what you see is what you get, i.e. Pena. His speed is the only thing assisting him hitting all those weak infield grounders with the bases juiced, a cancer that has metastasized up & down this lineup.

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  11. Some bozo posted the Stros should pay Bregman $210 mil for 7 yrs. I laughed. His decline at 30 is palpable. Let another tm pay for his months long stalls and uppercut pop outs. He is still better than others at his position but not for the $ and yrs he desires.

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  12. Pena is such an punk. Can’t hit the ball out of the infield. Oughta be on the transgender olympic team. Is he really the best shortstop they could find? Sheesh……

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  14. Good win. 13 hits, while not very efficient, it’s a bit of an awakening hopefully. Dan, I hope you’re right. And enough pitching to get through 9 busy innings of Rangers on the bases.

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  15. The fandom criticism is justified, but just when you’re about to count them out they do a quick bounce back. The Ranger/Mariners seasonal play thus far makes the West winnable but our lineup construction does not instill much confidence in me. It’s a crap shoot the rest of the way.

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    • Good morning! 1OP, you were up late. First place indeed. Astros 2-0 with our new guy Kikuchi taking the bump. He does scare me though. Lot’s of pitches with all those strike outs and a few walks thrown in there. Between him and Verlander, we might have a couple of 5 inning guys. But that’s 10 more innings a week than we had prior to last week. We’ll see how that works out.

      .352/.432/.668/1.100

      Those are Yordan’s road stats. If he does not get walked every time up in Boston, he might just carry the team to another series win. I don’t think our friend Alex Cora is going to let him get too comfortable at the plate either. It’s going to be an intense series to watch. Hopefully a couple of our non-hitters will step up with big at bats when they really count.

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  17. Thoughts

    • Mr. Dezenzo had the best hitting game at 1st base maybe all season. Two bullets for a double and a single. Another liner to the outfield that was caught. And a clutch walk that led to his second run scored of the game.
    • If Kikuchi gives us that every time out, we will take it over what the alternate had been. 6 innings would be nice, but he did not quite get there.
    • Tayler Scott looking human a bit.
    • Yordan on the road….who can explain that? That was an insanely low line drive (18 degree launch angle at 117 mph!) to carry over 410 ft.
    • Pressly is driving me crazy even if I’m just listening to it on the radio driving home from work. Really, it is letting the leadoff guy on almost every time out. The little infield dribbler was just bad luck.
    • Hader came in and shut the door. Good.
    • On June 4th, Yainer Diaz after 201 ABs had a .249 batting average. Yesterday his 3 hits pulled that up to the magic .300 level. That’s a .352 BA over more that 2 months.

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    • Yainer is a special talent. He is never going to win any OBP titles but his bat-to-ball is rival to current day Altuve – probably not 25 year old Altuve but heck who is. He is my new dude. Has been since even before his debut.

      I’m on record that the Kikuchi trade is not one I would have made – but his 2 starts alone so far outweigh the contribution we would have gotten from any of three in this moment. Time will tell on all 3 but you can’t be mad at Kikuchi about it – he is an aggressive pitcher. Got to root for a guy like that.

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  18. glad for yesterday’s “W”. The top of the order was good and Yainer continues to be a clutch guy. I’m still not on the Pressly train. He never seems to be able to pitch a clean inning. Thus, I’d like to see Abreu in the 8th. It’s so predictable as we get to those last 3 innings, Abreu, Pressly, Hader. That doesn’t seem to spread fear in the opposing hitters. In fact they might be looking forward to it. Need to win in Beantown this weekend.

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  21. Steve quips –

    Singleton isn’t playing because they want him. He is playing because they don’t have a choice. Yes, there will be times he doesn’t scoop one, clogs the bases on a gapper, strikes out with the bases loaded, or generally doesn’t contribute to the offense for a week before drawing two walks. But he isn’t the guy that is supposed to be there right now. Getting something from him occasionally while living with the warts is better than Abreu. Maybe in the offseason they can address it but I don’t know their internal spending plan.

    The roster is full of mediocre talents playing too much, it’s not just Singleton. There is 4 and a half everyday players – I call Pena half because he is an everyday talent, good baserunner, fast, good defender, and offensively passable but he is no number 5 hitter. Meyers may get a fourth with his defense and occasional offensive moment, but really, he is a .230 guy with limited power and no strike zone recognition. Every time Trey Cabbage bats I just take a break and start playing candy crush. Chas just never got a chance to get going, and it doesn’t look like it will happen this year.

    No matter how frustrating a loss is when you know the offense could have pulled it out, its still about the pitching. Even good offensive teams get beat 3-2 sometimes. Its very rare indeed you win a game that the pitching stunk in. Our pitching has been over their heads for two months now; they are the reason we are here, and while Kikuchi does at least appear to be a cavalry type, getting JV back is crucial. Its unfortunate but we aren’t going to see LMJ and likely won’t see Garcia, but maybe they can focus up and show up for camp ready to go. In the immediate getting JV back and turning it into a 6 man rotation will put that extra day of rest in between starts for Hunter and Blanco, 2 of the 3 workhorses we have had that need it.

    I know he can be frustrating at times with his headspace, and the occasional poor defensive decision, but this team would be stuck in a ditch somewhere without Framber.

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    • How are you following the games this year? Gamecast on ESPN? Using the equivalent feature on MLB app? I’ve found the updates to have extreme delays and sometimes come out of order … it’s very frustrating. It’s even worse when you have an at bat for Cabbage or Meyers represented as if it took 5 minutes with the bases loaded only to find out they actually made an out on the first pitch.

      Anyhow, your Singleton analysis reminds me of the great Roberto Petagine. He came up in our system and was a solid, but unspectacular minor leaguer. Some of the stat guys used to champion his cause as a guy who could deliver if just given a chance, but he never really produced in his limited big league action. He finished his career with a .225 / .345 / .377 slash line and an amazing 0.0 WAR. While Singleton still has a negative WAR for his career, his .232 / .316 / .355 this year is good for a 0.2 WAR somehow.

      The more I look at our outfield without Tucker and the rotation on the shelf, the more I’m willing to accept the Kikuchi trade was necessary. I still maintain if Brown doesn’t make a serious run at keeping him in Houston this winter the price was too much.

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      • I live in the Braves media area, so I have MLB subscription and have no issues. Only games blacked out for me was the Braves series or if its on Apple TV, which I also have. But I definitely feel you on the “it took us forever to get there” and then someone pops up on the first pitch. That’s been an Astros calling card all season.

        I agree, the price was too much. To me, its regardless if he pursues Kikuchi or not in the offseason, the only advantage you might have is if he gets settled in and his family enjoys it, you got a leg up, but he could have simply pursued him in the offseason. Realistically he would seem like a Houston target, late/mid 30s guy with a track record of being available (no long IL stints) and shouldn’t kill you contract wise. Those don’t always work out (like Abreu) but Abreu’s contract isn’t a franchise killer. It’s inconvenient, but it doesn’t mean they can’t address 1B in the offseason or find another pitcher.

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  22. This is an entertaining game. Blanco battled, but he’s gassed. I’d like to see them figure out a way to give him a couple of weeks off. We need 6 big outs from the back of the pen. A couple of more runs by the Astros might be helpful too.

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  24. Good morning! We got seven hits from guys that have not been hitting; Singleton, Jake and Pena. And we got five innings from the pen, just 2 hits and a soggy run. It sure was not easy though. We provided them with 8 free passes on the night.

    I’d rather see Leon out there in right with Frenchie flailing at anything and everything. Hopefully Caratini too. Looks like a bullpen game for the Sox. Arrrighetti needs to provide at least five innings. I think the Boston guys will come out swinging today.

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  25. Dan, since you insulted our sluggers for whimping out, they’ve kind of come alive. Maybe next you insult our 90 million man for throwing home runs in non-save situations, or Joe Espada for using 90 million man in non save situations. It might work.

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  28. After using seven pitchers last night, Arrighetti’s remarkable effort was really timely. Fun game to watch. I hope they find Dezenzo’s home run ball.

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