Astros 2025: What the heck?

It is no secret that your loyal scribe struggles with how to best document the 2025 version of the Astros.

Take Thursday for instance. It felt like the kind of game where the Astros would likely play distracted or even worse – flat.

One of their best starters from 2025, Ronel Blanco had just been put on the IL with a sore elbow, which around these parts is the immediate precursor to getting a second opinion, followed closely by Tommy John surgery.

Manager Joe Espada had just given an update on starting pitcher Spencer Arrighetti. The last we heard his broken finger(s) were healing fine and he was scheduled to return mid-May. But then mid-May passed with no update. And then Captain Joe gave an update Wednesday and Arrighetti is healing fine. However he is not actually gripping or throwing a baseball yet, but once he does he will need the equivalent of a Spring Training to get ready. So we should see him sometime around July.
Can anyone say Kyle Tucker?

And then Yordan Alvarez – truly one of the great hitters in the game (when well) still has pain when hitting off a tee or against soft toss.
He will be back when he is back.

On top of this they were coming off two disappointing losses in Tampa Bay. In the first the non-leverage part of the bullpen failed to fill the role of the leveraged part of the bullpen and urped up a late lead in Brandon Walter’s debut. In the second, Hunter Brown, who has been tremendous so far this year, struggled with his control, with the minor league dimensions of TB’s temporary stadium and a jet stream in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

Plus Thursday night the Mariners were welcoming back the excellent George Kirby to the rotation from the IL while the Astros were rolling out the consistently inconsistent Lance McCullers Jr.

The Astros seemed to be psychologically ready for the taking.

With the M’s taking an early 2-0 lead and with the Astros sporting an offense that at times is truly offensive, this seemed like a sure bet win for the Mariners, which could turn into a sweep and a chance to bury the Astros 7-1/2 games back by Sunday.
But it didn’t happen as the Astro pitching held the line and Jose Altuve, who had not hit a homer in 4 weeks hit two in consecutive innings to pull the Astros back within 2-1/2 games of the AL West leading M’s.

But now what?
For the balance of this four game series the matchups are to say the least intriguing.

• Friday it is up and down rookie Ryan Gusto (3-2, 4.65 ERA) for the Astros vs the very hittable Emerson Hancock (1-2, 6.21 ERA) for the Mariners
• Saturday it is the fast improving Framber Valdez (3-4, 3.57 ERA) against the excellent Bryan Woo (5-1, 2.65 ERA) for the visitors
• Sunday the hosts roll out Timothy B Dalton (AKA TBD) against veteran Luis Castillo (4-3, 3.20 ERA) for the M’s
• The Sunday TBD is likely down to two choices – Colton Gordon (0-0, 5.59) who followed a poor MLB debut with a good second outing or Brandon Walter (0-0, 0.00 ERA after his 5 innings of shutout ball in his debut. That is if their arms are still attached to their bodies and are not “sore”. I have to admit I have a bit of PTSD relative to pitchers right now.
  

If you said that by Sunday the Astros caught fire and completed the 4 game sweep to take a 1/2 game lead in the division. I could believe it. If you told me their bats turned into large cold popsicles and they lost three to fall 5-1/2 games back, I could easily buy that, too.

Right now anything is believable with this team. All I can say is “What the heck” and wait them out.