Astros’ 2026: So much change

I did not have the heart to write this during the Astros gut-wrenching road trip, but now that they had a gut-wrenching win at home, let’s talk about THAT road trip.

  • The Astros left 5-2 and a half game up on the AL West division
  • The Astros returned 6-11 and 3-1/2 games back of the Rangers in the ALW
  • The Astros left with 5 healthy starting pitchers
  • The Astros returned with Hunter Brown, Cristian Javier and Tatsuya Imai all on the IL
  • The Astros left with a healthy CF and SS
  • The Astros returned with Jake Meyers and Jeremy Pena on the IL
  • The Astros left with their starters having pitched between 4.2 innings and 7 innings in six of the seven games
  • The Astros returned with their starters, only pitching more than 4.2 innings in three of the 10 road games. This included starts of 1/3 of an inning, 1 inning, and an inning.
  • The Astros left with Hunter Brown as their #1 starter.
  • The Astros returned with…….Lance McCullers?? as their #1 starter??
  • The Astros left thinking they had a Rookie of the Year candidate in Imai.
  • The Astros returned thinking they had a soft whiner of a big-time free agent.

Astros Prized Free Agent Tatsuya Imai Struggling to Adjust to MLB Lifestyle

  • The Astros left with their fans fairly enthused amid their 5-game winning streak at home.
  • The Astro returned with their fans talking more about the Masters tournament, the upcoming Rockets playoff or the Texans upcoming draft.

The 1-9 road trip was about as bad as could be imagined. They went 1-5 against two teams (Rockies and A’s) who they would expect to handle easily. They lost 4 straight to the team who may end up at the top of the division, the Mariners.

They lost 8 straight games, a streak they hadn’t endured in 13 seasons.

Note – 13 seasons ago, the Astros lost the last 15 games of the season to end up 51-111 – their worst record in club history. The Astros had eight losing streaks of at least 5 games that season.

On a positive note, after all that badness, the Astros 7-6 squeak-by on Tuesday night put them only 2-1/2 games back in the AL West. Spencer Arrighetti who had been pitching very well at AAA starts Wednesday night. That rascal TBD will pick up after that.

Carlos Correa said they should not blame everything on injuries and just need to play better. That is the correct attitude even if they would be perfectly within their rights to curse the injury gods.

What happens next? Hang on it is going to be a bumpy ride.

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13 responses to “Astros’ 2026: So much change”

  1. You’ve got to wonder what degree of due diligence the Astros went through with Imai prior to committing those 54 million dollars. A baseball so different from our own version that has impacted his ability to throw it? More concerning though, it sounds at least partially like a head case issue. When the Imai deal got done, I wondered why there did not seem to be a whole lot of competition for the guy.

    And athletes play all over the world these days. Did anyone from the Astros spend significant time with the guy? Houston is a diverse city. Maybe he’s just not a diverse guy.

    Has he said after any of his outings that he pretty much sucked out there, no excuses?

    If Dana Brown did not think Hunter Brown airing it out early was a bad idea, then why didn’t the GM intercede? Why didn’t the GM make sure there was a strict cap on a lower number of pitches Hunter would throw on opening day? Every other team in MLB managed to keep their guys under 100.

    Dana seems to be a great delegator. Or is he’d simply not a detail guy? For I guy on thin ice, he does not seem to be trying to keep a job.

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  2. Should it not be time to bring up Miguel Ullola, who has very good “stuff”. His control is a little better and would be a definite step up from Colton Gordan, who seems to me very hittable and a gopher ball waiting to happen. Last night, Brice Mathews seemed very overmatched at the plate. To me his contact skills need to be dealt with in the minors. Trammel should have the time right now. Our part time catcher seems to me that he might should be moved ahead of Diaz.

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    • All good ideas Larry – only draw back – I thought I heard Ullola had some type of injury he was working through.

      Oh the other drawback – they rarely do what we want to see.

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    • Ullola still isn’t throwing strikes. I would argue that’s not what the Astros need. I wouldn’t expect him to get out of the 4th inning routinely much less the 5th inning. But man has stuff.

      Last night the Astros got the shot in the arm they needed. I don’t think we would see that from Miguel YET. Let’s go back and see what his BB/9 looks like in July, maybe a second half call up. Until he can get it below 4 though I wouldn’t expect it’s going to get better in the bigs.

      Spencer had 3.8 BB/9 in SL. I would find it hard to believe that he will repeat last nights performance pitching like he did last night. He had them really fooled all night long on that low and outside curve. It’s like the Rockies were just batting Yainer 9 times over and over. We won’t get that fortunate in his next start. Now, just because he was throwing curves out of the zone all night doesn’t mean he throws curves out of the zone – he may have just figured out early thats what they will go after. He just has a history of bouts of wildness.

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    • I was briefly watching when Spencer loaded the bases with a 3-1 lead in the fourth. There was a hbp, an error, and a walk. What I found significant is that the Astros won two ABS challenges that inning including strike three for the third out. The first one hardly mattered as I think the batter walked. The second one might have been inconsequential given it was an 0-2 pitch…but you never know. Great job by Spencer last night. We’ve certainly seen some games unravel in those situations and it would have been terrible for that to happen and waste his effort.

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  3. Hey daveb – I see you had a long message yesterday – how is your battle with pneumonia going – still out on the islands or back to the main land?

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    • Hi Dan, trying to get home. Methodist is ready to receive me. I’m not doing very well. The issue now is Med Jet. They are very challenging to work with.

      I’ve got good people working on my behalf, including my retired lawyer brother who needs a good fight.

      I’m coming back because I’m just not getting better. Really need to get settled in a hospital that has all the tools not available here.

      Big lift from Arrighetti last night. Can he be that pitcher regularly?

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      • I understand dave – praying for you and your brother.

        I have more confidence that Spencer can do this on a fairly consistent basis than I do for Lance or (if he comes back) Javier. Reading between the lines I think Arrighetti was shocked he did not make the team out of spring training and hopefully he will really concentrate on his control issues because he doesn’t want to go back to the minors.

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  4. I’m just spitballing here. And 3yr, 54Mish is quite a commitment.

    But should the Astros consider taking Yoshida off the Red Sox hands? What if you send them Paredes and get them to give you Early by taking on Yoshida? They still don’t have a reliable lefty in the pen. What if its Okert and Paredes for Early, Yoshida and getting Boston to eat some of the salary of Yoshida, say the difference between what Paredes is owed and Yoshida?

    You bring another Japanese player into the fold, he becomes a guy that can just split DH/LF time with Yordan, you still have plenty of right handed options to put in LF on days you sit Yoshida, and you give Imai a pal.

    Yoshida has had a pretty good start. He is drawing more walks than strikeouts early. He is getting on base. His bat to ball that he was famous for seems intact. And Casas is about to make that room extremely crowded as 6 guys will be trying to share ABs in 4 spots. And Mayer and Durbin are both starting to make Boston fans restless.

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  5. Thoughts after last night’s game…

    • Heading into last night’s game – the last time the Astros won when scoring 3 runs or less was last season (Sept. 10th)
    • This season the Astros had not won a game when scoring less than 6 runs until Wednesday
    • Along with giving the team a psychological boost about him and his future performances – Arrighetti hopefully gave the pitching staff a boost – maybe they won’t pitch stressed after watching him show how it is done
    • Really enjoyed watching Spencer – that curveball he was throwing was giving me flash backs to the best of McCullers. And he pitches with a bit more of an edge than some of the other guys.
    • Kudos to you if you picked Enyel De Los Santos as the team saves leader (2) after 19 games with Josh Hader on the IL
    • After his laser shot into the stands yesterday, Yordan has 7 home runs in 19 games. Last year he had 6 home runs in 48 games – which kind of backs up the assumption that he was playing hurt when he did play last year.
    • Before the game last night I was dissing on Nick Allen’s .188 BA and stinky OPS headed into the game to Chip via text. So, he immediately lines a sharp single and legs out a double in his first two ABs raising that average to a decent .263
    • Bryan Abreu looked the closest to Bryan Abreu in a long time – 1.1 IP – 1 walk, no hits, no runs, two Ks and the 3-1 lead preserved.
    • Cam Smith is continuing to throw out very nice at bats and his swing is looking classic.
    • Christian Walker in 2025 walked only 40 times and struck out a horrendous 177 times. YIE, but this season he has walked 9 times and struck out 11. That extrapolates to 77 walks and 94 Ks in 2026. If he can come close to that – it would be an unbelievable improvement and certainly would signal a much better 2026

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