What are we looking at here?

There always seems to be a time in every baseball season when the fans, and perhaps the team itself, doubt the team’s identity and destination.

Folks may say, “Hey, we knew the 2017 team was exceptional and headed for greatness the whole time.”

I say bull hockey.

Float back in time to the 2017 trade deadline–the real trade deadline at the end of July. The fans and even some of the players (Dallas Keuchel specifically) were vocal about their disappointment with GM Jeff Luhnow’s inaction at the deadline. The team was struggling with injuries and depth issues in the pitching rotation and stumbled to a terrible 11-17 record in August, which left many folks shaken. But luckily, that season there was a second trade deadline where teams could trade players who had passed waivers, and the Astros were able to pick up OF Cameron Maybin in a blockbuster deal. Oh, and some pitcher named Justin Verlander.

This season, it is hard to figure out where this team is and where it is headed.

The Infield – In the off-season the infield was supposedly so deep with five starting players for four spots (Christian Walker, Carlos Correa, Jeremy Pena, Jose Altuve and Isaac Paredes) that they considered trading Paredes.

But basically, the team, with the exception of a handful of games at the beginning of the season has never had the five healthy at the same time.

• Jeremy Pena has only played in 13 of the team’s 51 games with his pulled hamstring.
• Before Pena’s return, Carlos Correa went down for the season with surgery on his broken ankle.
• Meanwhile, Jose Altuve went on the IL with an oblique strain right before Pena’s return and is likely out for a month or more.

If you are scoring at home, this means the best that could happen would be that Altuve returns from his injury and the Astros have the foursome for the rest of the season. But when is that going to happen and who is going to bet on them staying healthy?

The Outfield – This was the Astros’ weak offensive point in the offseason, but that did not keep Dana Brown from entertaining offers for CF Jake Meyers, possibly to shore up the pitching staff.

The Astros considered Meyers, Joey Loperfido and Cam Smith with a little help from Brice Matthews and Yordan Alvarez to be their outfield entering the season. But again, the injury bug bit.

• Jake Meyers has only played in 13 of the 51 games after also suffering an oblique injury while batting, just like Altuve would. But he has finally returned.
• Loperfido has only played in 20 games after suffering a quad strain earlier this season. He is close to a rehab stint now.
• Taylor Trammell helped out with a red-hot start but went down with a groin strain running the bases and has only played 10 games this season to date.
• Cam Smith, Zach Cole, Zach Dezenzo and Brice Matthews have all put up below average numbers while picking up necessary at bats so far this season.

Catcher and DH

Yordan Alvarez has played mostly DH and some LF and has not missed a game this season. After an insane start to the season, he has cooled off but is still showing overall very good numbers.

• At catcher, Yainer Diaz started off dead cold, before beginning to warm up, but….. He was placed on the IL in early May with an oblique injury while swinging in batting practice. Please, raise your hand if you have heard of this injury and cause combination before (Altuve and Meyers).  He has only played in about half their games – 26.
• Christian Vazquez as the back up catcher was piling up great numbers in limited appearances. Since taking over the starting spot in early May he has been stone cold with a .154 BA/ .463 OPS.

Starting Pitching

This was the biggest area of concern heading into the season with Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wesneski on the IL from injuries in 2025, Framber Valdez pitching with the Tigers, Lance McCullers Jr. and Cristian Javier coming off less than inspiring cameos in 2025, folks with little or no numbers on the back of their baseball cards like Mike Burrows, Tatsuya Imai, Kai-Wei Teng, and Ryan Weiss trying to pick up critical spots in the rotation or bullpen.

But the concern area got bigger….

• Hunter Brown pitched great ….in 2 games and then he went on the IL with the dreaded shoulder strain. If they are lucky, he may return in mid-June.
• Cristian Javier pitched awfully in 3 games before also going on the IL with a shoulder strain. But unlike Brown he has not been shown to be working his way back yet.
• Lance McCullers Jr. has pitched both good and bad in 8 starts before also going on the IL with shoulder problems a few days ago. And no one would be surprised if we never saw Lance pitch in another game for the Astros.
• Imai has missed a few starts with arm fatigue, which seemed to really mean he was having problems adjusting to being a multi-millionaire in a new country. He pitched decently in his last start but was terrible before.
• Burrows has led the team in innings pitched and K’s. But he has also led them in losses, hits, earned runs and home runs. In fact, he was also leading the AL in those bad stats.
• Weiss had a +7 ERA in 9 games and is back in the minors.
• J.P. France pitched a couple times at the end of 2025, tried to help out in 2026, but was bad and was bounced back to the minors.
• The rotation has had some positives lately as substitute starters Peter Lambert, Teng and Jason Alexander have all had good moments as starters.
• And Spencer Arrighetti started the season in the minors and has been a solid sub for Hunter Brown at the top of the rotation.

Can the Astros ever get their staff back together? Can they hold on until Hunter returns?

Bullpen

The bullpen had a big question mark coming into the season, which was how they would stand up without their closer, Josh Hader at the back end. Hader had not recovered from his injury at the end of last season and the bullpen looked a lot thinner with both Hader and Bennett Sousa on the IL.

• Sousa returned from injury and pitched poorly in 5 appearances before returning to the IL
• Bryan Abreu who should be heir apparent to the closer’s job, pitched comically bad to start the season and has been slowly working his way back to the closer spot in May.
• Nate Pearson was picked up in the offseason to help out wherever, but has just now come off the IL and pitched in his first game.
• Bryan King and Steven Okert have continued to be helpful in their spots – picking up higher and higher leverage spots this year. Teng was very good but then recruited by the rotation.
• The rest of the bullpen has been filled with the marginally useful (A.J. Blubaugh, Enyel De Los Santos, Cody Bolton and Christian Roa) and the impossibly poor (Jayden Murray, Colton Gordon, and Roddery Munoz).
• In defense of much of the bullpen, due to the short starts by the pitching staff, most of them have been asked to pitch too long and could have been more effective in shorter stints.

Will the return of Hader in the next couple of weeks be the catalyst to help solidify the bullpen? We can only hope.

In the end, it is very hard to decide what we are looking at here. Is it a team that just needs a little luck and health to turn the corner and head back to a winning record. Or are they what they seem to be – a team that needs too much luck and health to compete?