Astros Start off May With a Win on Two Hits

Will May Bring More Wins for the Houston Astros

The Houston Astros’ season has gotten off to a surprising 8-17 start, but yesterday’s eighth win of the season marked a new month for the Astros. May could not have come any sooner for the Astros players and fans, because they looked like a lost team in April. I am not naive enough to really believe that the change of month on the calendar will affect the Astros season, it is a chance to start anew. They Astros are now 1-0 in May and 7-17 in April.

Yes, the Astros won yesterday on two hits, but the key word there was won. The Astros had only done that seven other times this year. To not join to droves of Astros fans badmouthing the Astros, I wanted to focus on what went right for the Astros last night and how they applied to my Five Ways the Astros Can Improve in May post I wrote yesterday.

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One of the things that I wrote about was that the Astros have to improve upon, was the starting staff needed to go deeper in the games. Yesterday, Doug Fister went almost went seven strong innings but checked out after 6 2/3 innings. He scattered seven hits on the day while only allowing one run to score with five strikeouts. While it’s not enough to say that was vintage Fister, it does enable the bullpen to rest a little.

One of my other points was that Carlos Correa needed to carry this team, or we would not go very far this year without our best player hitting. On last night’s Talking Stros, we talked to Jake Kaplan, who told us that he spoke to Correa yesterday, and he said that his timing was off a little right now. Kaplan pointed out that he had two walks yesterday and hit a hard double in Saturday’s game. Correa is the player we think he is, and he just is in a minor slump at the moment.

Once again, the Astros started Marwin Gonzalez over Luis Valbuena at third base, to get him another mental rest day. Last year, Valbuena was a big part of the success in 2015, but this year he has become one of the weakest links on the 25-man roster. The only problem is that the Astros owe Valbuena $6.125 million for the entire 2016 season. Colin Moran‘s time is coming soon, with someone is in a slump.

Many people have been down on Carlos Gomez this season, with good reasons. Yesterday, he missed his second straight game following getting injured. This latest injury does not stem from the hit by pitch from Thursday night’s game, but was a result of his slide into third base in his attempt to stretch a double into a triple. They are going to evaluate Gomez again when they return to Houston, but look for them to make a decision soon in order to get another bat up to the team.

Next: Astros: State of the Team

Kaplan told us on Talking Stros that the soonest the Astros can recall Jake Marisnick is  Thursday unless they put a player on the DL. If Gomez and Gattis can get going, maybe the rest of the team will follow.