Astros: As Carlos Correa Goes, So Goes the Team

Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa has taken the league by storm in the first two seasons of his career.

Carlos Correa is such an integral part of the team that how he does usually decide the outcome of the game.

Correa has been a RBI machine this season and has come through in some of the biggest situations over the last two years. He is hitting .296 with runners in scoring position which is fourth in the American League among players with at least 100 at-bats with RISP.

He is also hitting  .305 late in close games which is fifth in the league among players with at least 50 chances in such situations and Monday’s 2-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays marked the fifth time that he has come up with a walk-off hit this season.

Correa has been an essential part of the Astros lineup and most of the time when he does well, the team tends to win and vice versa. Of the 102 games Correa has played in this season, the Astros have won 54 of them. In those 54 wins his slash line looks like this: .322/.419/.573 with 10 HR and 56 RBI. His 56 RBI in games won by the team is fifth in the league, just one RBI behind future Hall of Famer, David Ortiz.

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Meanwhile, in the 48 games that the team has lost with Correa in the lineup, he is hitting just .205/.299/.335 with five HR and 12 RBI. His .634 OPS in team losses is more than .350 points lower than his .993 OPS in team wins. His .205 AVG in games lost is the seventh-ranked such AVG on the team.

He has been able to hit for power at a much higher rate in wins as well. In wins, he has 30 extra base hits as opposed to just 13 XBH in losses. That stat leads to his slugging percentage being an astounding .238 points higher in wins.

These stats show just how important Correa is to his team and for a second-year player to have this much of an impact on the win-loss column is amazing. If the potential that has been seen in Correa throughout the first years of his career come to fruition, there is no limit to how high he can bring this club.

Next: Astros: Hooks Continue to Fall Further in the Standings

In addition to Correa’s great winning stats, when Jose Altuve and George Springer‘s stats are combined with his, they are hitting .345/.430/.587 with 35 HR and 143 RBI in 669 at-bats in the team’s 56 wins. As long as these three stick together, this team will be very dangerous.

**Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com**