Astros: Don’t look now, but Alex Bregman is getting going

Alex Bregman is notoriously a slow starter, but the Houston Astros may be getting the best of him earlier than expected this year.

With it being such an abbreviated season, questions were asked about Alex Bregman‘s usual slow start to the season. He seemingly always takes time to settle into the season, but this year looked even different than usual, much to the chagrin of the Houston Astros.

This hasn’t been helped on by the fact that very few guys in this lineup are hitting. It’s gotten so bad for Jose Altuve (though some of his issues aren’t his fault) that he had to take some time off to clear his head. Something that I’m sure drove Altuve even nuttier than not being able to hit in the first place.

And George Springer? Even Michael Brantley is in a rut right now. The Astros need someone to step up and match Carlos Correa right now and Alex Bregman is always a likely candidate. Though, again his “slow start” is a rather odd one. Because he isn’t outright not hitting.

Alex Bregman’s numbers are all trending in the right direction

In fact, Bregman has only had three games where he did not hit safely. Yet he only just had his third multi-hit game. Those are two hard pieces to fit together when building out a picture of how his year is shaping up.

But as we know, the bare-bones numbers don’t always tell the whole story. Which is my argument as to why Altuve isn’t struggling as much as it seems.

Bregman has numbers that tell a similar story—that things may be turning around.

Consider this: Alex Bregman has not his a ball softly since the opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks (via Fangraphs). That’s right, seven straight games and not a single ball that has been classified as softly hit. In five of those seven games, he hit the ball hard a majority of the time.

You know what else is changing? He’s swinging at less pitches, particularly out of the zone. You want to talk about stats that fit together, these right here fit together quite well.

And yet, through all of this, through all the numbers trending upwards, Bregman’s BABIP is still .222, roughly 80 points off from the league average. Meaning that while things are getting better, they have a very high likelihood of getting even better.

The Alex Bregman the Houston Astros have relied on is coming back. We saw it front and center against the Giants and the numbers don’t lie—more is coming.