Astros: Hello Mendoza line, it’s your long lost pal Jose Altuve

Jose Altuve is on the up, which is no surprise to anyone familiar with the Houston Astros talisman, but it may be disappointing to the haters out there.

You’d have to be a stonecold idiot to not have seen this coming. After starting out the year looking very un-Jose Altuve, Jose Altuve has gone and turned it around and started one of those streaks of his. It’s restored his spot as the No. 2 hitter in the Houston Astros batting order, as well as giving fans the breath of fresh air they’ve been craving.

But it’s a long crawl yet from here. Altuve just crossed the Mendoza line in the series-opening loss against the Padres, the first time he’s crossed that mark since the opening series against the Seattle Mariners.

Back in that series, Kalas and Blum were debating if this could be the year we’d see a .400 hitter, and how Jose Altuve was the Astros best shot at that mark. Things didn’t go so well from there.

Jose Altuve is coming back, and the Houston Astros aren’t surprised

Things are changing now though. Altuve has gone 2-5 in three straight games, he’s fed into the Astros hit parades lately and even when things turned south with a massive and inexcusable 13 Ks as a whole against the Padres, Altuve held no blame.

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He hadn’t struck out since the fourth game against the Rockies.

In fact, with three games in a row now without a strikeout, Altuve finds himself on the best stretch of the season—which is even bigger than the two-hit streak. Altuve had been whiffing on everything, but not much has gotten by him these past three games.

In fact, he’s undercut his season average of swinging at pitches outside of the zone 37.1% of the time in each of those last three games as well, driving that number down where it belongs. He’s also just swinging less in general, which is never a bad sign.

The point is, Altuve is on his way back. He’s a .300+ hitter, he always has been, and against all odds, he’ll find a way to pull it off this year as well. Like I said, everyone should have seen this coming, but those few holdouts of the buzzer theory will be sorely disappointed when this just turned out to be a regular rut, like any other big-league hitter goes through.

Onward and upward for Altuve. There’s nothing but good things ahead.