Houston Astros: Trend – Who’s Hot, Who’s Not (Vol 8)

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With less than two weeks left in the season, the Astros are close to clinching another AL West title.

Despite Friday night’s disaster, the Houston Astros have been generally been playing some good baseball. Houston is 10-5 their last 15 games and have won their last five series. This uber-talented team, one that has certainly had some highs and lows, appears to be revving up just in time for the playoff run.

The Astros will finish off the weekend series in Oakland, then close out the season at home against the Tampa and Oakland. Houston will likely need to win at least seven of their last eight games (and sweep Tampa at home) if they want to try to get the AL No. 1 seed in the playoffs. Five of the last six AL Pennant winners (Houston 2X, Tampa, Kansas City, Boston) were No. 1 seeds so having the home-field advantage throughout the AL would be… advantageous.

The only question is do the Astros actually want to be the first seed in the AL? The top seed would mean a ALDS meeting with either the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees or the Toronto Blue Jays. All three are loaded with talented and having been on fire as of late (NYY – third in OPS last 15 games, Boston – fourth, Toronto – sixth).

Meanwhile the Chicago White Sox, with all their big stars and strong pitching staff, have been coasting and floundering much of the second half the season and might be the path of least resistance for the Astros. Then again, with Craig Kimbrel and Liam Hendricks anchoring the back of their bullpen, Chicago wouldn’t exactly be a weak spot.

Whoever they play, Houston just needs to get to next weekend healthy. Everyone reading this please cross your fingers.

Team Trend

Houston Astros are doing modestly well at the plate lately. Over the past 15 games, the Astros are fifth in the majoring in OPS (.831), seventh in batting average (.269), sixth in slugging (.478) and second in home runs (27). The Astros have scored seven+ runs eight times and 10+ runs five times during this span of games.

What makes Houston’s offense great is the depth and consistency. Houston has rarely ever been outside the top 10 for these major offensive categories for any period of time during this season and are currently posting these really solid numbers with no Michael Brantley in the lineup.

The Astros pitching has been maintaining a “bend don’t break” motto for most of the season and continues to be that way thus far in September. Over the past 15 games, the Astros are 11th in the majors in ERA (3.87), 10th in WHIP (1.25), seventh in opponent BA (.228) and ninth in strikeouts (117). These are pretty solid numbers if factor in the recent struggles of Zach Greinke (more on him later) and that disaster, gross, nasty, barf-o-rama bullpen game from Friday night.

Houston will go into the playoffs not having the best 1-2 starting lineup punch (LA Dodgers have that) or even end-of-the-bullpen arms (Congrats to the White Sox), but the Astros will arguably have the most flexible and “frisky” pitching staff.

McCullers-Valdez-Garcia-Greinke as your playoff starters is solid, and having Urquidy, Odorizzi and Javier as long-reliever options might give Houston a competitive advantage in those middle innings. And if Kendall Graveman can remember how to pitch like Kendall Graveman, the Astros late inning combo of Graveman-Stanek-Pressly is certainly imposing for any postseason opponent.

Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /

Who’s Hot

Kyle Tucker

I wanted to call out the brilliant recent play of recent call-up Jose Siri, but Kyle Tucker needs more recognition. Kyle Tucker is hitting .335 over the last 15 games, for as 1.091 OPS, with three home runs nine RBI’s. On a team full of elite hitters, Tucker has been the best on the team for an extended period of time.

He’s been slamming balls into left field stands, nailing gaps for RBI doubles to break games open, and has been striking out less and less as time goes on. Tucker has been hitting near .400 in the last 30 games, and generating better stats than Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Fernando Tatis Jr, and Brandon Belt amongst others.

If it weren’t for his really slow start back in April, Tucker would likely be an All Star and arguably could have been in the mix for second-place MVP. Since May 8th Tucker has been hitting .335 with a 1.021 OPS. His 162-game pace would lead to 40 home runs 121 RBIs, and 21 stolen bases – impressive.

Two years ago, Kyle Tucker was starting to be considered a semi-bust amongst silly Astro fans. His initial stints in the big leagues did not yield great results from the plate and was caught chasing high fastballs out of the zone at an alarming rate. This is a great example of a highly talented player that the Astros believed in who just needed time to develop. Now let’s just sit back and watch him rake.

TEAM ABC

I just want to say how great it is to have Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa on the field together. It just wasn’t the same when Bregman went on the IL earlier this year. But these three MVP and future MVPs have been playing stellar baseball as of late. These three core players have combined for a 46-of-136 (.339 BA) with eight home runs, 38 RBIs and then OPS of .948. None of these guys are “on-fire”, but they all are hitting well and are trending upwards.

When the playoffs start, situational hitting will be even more key for team success. Houston will have an advantage here because I would argue these three guys might be the best situational hitters in all of baseball.

Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports /

Who’s Not

Jake Meyers

It appears the honeymoon For Jake Meyers might be over (for now).

Meyers came on the scene heading almost .400 they come out with a bunch of timely hits and made us all forget about trading Myles Straw at the trade deadline. Heck there’s some argument that Jake Myers might end up being as good or even better than George Springer the way he was playing.

It seems that he’s cooled off and pitching Staffs have figured out how to approach him. Jake Myers is in a mini slump going 2-for-25 (.160 BA) with an OPS of .590 with a homer and four RBI and 11 SOs (40% SO rate).

Some of this might be attributed to him splitting time in the outfield with Chas McCormick and Jose Siri, which may be impacting his rhythm. But a lot of it is from teams doing their homework and learning: Don’t throw Jake Meyers a ton of fastballs in the zone. Pitchers are moving away from throwing him late-count fastballs (Meyers is hitting .360 BA, 5 HRs) and are sprinkling in more off-speed and breaking pitches (combined .127 BA).

Meyers is going through natural progressions that all new players face – hitter mashes, pitchers adjust, hitter struggles with adjustment, hitter improves, hitter mashes again.

I’m excited for what Jake Myers will be for this team over the long term. But I certainly didn’t expect him to hit .400 out the gate and anticipated some bumps like this.

Zack Greinke

OK. Let us talk about it — Zack Greinke has been bad. It’s not all that shocking since players falling off considering he’s almost 38-years-old. But it is shocking cause it is freaking Zack Greinke.

We’re talking about Greinke -the thinking man’s pitcher, the mad scientist on the mound, the guy with a plethora of weapons and skill to get him out of jams. This future hall-of-famer has (and to quote the great LL Cool J) been “doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it well” for years — but now he’s just not “doin’ it” now.

Greinke has given up 12 earned runs in his last two starts over nine innings. Both of those starts resulted in an unsavory-WHIP of .163 and an opponent batting average of .265 BA. That’s not going to get the job done in the postseason.

The Greinke repertoire just isn’t fooling hitters as much as in the past. Here’s some 2021 stats comparing his first time through the order with the second time through the order.

first time through order – .229 AVG, .378 SLG, 2.76 ERA, 50 SO, 7 HR, 16 BB, 19% SO rate
second time through order – .267 AVG, .449 SLG, 3.92 ERA, 43 SO, 13 HR, 16 BB, 16% SO rate

And teams have figured out how to approach him before games. Here are his second half stats:

first time through order – .265 AVG, .495 SLG, 5.23 ERA, 32 SO, 13 HR, 13 BB, 15% SO rate

More alarming stats. Greinke has always been a solid second half of the season pitcher – This is not the case this season – Greinke is allowing a .265 opponent batting average (career-high), a 2.2 home runs per nine innings (career high) and 5.4 strikeout per nine innings (career-low).

Some of the genius from Greinke does is his ability to get easy outs from generating soft contact. Greinke has generating 21% soft contact on hits his entire career – an elite-level clip in the league. This season? 10.7% – easily the lowest of his career. The next closest season was 14.9% when he was pitching with the Diamondbacks.

In the history of baseball, pitchers who relied on skill and not velocity tend to fall off slowly and then quickly. Greinke is already over 3,000 career innings and is about to turn 38-years-old.

Many have called Zack Greinke this generation’s version of Greg Maddux – a guy with one-in-a-lifetime skill and pitch repertoire. Greg Maddux’s age 36 season was one of his best — he threw a 2.62 ERA and went 16-6 en-route to winning another Gold Glove. However, in Maddux’s age 37 and 38 seasons is where his play took a nosedive. During those two seasons, Maddux combined for a 4.00 ERA (well below his 2.75 average) and started giving up nine hits per nine and was only generating 5.1 strikeouts per nine innings. Maddux still played up until he was 42, but he never got back to those elite sub-3.00 ERA levels he was at in his late 20s and mid-30s.

Greinke has not looked good for the last couple of months, it’s likely that his days of constant dominance are over. But Zack Greinke is also been a great postseason pitcher and always rises to the occasion (Game 7 of 2019 World Series – sorry to remind everyone).

Next. 3 players that could be optioned for Jake Odorizzi. dark

So, if this is his indeed his last hurrah with the Astros, I’d like to think that he’ll dig down deep and find his form in the playoffs. I wouldn’t expect him to morph back into Cy Young Winner Zack Greinke. But The closer he can get to say the 2019-version of Greinke (and further away he can get from August-and-September-2021 Greinke) the better it’ll be for Houston.

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