Astros reportedly making drastic promotion to address biggest lineup concern

The Houston Astros' offense is in a pretty tricky position at the moment. While they have played better collectively lately, the fact remains that they are extremely unbalanced to the right-handed side especially with lefty Yordan Alvarez dealing with a broken hand at the moment. Now, it appears as though the Astros will once again turn to the minor leagues to solve their troubles.

Houston's outfield has been extremely messy all season long. Jose Altuve was converted to left field with mixed results thus far and Cam Smith has been slow to adjust at the plate to the big leagues, although his defense in right has actually been pretty good. Somehow, Jake Meyers has been Houston's saving grace in the outfield in 2025 as he has been hitting out of his mind. However, it does appear as though the Astros are going to give Jacob Melton a shot as well with the rather surprising word that Houston will promote Melton to the big leagues.

Astros promoting Jacob Melton in hopes that he can finally balance out their lineup

At first glance, this promotion looks a bit puzzling. While Melton is certainly one of the Astros' top prospects, hitting .254 in Triple-A doesn't immediately scream "promote me". However, Melton's numbers are a bit deceiving as while the start of his season was quite bad, the month of May has treated him well with a .289/.413/.474 line across 46 plate appearances. Assuming that improvement is real, Melton's bat could do a lot of good to provide some much needed balance to the Astros' lineup.

However, that does lead one to wonder exactly how this outfield/DH alignment is going to work from a practical perspective. You can't really take Meyers out of the lineup right now and both Altuve and Smith are pretty important parts of Houston's roster on both sides of the ball. Melton gives the Astros a true outfielder to work with, so the concerns over this move are moot as long as Alvarez is on the shelf and Houston has the DH unoccupied to get guys at-bats.

Say what you want to about the Astros, but they certainly are not standing pat. The team already made the curiously timed move to put Chas McCormick on the injured list in order to promote Shay Whitcomb. With Melton now called up as well, it is very clear that this is an all hands on deck situation as Houston tries to figure out what the best version of their roster the rest of the season actually looks like.

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