The Houston Astros have found success all season despite adversity. The team lost Alex Bregman to free agency, traded away All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker, and had about 60% of their starting rotation on the injured list to begin the season. Yet Houston still found a way to overcome all those obstacles and is eyeing another postseason run despite the fact that Yordan Alvarez has been out for most of the season with a hand injury.
It's been so long since Alvarez even set foot on a baseball diamond that some Astros fans have probably forgotten that he was even part of the team. Houston's biggest bat has been out of commission since early-May and every single injury update makes it seem as though he's never going to return this season.
The latest news surrounding Alvarez, is unsurprisingly, no different. The last word as it relates to the Astros' All-Star slugger is that he continues to take batting practice at the team's spring training facility in Florida and will continue to do so (again) over the weekend.
Latest Yordan Alvarez injury update has Astros fans wondering if he'll ever come back
Alvarez landed on the IL back on May 2, and for the last three-plus months, Astros fans have been strung along with injury updates and rumors ranging from the possibility of season-ending surgery to an impending rehab assignment and everything in between.
What was initially diagnosed as right hand inflammation became a muscle strain, and eventually the team revealed that Alvarez suffered a small fracture. It's as if Astros fans have been on a roller coaster, and there's a chance that the ride could end without Alvarez taking another swing this season.
Furthermore, since it's been over three months since Alvarez was even in the Astros lineup, it's easy to forget that he was off to an atrocious start. He was hitting just .210/.306/.340 with three home runs in a little over 120 plate appearances at the time of his injury. If Alvarez returns, not only will he be trying to get his timing back, but he'll also need to correct whatever was causing his early-season slump to begin with.
Will Alvarez return this season? Who knows? Though there haven't been any setbacks to speak of lately, this entire process — much like Tucker's injury saga last season — has become much more complicated that it needed to be.
