For the first time in a long while, the Astros are arguably a bad baseball team. Or, at the very least, playing like one. Perhaps the more accurate way to view the situation is a mediocre baseball team that occasionally cosplays as a bad one. Yes, there are instances in which this club appears competent and on the verge of competing. But those moments have proved fleeting this season, for a variety of causes. For the better part of two months, this team has primarily fluctuated between bad and competent. Add those two together and you end up with mediocre.
Ronel Blanco, for most of the season, has been the Astros’ best starting pitcher. Not a sentence I expected to write, like, ever. But that has been the truth. Only seven starters with at least 40 innings pitched this season had a lower ERA than Blanco (1.99). But, sooner or later, we all knew he would have a rough start sometime. This time, it was against the Twins, who prevented Blanco from pitching at least five innings in a start not involving a questionable ejection. The final line wasn’t that bad — three hits, four earned runs, three walks, and six strikeouts — but still not efficient enough. In a game when the lineup couldn’t muster anything of substance, it didn’t take long to see how this game could unfold. Sure enough, it proceeded as I had feared after Trevor Larnach’s two-run shot in the fifth inning.
The lineup, once again, was a disappointment. Only Alex Bregman’s solo shot to lead off the fourth inning to make a 2-1 deficit provided any sort of excitement. Chas McCormick and Yainer Díaz couldn’t convert twice with two runners on base. In both instances, McCormick would come to bat with one out and strike out. Díaz would then follow with a groundball to the left side of the infield. It was a mess of a game from the lineup and the Astros are running out of time to wait for certain hitters to heat up. Of course, the lineup’s overall struggles are only magnified when Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve struggle, so not much they can do right now to shake things up. Well, unless, they decide to give Joey Loperfido another look, which they should do soon.
Ultimately, the Astros were a bad team against the Twins on Friday night. The pitching staff didn’t throw well enough to overcome an anemic lineup. With the calendar now turning to June, Houston doesn’t have that much time to turn things around before the trade deadline. If the next month proceeds as the first two months did, then we’re looking at an unfamiliar situation.