Altuve, Correa Lead New Look Lineup
Astros win 2 of 3 in New York, return to Houston to take on Bregman, Bosox
A 4-5 road trip may not thrill many people and while there are still holes in the Astros lineup, it’s a massively different offensive team than it was on July 31st, and that includes the return of Jeremy Pena.
More on that later, but for now, a look at expected wins and projected standings.
Expected Wins, Should Be Standings and Projected Standings
After starting the road trip 0 for Boston, the Astros finished it winning two series and four of six games.
Those four wins were enough to get the Astros back to 90 expected wins, which is where they started the month.
Hanging on by a game in the Should Be Standings.
If the wins and losses and run differential continue at the current rate, we would expect the final AL West Standings to look like this:
Batter and Pitcher Season Projections
Altuve is on fire, now projecting to 27 homers, 79 RBI and a 115 OPS+.
How much more can they ask from Bryan Abreu without burning him out?
Quality At-Bats
Correa continues to rake and Altuve hits the 40% mark for the first time that I can remember with a 4 for 5 (quality at-bats) day on Sunday.
Team average is 39.6%.
Quality Starts
The Astros are a pitching and defense first team and as such they thrive when they get a quality start and struggle when they don’t.
That’s true for every MLB team, but more so for the Astros.
MLB teams win over 68% of the time when getting a quality start, while the Astros are over 75%.
Record by Starting Pitcher
The Astros are 12-6 in games started by Colton Gordon and Jason Alexander.
Rando Stats of the Day
*Since July 1, Jose Altuve (147 plate appearances) has slashed .352/.422/.617, a .437 wOBA, wRC+ of 185 with 8 home runs and 27 RBI.
Victor Caratini is 1 for 11 (single) in 13 pinch-hitting appearances for an OPS+ of 7. Caratini has a 157 OPS+ as a catcher, 33 as a first baseman, and 59 as DH.
*It’s a nine-game sample, but the Astros have registered a 118 wRC+ since the trade deadline, when before the acquisitions of Correa, Sanchez and Urias, the team wRC+ was 103. The wOBA was .318 before the deadline and .339 since.
*Jason Alexander has recorded a quality start in 3 of his 5 starts and gone at least 6 innings in 4 of 5 starts.
*Carlos Correa is slashing .405/.476/.622 with a .471 wOBA, 208 wRC+, 53.1% Hard Hit%, 92.0 MPH average exit velo and a max exit velo of 111.2 in his 42 plate appearances with Houston.
Bryan Abreu has been just as good against right-handed batters as lefties: RHBs are slashing .165/.271/.233 with a 46 OPS+ against Abreu, while lefties slash .161/.267/.264 with a 48 OPS+ against him. Abreu has held all batters (45) to a 21 OPS+ since the All-Star Break.
*I went on for some time about Bryan King in this space on Friday, and unfortunately, the same thing happened Saturday.
With the Trent Grisham home run off a four-seam fastball, lefties are now slugging .537 against King with a .954 OPS (161 OPS+).
As always, thanks for reading!