HOUSTON — A lucky break brought up the Houston Astros’ heartbeat, a man whose early-season malaise is making it impossible for his club to establish any consistency. Blaming Yordan Alvarez alone for an entire lineup’s listlessness is unfair, but such is the burden he sometimes shoulders.
“Yordan is the heartbeat of this lineup,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said Saturday. “When he’s going, we’re going.”
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On that day, Alvarez delivered a game-winning double. He hasn’t had a hit since. He didn’t have one before, either. Alvarez’s 1-for-16 start is crippling a lineup that can’t afford his anemia, one that has scored nine runs and struck four extra-base hits across its first five games.
“I’ve been in this situation before,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “Anybody who’s played baseball before has been in a slump, and I’m not going crazy. It’s just something that’s happened.”
Five games and 20 plate appearances are too small a sample size for actual concern. Nothing is ever as exciting or excruciating as it appears in April — a truth the Astros lived while starting 12-24 last season and now must hope repeats itself.
“I know how good this guy is,” manager Joe Espada said after Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants. “I don’t mind waiting. I want it to happen today, but I don’t mind waiting.”
Yordan Alvarez is working on making it more compact, a problem that has plagued him before. (Troy Taormina / Imagn Images)
Atonement appeared imminent during Tuesday’s seventh inning. San Francisco’s two-time Platinum Glove winner Matt Chapman could not corral a 103.7 mph missile from Isaac Paredes, the type of play a pedestrian third baseman is excused from flubbing.
Seeing a premier one like Chapman clank it should’ve been a boon. A hometown scorekeeper handed Paredes another single in a season full of them, helping Houston’s brutal batting average while allowing Alvarez to arrive as the tying run.
Alvarez’s patented heroics would’ve been welcomed, but advancing Paredes to second base or putting the ball in play would’ve sufficed — anything to ignite a spark while facing Giants ace Logan Webb. A hallmark of the Astros’ golden era was “passing the baton” within its lineup, something last year’s team struggled to accomplish.
Espada is batting Alvarez behind Paredes to produce these scenarios. Alvarez called his batting order position “beneficial,” a byproduct of Paredes’ dogged approach and propensity to reach base. Seeing 18 more pitches on Tuesday brought Paredes’ total to 101 across his first 20 plate appearances.
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As a result, Alvarez has already taken 10 plate appearances with a runner on base. The final started with Webb crowding Alvarez’s inner half with a cornucopia of changeups and cutters.
Alvarez kept a patient eye, proceeding ahead in the count 2-1 before spoiling a sweeper foul to even it. A second sweeper bounced at Alvarez’s back foot. He swung through it anyway for his sixth strikeout of the season. Five have come with a runner on base.
“It’s part of the game,” Alvarez said through an interpreter. “It’s normal, and I’ve been through this before. I know right now there’s a lot of things that aren’t clicking in my swing.”
Foremost among them is the swing’s length. Alvarez is working on making it more compact, a problem that has plagued him before and, perhaps, also in spring training. Grapefruit League stats are often suspect, but even Alvarez acknowledged Tuesday that “it’s not a secret that I didn’t have a great spring training.”
Alvarez’s salary and stature magnify his struggles, but to assign him all of the blame is silly. Cleanup man Christian Walker has taken a team-high 11 at-bats with runners on base. He’s hit two singles. Paredes’ tenacious plate appearances have produced just three singles in 16 at-bats. Ballyhooed prospect Cam Smith has started his big-league career 2-for-11.
Jose Altuve is the only Astro in any sort of offensive rhythm, but even that comes with a caveat. Six of Altuve’s seven hits this season are singles, the lone exception being a solo home run against Webb on Tuesday. Houston’s four extra-base hits are the fewest in baseball.
Same old Tuve. #BuiltForThis pic.twitter.com/cLprihvBSr
— Houston Astros (@astros) April 2, 2025
No American League lineup has a lower slugging percentage or OPS than Houston’s. That its record is not worse is thanks to a terrific first turn through the starting rotation, one with a minuscule margin for error and minimal support from this suspect lineup.
The Astros’ five starters sported a 2.79 ERA across the 29 frames they threw. Only three teams awoke Tuesday with a lower one: the Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies and Chicago White Sox.
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That Chicago and Colorado are even included underscores the danger in obsessing over small sample sizes. The clubs combined to lose 222 games last season and did nothing this winter to improve. Regression to the mean will come — a fact to which the Astros are clinging.
“It’s just a matter of being patient and letting these good hitters come through at some point, which they will,” Espada said.
(Top photo: Troy Taormina / Imagn Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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