When Zach Cole stepped onto the field at Daikan Park for the first time on Monday night, it felt like a win. Cole, who hadn’t made the Opening Day roster but is widely considered a very good outfield prospect, had broken a toe at Sugar Land and was finally healthy enough (and playing well enough) to get to the big leagues again.
He went 1-4 but that one was a homer.
It was a tiny glimmer of hope to go with a couple series wins on the road in recent weeks. The pitching remains awful, but so does the entirety of the AL West. Let’s discuss.
Yordan Doing Yordan Things
In a normal season with decent Astros pitching, the entire league would be fawning over the gaudy numbers from Yordan Alvarez. He is at the top of the league in a bunch of offensive categories and, as a writer from The Athletic described it in their weekly power rankings:
He reached the end of April with a .356/.462/.737 slash line, the sort of numbers you produce on “MLB The Show” before you switch to something more challenging than beginner mode.
That deservedly earned him player of the month for April. The Astros went 8-18.
A Couple Series Road Wins
The goal is to win series, as many series as possible. This, unfortunately, has not been easy all year for the Astros. But in the last two weeks, they picked up series wins at Cleveland and at Boston. It’s not nothing, particularly in a division that is the absolute worst in all of baseball. They won’t win this series against LA — they’ll be lucky to win A game — but they have an opportunity to play catch up in the the AL West with upcoming series at home against the Mariners and Rangers.
Pro vs. College
With the Dodgers in town, in some ways it feels like an exhibition series between pros and amateurs. The Dodgers have one of the best pitching rotations in baseball and the deepest lineup. They are a juggernaut, the best nearly half a billion dollars can buy. We saw that first hand Monday night when the Astros went with a piggyback pitching situation. Steven Okert opened followed by Ryan Weiss, who has basically been thrown to the wolves this year, forced to be the sacrificial lamb to eat up innings and save the bullpen.
The pair gave up seven of the Dodgers eight runs. Kai-Wei Tang, the most consistent bullpen arm all season, Bryan Abreu, and Bennett Sousa followed with four innings of two-hit baseball, but the damage was done. In the end, it wasn’t close and it felt even worse than it looked on the field.
Injury Updates
Cole returned and it appears another Zack (Dezenzo, in this instance) is close to returning as well. Josh Hader is now on a rehab assignment and Jeremy Peña could join him this week. Tatsuya Imai, after an awful first rehab start in Corpus Christi, will continue his rehab this week in Sugar Land. Nate Pearson, who has yet to make an appearance for the Astros after getting injured in Spring Training, looked solid in his first start in Sugar Land. Also, Hunter Brown will throw a bullpen session this week. He is still likely several weeks away from a return.
