Alan Truex: Yankees & Astros are destructive. Even self-destructive
Updated Thursday, June 27, 2019
HOUSTON – When the Astros and Yankees met last week for four games in the Bronx, it had the look of a preview of the next American League Championship Series. Except that it really did not look like these two teams as we know them. They’re more like NFL teams, waging their battles of attrition.
Seven Astros are on the All-Star Game Starter’s Ballot. But three of them – Carlos Correa, George Springer and Jose Altuve—have missed most of the season’s first half.
The casualty list in the Bronx is even more daunting: Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Luis Severino, Dellin Betances, Aaron Hicks, Miguel Andujar, Greg Bird.
And now, Stanton again.
The $300 million man missed April, May and half of June with injuries to biceps, shoulder and calf. He was back in the lineup for six games before he was struck down with a new disability: a sprained (meaning slightly torn) ligament in his right knee.
So the National League MVP of two years ago, basher of 306 home runs, returned to the injured list Wednesday.
He will miss, among many other series, this weekend’s London presentation of Yankees-Red Sox.
Meanwhile, the Astros became healthier after losing three consecutive games in Yankee Stadium, with Correa and Springer not appearing.
Altuve did not essentially show up until Game 4, when the Astros rolled behind their indomitable ace, Justin Verlander. They hammered 16 hits in a 9-4 salvage to stop a 7-game losing streak. Altuve, MVP of the 2017 world championship who hadn’t homered since April, led off the game by lining a J.A. Happ softie into the second deck.
Altuve has been hampered all season by a surgically repaired right knee and a strained right hamstring. He lost his batting stroke, but on Sunday he was Altuve again, adding a double to the home run.
But when will we see the real Alex Bregman? During the 7-game skid the All-Star third baseman (now subbing for Correa at shortstop) had five hits, only two of them for extra bases.
Nothing wrong physically, but Bregman, he of the perfect mental makeup, veered off track in search of an impossible achievement: 1.2 OPS, last accomplished by Barry Bonds.
Bregman added 10 pounds to his 6-foot frame and elevated his swing, and, slightly, his home run clip. But he’s given up 25 points of batting average.
OPS (on-base plus slugging) is a meaningful analytic, but it does not fully encompass the game of baseball, and no analytic ever will. During this June swoon the Astros have rarely hit with runners in scoring position, and Bregman has been as much a culprit as any. He put needless pressure on himself by speaking of his audacious goal.
He’s doing what most slumping ballplayers do – press, try too hard to make something happen. There’s a fine line between pressing and choking, and no one wants to go there. Baseball, so much unlike other sports, is all about failure and coping with it.
While the Astros were churning out their 7th straight defeat, you could see the tension on Bregman’s face. You could see it in his fielding.
He stabs a grounder with his bare hand, but when he rushes to throw, the ball slips from his grip, falls to the ground. Not an error, but not Bregman.
Astros manager A.J. Hinch took exactly the right approach in counseling his team.
“It’s not a case of mental errors or lack of focus or hustle,” he said, explaining why he would not call a team meeting and relive the miseries of the week. Hinch maintained his usual equilibrium, his jovial personality, and by Sunday, with the majestic Verlander, 6-foot-5, on the mound, the Astros stopped worrying and started hitting.
On Tuesday, as they opened a 6-game home stand, Springer returned from a sprained hamstring, and Collin McHugh, who throws the team’s best breaking ball out of the bullpen, was activated after rehabbing a sore elbow.
They miss Correa, who had his A game going (.907 OPS) when his relentless injury jinx bit again. He sustained a fractured rib during an overly deep-tissue massage in his home. This accident is, unfortunately, an apt metaphor for his career. In only one of his five big-league seasons – 2016 — has he played more than 110 games. He’s missed three weeks with the massaged rib and probably will miss another three.
In his absence, the Astros introduced Yordan Alvarez, 6-5, 225-pound Cuban power plant who was made to DH but might have a future at first base.
He doesn’t tense up at the sight of baserunners. He had 16 RBIs in his first 12 games in the Show.
Alas, Alvarez, playing on his 22nd birthday, left Thursday’s game against Pittsburgh with “discomfort” in his left knee. That’s how it all started with Altuve, and it worsened as he continued to play. Cautionary tale there.
So suddenly, after winning back to back against the Yanks and Pirates, the Astros are unglued again. Pittsburgh, fourth best team in the NL Central, steamrolled them in the final two games of the series at Minute Maid. Combined score: 24-2.
With or without Alvarez, Houston can’t stack bats with New York, with or without Stanton. The Yankees’ franchise record for consecutive games with home runs has reached 28. Last week they added Edwin Encarnacion to their 21st century Murderer’s Row of Judge, Gary Sanchez, Gleyber Torres, Luke Voigt and, occasionally, Stanton, who seems a very old 29.
Houston’s advantage is a starting rotation headed by the 10-game winner Verlander, looking young at 36, and the AL’s strikeout leader, Gerrit Cole. New York’s ace, Severino, is recovering from a lat strain that’s likely to last until August.
The Yankees have more relief, with slider sensation Adam Ottavio, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman with his 23 saves and 1.40 ERA. If Dellin Betances heals from his lat strain, the Yanks could have baseball’s best bullpen to support a deep, if ragged, starting rotation. The July 31 trade deadline is critical for both teams. They need healthy reinforcements.
