Time to return Jose Altuve back to lead off

By: Joshua Reese

Jose Altuve batting third last year lit up the major leagues and finished in the top three in the A.L. MVP race, but now it's time to return him back to his roots, he needs to leadoff for the Houston Astros in 2017.

In the Dark Knight detective Jim Gordon said it best when he was referring to Batman, "he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now."

Altuve was the hero the Astros needed last year. They needed offense, so he stepped up to the plate and belted out a career-high 24 homers and 96 RBI's but that's not what they need any more from him.

After the Astros massive offseason when they grabbed boppers, Josh Reddick, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran, driving in runs doesn't have to fall solely on Altuve's shoulders anymore.

The bigger need for the team going into 2017 will be having baserunners on for all of the heavy hitters in the middle of the order.

George Springer did a fine job for the Astros last year leading off, but he's not a guarantee to get on base the way Altuve has been throughout his career.

Altuve gets on base 40% of the time and on top of that, more often than naught he's going to be on second or third base because of his ability to steal bases.

The Astros have a whole lot of options to bat third next season and while none are Altuve, they'd do just fine in his stead.

Having Altuve bat leadoff would not only serve as a big upgrade over Springer, but it's also somewhere he can have a pretty big impact.

Astros, on the right train tracks!

Most the time when you are about to hear of someone going streaking. It can usually be followed by stories about that person ripping off their clothes, dancing across some sort event only to end up being tased by police officers. Well, the Astros are streaking and it won't end in a tasing, but rather high fives and at-a-boys.

In the past 10 games, the Astros have went seven and three and they are winners of four in row for the first time all season. The mood and the feeling is the team is finally back on the right track.

This has been one of the few times all year the Astros have mixed everything together and got great results. The starting pitching has been solid (minus one start) the bullpen has kept improving and the offense is finally pulling their weight.

Since moving George Springer to leadoff, he's batted nearly .500, Jose Altuve is getting on base like he's normal self. But the offense is better not just because those two guys, while that's great and helpful, the rest of the lineup is starting to come through. Luis Valbuena who bats in the bottom half of the lineup is batting .400, and even Jake Marisnick who has been absent batting wise all year has started to turn it on.

For a while, I myself have asked, begged even, for the Astros to do some major shaking up to the lineup. While flip-flopping Altuve and Springer isn't exactly what I pictured, it's worked. The Astros have been "lit" as the young kids say, going seven and one since moving the two. Springer has just been unreal!

"He's taking some singles up the middle, he's hitting some homers, bullet doubles to start the game," A.J. Hinch said, "his job as a leadoff hitter is to be a good hitter first, and what comes with that is a better hitter."

Springer early on in the year batting second had been a little up and down but he has seemed to find a home at the head of the Astros attack.

"Whether it's mental or physical I don't really care," Hinch said trying to give reasons to why his new leadoff hitter is going bananas, "I like the look of it, and I think he's made a conscious adjustment to set the table for Altuve (and) Correa."

The pitching has also been bang up as well, outside of a Mike Fiers hiccup (7 runs in 3.2 innings), the starters have been fantastic. They have given you what you have needed to win games with each guy giving up three runs or less. With the offense doing well, only allowing three runs is a winning combo.

The bullpen has also kept stepping up, getting strong performances from all over the place. Michael Feliz is nails, hasn't allowed a run since the year 1965. Ken Giles is still a little hit or miss but the rest of the relievers have been great.

Last year the Astros had a 10 game win streak and it helped power them all the way to the playoffs at the end of the season. Right now the Astros are playing their best baseball of the season, they haven't had a 10 game win streak but seven wins in their last eight games is nothing to sneeze at.

"It's nice to see us play consistently, we could have even had a better month if it had not of been for some one-run losses, I think six of them this month, our team has played well for going on four weeks," Hinch said via MLB.com's Brian McTaggart, "we can pretend it's May tomorrow or we can move to June and continue the momentum into another good month, we've got to play consistently for month to month to month to get to where we want to get."

The Astros had a really poor April winning only seven games, but so far May has shined on them as they have more than doubled up the wins, winning 16 games. If not for such a poor start, you could be looking at the Astros being frontrunners in the A.L. West.

Three Astros takeaways from the WhiteSox series

The Astros end the road trip with a loss, but who cares. They managed to pick up their first road series of the year getting two wins off the WhiteSox. They had a small chance to pick up the sweep in game three but Chris Sale was dealing as he pitched a complete game only allowing one run to the Astros.

All and the WhiteSox series was a sign of better baseball, will see what they can do against the Rangers on Thursday.

Below are three takeaways from the WhiteSox series

Heading back to Houston, better, but not great

The Astros aren't on fire, but they are at a slow simmer. They are pretty much in the same position they were in before they left on the road trip, still seven games back of the AL West leading Mariners.

The good news is they didn't lose any more ground, so there's that. Over the past few games, the team has put together much better games. The offense pulled their weight, the pitching is hanging in there, and if not for closer Luke Gregerson losing his mind over the last week you could be looking at the road trip in a whole new light.

"Were playing well, were playing good baseball, it's just a matter of putting everything together, we said it before, we just (need to) play complete games, pitch the ball, catch the ball, get timely hits and we did that really well the first couple of games," Collin McHugh said via Root Sports after the team's 2-1 loss to the WhiteSox, "just ran into a buzz saw today (Thursday), just got to tip your hat, and move on to the next series at home, we got a big couple of series coming up, got some game we want to go there and win, just a matter of continuing to be consistent and put together complete ball games."

So now there are two good catchers?

Jason Castro, and now Evan Gattis. It's the 1-2 punch the team has been waiting for. Gattis last season's DH spent a little over a week in double-A getting back into the swing of things at catcher.

He caught his very first game in over two years on Thursday, and he did not look to bad. He framed a few pitches, he blocked a hell of a lot of balls in the dirt and called a good game. He didn't have a chance to show off his arm but by all accounts, he had more than adequate night.

"The story today is Evan Gattis, he did a really good job behind the dish I know a lot of people haven't had a chance to see him it's been a couple years since he's been back there, but he's solid, he's a big league catcher, everybody needs to understand that and recognize that," McHugh said, "he did a really phenomenal job tonight both calling the game and blocking, I didn't really give him much of a chance on a couple of stolen bases, but he can do it, he's a big league backstop back there, obviously we know what he can do what the bat, but he had a great game today."

Now that Gattis can catch, the team has some good offensive options at catcher. Gattis is what he is, a DH who will hit 20 home runs and bat .240 and that's about a million times better than any other backup catcher you will find. Castro is starting to come around too, over the past 10 games he's batting .353.

Whoever the Astros have behind the dish going forward you feel pretty comfortable with them catching and hitting.

A.J. Hinch = J.B. Bickerstaff

There is something to be said about playing to the matchups, at the same time there is something to be said about playing who's hot. Tyler White goes banana's in the first game of the series, sits out in game two and gets the start again in game three and is cold as ice (facing Chris Sale). The Astros call up Colin Moran who they consider to future and he plays one game.

The Rockets had the same problems this season, J.B. Bickerstaff would get a nice game from blank and then blank was buried on the bench in the next game. Sometimes Bickerstaff would also ride people too long because they are veterans. The Astros are starting to share in this same trend.

Is there a reason why Jake Marisnick started in two of these games? I can understand Marisnick the defensive replacement but as a starter... That dog just won't hunt.

If Carlos Correa is struggling it's not like you you are going to take him out, and that's understandable. The Astros only have a few guys like that. So if White/Marwin Gonzalez/Luis Valbuena is going bananas ride them till the wheels fall off, just stop interchanging them in and out of the lineup.

Let a player carry his momentum into the following game if he has a good game.

Wait... The offense can score now?

Momentum lost! The Astros played well against the RedSox and had leads in two of the three games they lost, they just couldn't get it done. The Astros got blown out in the first game but had a chance to win three straight to close out the series.

The missed a prime chance to pick up a road series win and against a good team, this might haunt them in games to come.

Below are three takeaways from the RedSox series.

Wait, they can score now? 

In game one the Astros only scored one run, and you began to think, ok this is going to be a really rough series. They did redeem themselves, scoring on average seven runs a game.

Production came from just about everywhere, in each game someone different took the spotlight.

Game Two - Jose Altuve and George Springer did most the damage with 6 hits and 5 RBI's between them.

Game Three - Springer again came through with 4 RBI's and Carlos Correa and Colby Rasmus pitched in 2 hits a piece.

Game Four - Luis Valbuena had himself a day with 2 hits and 5 RBI's

If this is a sign of things to come, maybe things might be able to turn it around. The biggest problem for the Astros has been the offense, and if that comes around maybe, the darkness is starting to fade and the sun might be about to raise.

Will the real Dallas please stand up?

Dallas Keuchel has not looked like his old self, there are flashes but on the whole, he's been bad. So far this year his ERA is just a shade under 6, a mighty far cry from the Cy-Young year he had just months before.

A part of me wants to say that, Keuchel just ran into a buzz saw that was the rolling RedSox who were scoring 10 plus runs a game. The other part looks at his advanced stats and notices maybe something has changed.

Keuchel is getting plenty of swinging strikes, so he's still getting movement. One of the problems this year is his velocity is down across the board. His fastball is the slowest since breaking into the league (2016, 88.4 MPH, 2012, 88.1 MPH). Another even bigger differance this season, 20% of his pitches had been cutters, the past two seasons he threw around 5-6%.

Some games it feels like he is having a hard time trying to find himself. Others it feels like the umpires are squeezing him.

Whatever the problem, please come back to us Dallas Keuchel.

Tucker had his chance

After the final game of the series, the Astros made a few moves. Evan Gattis has been recalled and will replace Eric Kratz on the roster, they also moved Preston Tucker to AAA.

When they sent Gattis down to the minors to get in work at catcher, the guy primed to take his place at DH was Tucker. The problem was he wasn't able to take advantage.

Tucker in the month of May bat .147, while he didn't strikeout at a crazy high rate, he also didn't walk very much. The bottom of the lineup has not been very productive, Carlos Gomez and Tucker have been the prime culprits. There's nothing you can do with Gomez, so Tucker is the guy that has to go.

It's time for a major tweak

After the good vibes from a 16 inning walk-off win on Wednesday. The Astros followed that up scoring one run, off the RedSox losing 11-1 less than 24 hours later.

One of the big problems the Astros have had since the season started, played a big part in the loss again Thursday. Leaving men on base was an issue against David Price (who has given up his fair share of runs), the Astros got guys on base, but again could not get them in. This has been a problem for a while and even in wins it's an issue that keeps popping back up.

It's about time for the Astros to start taking a look at ways to manipulate their way to more runs. It's pretty clear drastic methods like calling a bunch of guys up or making trades is out of the question, for now at least.

What the Astros can do, is start moving the lineup around. They can start spreading some of that top of the lineup hitting wealth, to the rest of the batting order.

The Astros only have one player batting over .300, Jose Altuve's batting .326. Aside from him they only have two guys that are batting over .250, Carlos Correa batting .269 and George Springer batting .255. That's the 1-2-3 of your lineup. The rest of the batting order is .235 or lower and a few guys are even below .200.

When a Cowboy wants to take down a bunch of Outlaws, he's going to have a tough time, if he only has three bullets in his gun. He better hope the bad guys are having off days if his going to be able to come out on top.

That's a lot like the Astros now, they are winning games because the pitching most nights are doing enough to keep them close, and then when the timing is right they can put one or two guys across the plate. Some nights that is enough for a win, most nights it's not.

The Astros as a team are batting .229, only better than the Braves, the Phillies, and the Rays. All but one of the four is below .500 (Phillies are just playing out of their mind).

The Astros are getting production from four guys, Colby Rasmus, Altuve, Springer, and Correa. The rest of the lineup is hit and miss. To help get guys more fastballs and help kickstart them into gear, the Astros need to consider breaking up that four.

Spread the four throughout the order and mix in Carlos Gomez, Tyler White, and Preston Tucker higher in the lineup. I am not saying this will be the magic potion that will cure all the lineup woah's but it's worth a shot.

New lineup
1st - George Springer
2nd - Preston Tucker
3rd - Carlos Gomez
4th - Jose Altuve
5th - Carlos Correa
6th - Colby Rasmus
7th - Marwin Gonzalez
8th - Jason Castro
9th - Tyler White

The short seconded basemen is the team's best batter, you get someone on base for him you have faith he can get the run/runs home. Just think about how long innings can go with Correa and Rasmus right behind him.

Of course, that's the same thinking with them in the top of the order. The problem is the guys behind them aren't doing anything, so if you move Tucker and Rasmus in front of them they get fatter fastballs. You hope that they will be able to shake free the rust from the bats and start producing.

This would be a shake up and right now maybe that's what the bats need. The Astros have seen what this lineup has been able to do this season with minor tweaks here or there, but maybe it's time for a major tweak.

The Astros club the Twins, like a lot!

The first winning streak of the season comes by way of an Astros offensive explosion. The team was able to crank out three home runs to help them beat the Twins 16-4.

The Astros set the tone early in the game with Jose Altuve taking the fifth pitch he saw from Phil Hughes over the right field wall for a solo home run. They would get three more runs and send seven batters in total to the plate in the before the Twins finally were able to escape the inning with Astros up 3-0.

After chasing Hughes out of the game after the second inning, Casey Fien came in and fared a little better. Fien was able to get two quick outs but Luis Valbuena would reach on an infield single. With Jason Castro at the plate, he took a fastball left over the heart of the plate for a two-run blast over the right field wall putting them up 8-3.


Not to be out-done with Castro and Altuve getting long balls, Carlos Correa was also able to get his own blast. In the fourth inning with one out and the bases clear, Fien would leave another fastball on the plate and the Astros cleanup hitter sent the pitch over the left field wall to put them up 9-3.

The Astros offense was out in force scoring all but two, the sixth and seventh innings. On the night, Castro had two hits and drove in four runs and both Correa and Altuve had three hits and drove in three runs.

The only Astros batters on the night that were not able to join the 14 hit, 16 run party, was Tyler White - pitch run for Altuve in the seventh, popped out in the eighth - and Marwin Gonzalez (hitless but drew two walks and scored two runs).

Mike Fiers did get hit around and was not able to make it the full five innings to be in line for the win. In the fifth inning Fiers did battle but he could not get out of the inning. With one out and nearly 100 pitches thrown, Fiers walked Byung Ho Park and that was enough for A.J. Hinch as he opted to hand it to the bullpen.

Josh Fields came in and walked Oswaldo Arcia, with the bases loaded he was able to re-group and get John Ryan Murphy to fly out ending the Twins threat. Former starter Scott Feldman and Michael Feliz would each throw two hitless innings apiece to close out the rest of the game. Sealing the team's first win streak of the season.

Below are a few vines from the Astros big night!