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<\/p>\nHOUSTON \u2014 Here stood Shawn Dubin, the latest symbol of this season-threatening problem. Dubin strained his right forearm June 21 and missed the Houston Astros\u2019 subsequent 44 games. On his first day back, in the sixth inning, this battered ballclub needed one out from a bullpen that had already been punched in the gut. Manager Joe Espada asked Dubin to procure it.<\/p>\n
Before his injury, Dubin averaged 94.5 mph with a four-seam fastball that, at times, has reached 97. None of the nine he threw Tuesday touched 95. The one Alex Bregman belted for a two-run home run arrived at 93.3 mph. Of the 558 fastballs Dubin has thrown as a big leaguer, only 20 others were slower.<\/p>\n
Dubin faced five hitters before collecting the one out this depth-starved club sought. A two-run deficit turned to seven, fitting for a team that finished squandering its seven-game American League West lead with a lifeless 14-1 loss against Bregman and the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Dubin does not deserve outsized blame. Nor does Espada, who had few other options at his disposal. This is just the embodiment of a bigger problem. Hope alone isn\u2019t prudent in the pursuit of a playoff spot or division title. Yet, mid-August has arrived, and the Astros are hanging on to it from every corner of their clubhouse as the Seattle Mariners continue to surge. The two teams are in a dead heat with 42 games remaining, shrinking any margin for error.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we live for, right?\u201d third baseman Carlos Correa said. \u201cThat\u2019s when it gets fun, when there\u2019s good competition and good teams out there you have to compete against and try to beat. They\u2019re playing great baseball. We just have to step it up a notch.\u201d<\/p>\n
An entire city hopes Correa can catalyze this ballclub. Both his aura and baseball acumen are unmatched in the view of his teammates and those who cheer for them. Vibes around Houston and inside the team\u2019s clubhouse have never been higher, highlighted by the raucous scene, endless standing ovations and excessive extravagance during Correa\u2019s return to Daikin Park on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Correa has played in 11 games since the Astros reacquired him at the trade deadline. Houston has won just five of them, a fact Correa\u2019s mere presence has helped to mask. The Mariners, meanwhile, are 10-1 across that same stretch. It is unfair to insinuate the Astros have played poorly \u2014 a win Wednesday would give them three series wins in a row, after all \u2014 but pitted against the Mariners, mediocre or middling isn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n
Correa himself has been brilliant, raising his OPS by 36 points in just 44 at-bats while heightening the attention paid to small details. He is considered one of the game\u2019s savviest players, a 30-year-old infielder multiple team officials have likened to another coach. Monday, Espada even acknowledged he can \u201cdelegate some responsibilities to Carlos.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith all the young guys, it\u2019s important for them to understand that we didn\u2019t get here by just showing up and playing. We got here because we prepare, we study, we analyze, because we took advantage of the flaws of the team we\u2019re facing, and we knew what those flaws were,\u201d Correa said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An entire city hopes Carlos Correa can catalyze this ballclub. (Alex Slitz \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Before Correa came back, as many as 18 Astros resided on the injured list at once, from reigning All-Stars to former rotation mainstays. Health has improved but is still in a state where no one person \u2014 not even Correa \u2014 can compensate. The left shoulder strain closer Josh Hader suffered Monday only complicated the problem and forced Dubin into a leverage spot Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A timeline for Hader\u2019s return is unknown. Ditto for slugger Yordan Alvarez and center fielder Jake Meyers. What they could actually provide on the field is anyone\u2019s guess, but just mentioning their names seems to lighten moods and prompt positivity among team officials.<\/p>\n
There is hope Dubin can bounce back and become the right-handed weapon this bullpen needs in the wake of Hader\u2019s injury. Tuesday, Espada hoped Alvarez will face live pitching this weekend at the team\u2019s spring training complex and, perhaps, take another step toward appearing in a major-league game for the first time since May 2.<\/p>\n
Monday offered hope for the stabilization of a two-man starting rotation. Pitching on a major-league mound for the first time in 15 months, Cristian Javier struck out five Red Sox across five innings of two-run ball. Sans Hader and setup man Bryan Abreu, the bullpen came within one hit of blowing the game.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Injuries) happen to a lot of teams, it\u2019s just been happening to our team a lot more often, especially a lot of the studs that help the team in a big way,\u201d Correa said. \u201cThe organizational depth that we have here is crazy, and that\u2019s how we\u2019re still in the position we\u2019re in today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Correa is not wrong. Thirty-seven days ago, the Astros could\u2019ve staked a claim as baseball\u2019s best team. Their injury-riddled roster did not deserve the title, but still boasted a record worthy of the distinction. A skeleton crew bludgeoned the sport\u2019s most expensive roster across a three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium, surged 20 games above .500 and started distancing itself from Seattle.<\/p>\n
On July 6, the final day of that Dodgers sweep, FanGraphs gave the Astros 85.9 percent odds to win the American League West. Houston has lost 18 of its 30 games since and seen its probability plummet to 43.8 percent, according to those same odds.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I look at it this way,\u201d Espada said, \u201ctomorrow we come out (with) Hunter Brown on the mound, we win the game, that\u2019s three series wins in a row. That\u2019s what we want to try and do.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the hope.<\/p>\n
(Top photo: Alex Slitz \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Here stood Shawn Dubin, the latest symbol of this season-threatening problem. Dubin strained his right forearm…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":143204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2382,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-143203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-houston-astros","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115023214443674292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}