HOUSTON – Hey guys, it’s Ari Alexander with the Astros, who quickly need to turn around their offensive outage as they enter a series against the worst team that baseball has maybe ever seen. This weekend, the Astros face the A’s before they come home and get a potentially Carlos Correa-less Minnesota Twins squad.
JUST HOW BAD ARE THE A’S?
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The Astros swept the A’s last weekend and should do so again this weekend. The A’s are bad. So, so bad. I’m not even trying to make fun of them, because they’re bad on purpose and for a sad reason. With ownership trying to move the team out of Oakland, they’ve slashed payroll and essentially don’t care about results. The A’s are 10-42. That .192 win percentage over a full season would equal a 31-131 record. That would be by far the worst team in history.
They’re 28th in offense, with a .661 OPS. Basically, their offense is Eugenio Suarez of the Mariners, who is not having a good season.
They’re dead last in pitching, giving up a 6.88 ERA, which is atrocious. Their team WHIP is 1.67, which is atrocious.
They’re 27th in fielding percentage.
The Astros’ offense is 24th, which could get a boost this weekend vs. this awful, awful pitching staff.
BAGUETTE JOSE ABREU
Qualified hitters this season who would have the same number of home runs if theyd been using a baguette instead of a bat all year pic.twitter.com/47h2vLtlCM
— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) May 26, 2023
Jose Abreu has been so bad this season, that his power is being compared to how he’d swing with a baguette.
Abreu, per the baguette tweet and a cursory look at MLB stats, is one of only five players in the MLB without a home run, who has enough ABs to be qualified.
There’s also a massive difference between Abreu and the other four hitters. Myles Straw, Jean Segura, Josh Rojas and Andrew Benintendi have combined for 207 home runs in their MLB careers. Jose Abreu has 243 by himself. His power outage has been shocking, to say the least.
THE BACKUPS ARE COOKING
In a perfect world, Brandon Bielak and J.P. France don’t make any starts for the Astros. That certainly happened last season, when Houston had amazing starting pitcher health. Both Bielak and France would have been backup options in 2022, but weren’t needed to start.
This season, Bielak and France have already combined to make eight starts. That’s as many as Lance McCullers, Jr. has made in 2022 and 2023 combined in the regular season.
So far, they have been solid, with Bielak pitching to a 3.55 ERA, but a 5.68 FIP means regression could be coming. J.P. France has a 3.43 ERA with a 5.52 FIP, potentially signaling the same. So far the results have been above expectations, and the Astros hope to keep it that way.