The Houston Astros own the best record in baseball at 29-15, have the best run differential by a mile (plus-87, with the next best being plus-62) and have the longest current winning streak at eight games. As far as the pitching goes, they are sitting with the second-best ERA in the AL heading into Thursday. Suffice to say this team is awesome.
Enough about the pitching, though. Let's focus on the bats. This team absolutely mashes and it's doing so without Jose Altuve.
The 2017 AL MVP is currently on the injured list and is hitting just .243/.329/.472 compared to a career mark of .314/.364/.454. It hasn't really mattered, because his teammates have more than picked him up.
Brace yourselves, as we're about to look at just how off-the-hook the Astros offense has been.
- The Astros lead the majors with a .282 team batting average. The Twins are second at .262 and the league average is .244.
- The Astros lead the majors with a .354 on-base percentage. The Cubs are second at .346 and the league average is .319.
- The Astros lead the majors with a .512 slugging percentage. The Twins are second at .495 and third place is the Mariners at .462. The league average? .418. The Marlins are in last at a pitiful .307.
- The team OPS+ for the Astros is 131, which is better than that of Justin Turner, Paul Goldschmidt, Ronald Acuna, Manny Machado, Bryce Harper and a host of other studs.
Going by OPS+, the Astros have six players at least 50 percent better than league average.
- George Springer, 179
- Alex Bregman, 155
- Michael Brantley, 154
- Jake Marisnick, 154
- Robinson Chirinos, 153
- Carlos Correa, 150
Poor Josh Reddick is only hitting .333/.388/.444 for a 126 OPS+. The dude is getting hits in one-third of his at-bats and he's looking like the seventh or eighth best hitter on the team.
Run Georgie, run! #CarrytheFreight pic.twitter.com/IwgaQdM9fv
— Houston Astros (@astros) May 15, 2019
Baseball-Reference has a feature where you can view "wins above average" (a similar formula to WAR) by position and see how each team ranks. Here's how the Astros rank by position in the majors:
| POSITION | RANK |
|---|---|
Catcher | 5th |
First base | 19th |
Second base | 16th |
Third base | 1st |
Shortstop | 5th |
Left field | 1st |
Center field | 2nd |
Right field | 6th |
Designated hitter | 3rd |
Altuve coming back and playing like himself solves second base. Otherwise they're basically elite everywhere except Yuli Gurriel at first.
Everything isn't always going to be rosy this year, but the Astros have already faced adversity. They were 2-5 to start the year. They lost six of nine a few weeks later. Altuve hasn't been right.
And yet, the best team in baseball has been collectively hitting like an All-Star all season. The Red Sox are going to have their hands full this weekend.
