What We Saw in the Astros Season Opening Series Win..
Virtually no teams in baseball had the wild offseason the Houston Astros had. From trades and signings to position changes and rookies emerging, we can’t think of a more topsy turvy winter and spring for an MLB team. Which is exactly why so few knew what to expect from this team. And we still don’t really know after just one weekend, but at least the Astros emerged with a series win against the Mets.
The Stros did enough offensively to win two of three pitcher’s duels over the weekend. Plus, we got to see a rookie’s first hit and Jose Altuve in left field. Here are our observations from the bizarre first weekend in the Astros season.
Jose Altuve in left will take some getting used to (for all of us).
The weekend was mostly uneventful even if seeing Altuve up against the scoreboard in left field was completely confusing. He mis-timed a jump that turned into a double and almost ran into Jake Meyers as he cut in front of him in the first inning of the series, but, happily, there were no major blunders. It is going to be a learning experience for Altuve that could take a couple months and for the rest of us trying to figure out who that little guy in left field is — almost as weird as remembering to say Daikin Park. (Oh, and did we mention he is hitting .455 to start the season?)
Cam Smith is electric.
Last year’s Astros team had the air of a bunch of veterans. They were cool and calm and steady. Even when they were down in the division double digits, there wasn’t any panic. That’s great, but there also wasn’t a lot of fire. Enter the rookie right fielder. In a way, it’s like seeing a young Yordan Alvarez in that every at bat feels special. He’s so excited and thrilled to be here, and his plate discipline is that of someone who is much more experienced. When he finally starts to get comfortable, he is going to be a joy to watch.
As we suspected, the Astros starters are going to be fine.
Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti allowed a total of three earned runs in the first three games of the season. They combined for a total of 19 innings pitched, 7 walks and 16 strikeouts. For any series, that is fantastic. For the season opener when guys often don’t pitch deep into games, it’s incredible. We’ll see how Ronel Blanco and Hayden Wisneski do against the Giants, but this could be a very, very good rotation.
Rookie Cam Smith has been a joy to watch. Photo by Jack Gorman
Expect big things from Jeremy Peña.
The Astros shortstop laced the first home run of the season for the team into the Crawford Boxes. He has two hits in the first three games with no Ks. In the field, he is his usual defensive beast, robbing hitters of liners and generally swallowing up anything near him. This could be the best season of his young career.
If Christian Walker keeps smoking the ball like this, watch out.
Walker has an expected batting average in three games was .367 with a max exit velocity of 111.4 mph. He is absolutely crushing baseballs. Unfortunately, only one of those smoke jobs was a hit, but it won’t be long before they start dropping, and we anticipate quite a few will wind up in the Crawford Boxes.
The bullpen will be absolutely fascinating…and probably terrifying.
Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader are supposed to be the stalwart back end of the Astros bullpen, but we saw a bit of shaky play in the opening series. Fortunately, it didn’t hurt them, but those kind of close calls are something fans got uncomfortably used to in 2024. On the flip side, the biggest question marks have come when discussing the rest of the pen arms, but so far so good. Tayler Scott, Steven Okert, Bryan King and Luis Contreras combined to allow just one hit and no walks with six strikeouts in four innings of work. Not a bad start.
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