Houston Astros: Team regaining health at the right time

The Houston Astros are sending five players to triple-A Fresno this weekend in order to complete their rehabilitation from injury before returning to the major league roster.

The Houston Astros are close to seeing the return of Tony Sipp, Will Harris, Michael Feliz, Lance McCullers Jr., and last but certainly not least, Carlos Correa. The team is getting healthy at exactly the right time as we still have 37 games left to give these guys some reps and be fully prepared for post season baseball.

All five of these players will have over a month to get back into the rhythm of their games and while the Astros once mammoth lead in the American League overall has dwindled and become somewhat tenuous, their 11.5 game lead within their division seems quite insurmountable all but guaranteeing them a playoff spot.

Seeding shouldn’t matter to the team right now, especially considering they have the best road record in all of baseball (yes, even better than the dominant Los Angeles Dodgers) at 40-21. The team can win on the road unlike the team of 2015 who struggled mightily with that.

So the focus now is getting to the playoffs healthy and re-acclimated to the speed of major league pitching and hitting. With a month to go, this is perfect timing.

Correa can work on getting his pitch recognition and strike zone discipline back, McCullers Jr, Harris, Sipp and Feliz can all get the feel they had for their pitches back, and the team could be fully restored to the one that jumped out to such a big lead in the first half of the season, refreshed and ready to go.

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It couldn’t be coming at a better time as the team is looking at enduring it’s first losing month of the season standing at 7-13 for the month of August. They’ve been 16-20 overall in the second half of the season and they’ve gone from their high point of 34 games over .500 on July 28th to 25 games over .500 as of the time of this writing.

If the team starts to fire on all cylinders again with the return of one of their three MVPs, and their second ace pitches like he’s capable of, and their set up man 2016 all star pitches like he’s capable of and, well you get the gist.

The Houston Astros first half gave them such a huge cushion that despite their recent injury plague and struggles, they still hold a four game edge over the Boston Red Sox for home field advantage throughout the American League playoffs. These returning players should be enough to stave off any Red Sox or Cleveland Indians run at them for top dog in the standings.

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Brian McCann is also scheduled back tomorrow from right knee soreness, so the Houston Astros are becoming the same team that dominated the first half of the year at the exact right time before the calendar turns to September, giving them a month to start playing like their capable of once again. And that is very good news for a team that has had so little lately.

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