Houston Astros: 2 reasons why the team is in an extreme shifting balance

The Houston Astros are in extreme shifting balance mode at this time with all of the challenges that they’re facing. Here are 2 reasons why that’s the case.

The active roster for the Houston Astros appears to be a revolving door as of late. Clearly, a Shifting Balance is causing the team to lose key players and have the young minor league guys take over. Thankfully, the spacemen are still winning games. But how long will that last?

To really understand the current situation for the club, two things stand out more than anything else:

1. Hurt so good?

The biggest thing that Shifting Balance for the Houston Astros right now is the number of injuries. As of this writing, the following players are on the injured list:

Max Stassi
Aledmys Diaz
George Springer
Collin McHugh
Joe Smith (May return soon)
Lance McCullers Jr. (Out until 2020 due to Tommy John‘s surgery)
Carlos Correa (Just placed on the IL tomorrow with a fractured rib, expected to miss close to two months)

Jose Altuve was expected to come back from rehab assignment on Wednesday but may have to wait longer after he had mentioned some new discomfort in the knee he had surgery on in the offseason. The top 5 on the aforementioned list should be back soon, with the other two taking longer.

With this many key players out, it is hard to imagine what games going forward will be like. Luckily, the team has enough depth and guys in the minor leagues to get the job done at the major league level.

2. Splashing debuts

That brings me to my second stand out that is creating the shifting balance with the Houston Astros: The call ups. So far, we have seen debuts from the following minor league players:

Martin tallied nine strikeouts in five innings in his debut against the Texas Rangers. I highlighted

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extensively what Jack Mayfield did in his first game back on Memorial Day. Derek Fisher has been providing some great outfield defense. And just yesterday, Garrett Stubbs did really nice work behind the dish in place of Stassi, while getting in a pair of hits with his bat.

Myles Straw is about to join the party, as he just got the call up in wake of the rib injury to Correa. Down in Round Rock, Straw has been pulling in a very nice slash line of .289/.369/.721 so far in 2019. While he’s not big in the power category, he does provide contact and base running. Two qualities the Astros can always use more of.

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All in all, we here at HOH wish all the injured players a very speedy recovery that is as painless as possible. In the meantime, the fort is definitely going to be held down well. It just goes to show that the depth of this team has been one of its biggest advantages to other AL teams.

And it looks to stay that way for quite a while.

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