HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610) -- Before and after the Astros win over the Giants Wednesday night, Dusty Baker signaled Yordan Alvarez could make his long-awaited arrival to the team this weekend against the Mariners. This would obviously be welcome news to a team that has struggled to hit in limping to an 8-10 start, but with return of last year’s American League Rookie of the Year comes difficult decisions.
Who gets sent down?
The Astros roster is currently composed of 15 pitchers and 13 position players. The team could drop one of the 10 relievers currently in their bullpen and most likely be fine, but Friday starts a stretch of 17 games in 17 days, and a nine-man bullpen might not be big enough to supplement a starting rotation that has gone seven innings just once.
The hard part about sending down a position player is that Alvarez can really only DH, so Myles Straw and Kyle Tucker would seem safe, especially the speedy Straw. Abraham Toro is a switch hitter who Baker likes using in pinch hit situations, plus he is really the only corner infield option on the Astros bench. That leaves third catcher Garrett Stubbs, who hasn’t started a game yet this season, but he’s a good athlete who Baker has used as a pinch runner multiple times, which turned into a negative Tuesday against the Giants, as well as in left field.
Can Alvarez and Michael Brantley start at the same time?
Brantley hasn’t played the outfield since he stepped on Joe Kelly’s foot July 28, and he’s been in and out of the lineup for two weeks with an ankle issue and a quad issue stemming from that play. For now, Baker is hoping the 33-year old Brantley will be able to handle playing left field again.
“We tried to have Yordan play the field in spring training and his knees got sore and he couldn’t play for a couple of days, so that’s why we gotta try to get Michael back to get well enough to play the field.”
Baker cited Alvarez’s knees as a reason he played just 10 games in the outfield last season, and while Alvarez said during spring training his knees were fine, the issue crept up again before Major League Baseball shutdown in March. Getting Alvarez’s bat back in the lineup will be a nice boost for the Astros, but that boost gets lessened if he can’t be paired with Brantley.
