Keep Calm and BABIP On

This seven game losing streak has irriateted most fans. First we had Chad Qualls take a loss against Baltimore to start the streak, then Roberto Hernandez threw a stinker, then Jonathan Villar run into Jose Reyes and drop a pop-up that let the winning run on-base, then the team ran into the left-handed buzzsaw known as Chris Sale, then the offense and bullpen let the Astros down in the last two games against the White Sox. The one bright spot was that it did bring two very highly regarded prospects to the big leagues though with Carlos Correa and Vincent Velasquez both making their major league debuts in Chicago.

Watching the last few games has left me with the gut feeling Astros have been terribly unlucky offensively. It feels as though almost every hard hit ball has someone managed to find a glove. I wanted to look into some stats to see if we could explain their struggles the past 7 games. I'm going to go ahead and throw a disclaimer in now. This is an incredibly small sample size.

The first stat I wanted to look at was team BABIP over the past seven days and compare it to team BABIP on the whole season. Immediately I could see a lower BABIP suppressing the teams offensive output. Over the past 7 days, the Astros have slashed .195/.250/.339 with a suppressed BABIP of .245. Luis Valbuena has contributed to alot of the problem with a .000 batting average and .000 babip in 6 games and 21 plate appearances this past week. This is in comparison to the full season slash line of .234/.301/.410 with a BABIP of .281 for the team. If we go back to April where the Astros went 15-7, the offense slashed .238/.316/.411 with a BABIP of .288. That line is much more in line with the full season statistics. Not only because of the larger sample, but because it is more indicative of who the Astros truly are offensively. The pitching staff has pitched to an 4.32 ERA for the past 7 days, as opposed to their full season ERA of 3.65. That 4.32 ERA would be good for 28th in MLB if that was their full season ERA, and I don't believe that it is in anyway indicative of the Astros pitching staff going forward especially with Hernandez relegated to bullpen.

This is a very basic look at what has been going on offensively with the Astros, and I believe that the Astros will return to their winning ways after their BABIP regresses back towards the season average. After writing this article I'm hoping the Astros will win 7 games in a row so I can write another piece explaining that their .500 BABIP in those games isn't sustainable.