TCB Astros Hitter of the Week: Week 7

Each week we will, through the magic of small sample sizes, find out who the best hitters the Astros have had over the past handful of games. There will be surprises for sure, as there will be obvious candidates. It is a good way to get some recognition for guys who may fly under the radar over the course of a season, but for a few glorious days are the belle of the ball. We have a couple of new additions this week, including a new top spot. As always, we will start with the...

Honorable Mention

Tyler White

In a week where you have three 2-1 losses, you aren't going to have a lot of top-notch performances, so you go looking for something good. We all know Tyler hasn't done so much since setting the world on fire his first week, but he has shown some signs of life recently. He only batted .200 on the week, but had a .867 OPS on the strength of a .667 slugging percentage. Out of his three hits, two of them left the yard. Like I said, not great, but something. As is the case with the Astros, if you aren't going to hit a lot, at least hit it a long way.

Jason Castro

Once again the Astros catcher makes the list. Since telling everyone he had simplified his swing, it has been paying dividends. Jason batted .294 with .368 on-base percentage (he's still drawing walks) and a .471 slugging percentage (still hitting for some power). He was one of only three players with a wRC+ over 100. Throw in four runs scored and two more driven in and a guy couldn't be blamed for starting to believe in this new (old) batter. I keep saying I don't think it will last, but the longer it continues...

Winner

Evan Gattis

The recent callup from Corpus Christi makes it two catchers on the list this week. Evan came back from his stint in the minors and his bat came along with the "new" position. Yes I know he only caught one game and was DH the rest of the time, but whatever his role he had a good stretch. A lot of that was due to the long ball. He put up a .364 average on eight hits, three of which were homers. He scored four runs and drove in four more. His OPS for the week was 1.213 including getting on base 44% of the time (three walks in addition to the hits). Gattis getting back to the numbers he put up in Atlanta would go a long way to helping this team turn the corner on the early season issues. Here's to hope that our two catchers can keep it up. (And here's to hoping they don't have to carry the team's offensive load too much longer...)