TCB Astros Hitter of the Week

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. Surprisingly this week looks a lot like last week. As always, we will start with the...

Honorable Mention

Jason Castro

Yes, it surprises you as much as me to have Castro in any sort of list related to offensive prowess, much less to have him here two weeks in a row. According to an article last week on Chron.com by Angel Verdejo Jr, Castro says he has made an adjustment at the plate "just trying to simplify things a little bit". So far it is paying off for Jason. This week he batted .286, which is very good seeing what little production the team was getting out of the catcher position. Even better is his OBP was .423, which allowed him to be on base when the top of the order came up. He scored six runs on the week, which included driving himself in two times with homers.

Carlos Correa

Carlos was in a "slump" through a good part of April. His slumps are not like most folks...as he still hit .271 with a .809 OPS. It wasn't good enough for him, as he mentioned he was not happy with the media on a couple of occasions. The beginning of May has been much better for him. His slash line this week was .360/.467/.680, and he hit his first home runs since the opening week. He seems to be heating up, and it looks like some of us* can cancel our "what if last season was an aberration" worries.

*not me...but I saw those folks

And our winner is...

Jose Altuve

Yeah...again. When a player reduces you to saying "This guy, am I right?" after so many at-bats, it means you have run out of new things to say (or you are not very good at speaking in emotional situations). He batted an even .400 for the week, with two more homers. He only struck out one time and drew three more walks. He got on base in almost half of his plate appearances! He is in the top five of so many offensive categories in all of the MLB, and top ten in so many others. The main tell of how well he is doing is I read more stories and articles that mention Altuve that doesn't include "diminutive", "small", "short", or listing his height. He doesn't have to be qualified like that anymore. He is no longer the short guy that happens to be good at baseball. He is becoming the guy who is REALLY good at baseball, who happens to be short.