{"id":160301,"date":"2025-09-22T04:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T04:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/160301\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T04:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T04:58:07","slug":"astros-notes-pena-alvarez-rodgers-polanco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/160301\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros Notes: Pena, Alvarez, Rodgers, Polanco"},"content":{"rendered":"

6:16PM: During the Astros\u2019 pregame radio show, GM Dana Brown said that Pena\u2019s oblique injury \u201ccould be just a two-day thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s minor based on the initial evaluation of it.\u201d\u00a0 Pena will still get some testing done out of due diligence. (Hat tip to Chandler Rome<\/a>).<\/p>\n

5:40PM: As the Astros head into a critical matchup with the Mariners tonight, Houston will be without one of its key players for at least this game and perhaps beyond.\u00a0 Jeremy Pena<\/a> was included in the initial lineup but has now been scratched due to left oblique soreness, according to an announcement from the team.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, losing Pena would be devastating to the Astros\u2019 chances of winning the AL West, or even making the postseason given how the standings have narrowed.\u00a0 The Astros trail Seattle by two games in the division race after losing the first two games of this weekend series, and another loss tonight would put Houston out of the playoff picture entirely, as the surging Guardians would have a matching 84-72 record and the tiebreaker edge.<\/p>\n

Because the Astros don\u2019t play on Monday, it provides some extra time to evaluate Pena\u2019s condition.\u00a0 If it is just a matter of soreness and tonight\u2019s scratch was more of a precautionary move, it\u2019s possible the shortstop could be back in action as soon as Tuesday.\u00a0 Oblique issues are notoriously hard to project, however, so even if Pena remains short of an actual oblique strain, there might still be enough discomfort that the Astros don\u2019t want to risk putting him into a game.<\/p>\n

Pena is having the best of his four Major League seasons, hitting .304\/.363\/.477 with 17 homers and 20 steals (in 22 attempts) over 543 plate appearances.\u00a0 Each of those slash categories is a new career high for Pena, and he has also matched his personal best in stolen bases.\u00a0 Between his big numbers and excellent defense, Pena has been worth 5.7 fWAR this season, even though he missed all of July recovering from a rib fracture.<\/p>\n

Injuries have been the biggest problem of Houston\u2019s season, as it is rather remarkable that the Astros are still in the race given how many key players have missed substantial amounts of time.\u00a0 Yordan Alvarez<\/a> is one of those figures, as the slugger has been limited to 48 games due to a hand injury that included a finger fracture, and most recently a sprained ankle that sent him back to the IL on September 16.<\/p>\n

Alvarez provided media (including the Houston Chronicle\u2019s Matt Kawahara<\/a>) with an update on his status today, saying that he has yet to begin baseball activities since the inflammation in his ankle hasn\u2019t fully settled.\u00a0 On the plus side, Alvarez is no longer wearing a protective boot, and he feels he is healing a little quicker than expected.\u00a0 In the absolutely best case scenario, Alvarez would be eligible to be activated off the IL on Friday, when the Astros visit the Angels in the opener of their final series of the year.<\/p>\n

One player who won\u2019t be an option is Brendan Rodgers<\/a>, as manager Joe Espada confirmed to MLB.com\u2019s Brian McTaggart<\/a> and other reporters that Rodgers\u2019 season is officially over.\u00a0 The news is no surprise, as Rodgers hasn\u2019t played in a big league game since June 14.\u00a0 Initially sidelined by an oblique strain, Rodgers suffered a concussion and a nasal fracture after an on-field collision in his first minor league rehab game in July.\u00a0 He returned to play one more minors game in August but was then sidelined by back problems.<\/p>\n

Signed to a minor league deal in February, Rodgers made the Opening Day roster, and thus locked in a $2MM salary for the 2025 season.\u00a0 He hit .191\/.266\/.278 over 128 PA and 43 games before his injuries prematurely ended his season, and Rodgers will surely have to settle for another minor league contract with Houston or another club this winter.<\/p>\n

Rodgers was brought aboard to add second base depth due to Jose Altuve<\/a>\u2019s planned move to left field, and he may have been a fallback plan after Houston missed on signing Jorge Polanco<\/a>.\u00a0 The Astros were the runners-up to the Mariners in signing Polanco, as the veteran infielder told Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times<\/a> that Houston was \u201cvery close.\u00a0 They made a good offer, but Seattle came back with a better offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mariners were also given the chance to counter, as Divish writes that Polanco\u2019s agent gave Seattle a last chance to top the Astros\u2019 offer.\u00a0 The end result was a one-year, $7.75MM guarantee plus a mutual option for 2026 that has now vested<\/a> into a player option.\u00a0 Missing out on Polanco might well end up being the difference for the Astros in the AL West race, as Polanco rebounded in a huge way from a lackluster 2024 season to hit .265\/.325\/.489 with 24 homers for the M\u2019s this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6:16PM: During the Astros\u2019 pregame radio show, GM Dana Brown said that Pena\u2019s oblique injury \u201ccould be just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,10752,33574,106349,591,85,16050],"class_list":{"0":"post-160301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brendan-rodgers","11":"tag-jeremy-pena","12":"tag-jorge-polanco","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-yordan-alvarez"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}