Astros' offense keeps sputtering. Can Jeremy Peña and Yordan Alvarez add a spark for stretch run?

The end of a demanding stretch accentuated an issue dogging the Houston Astros amid a playoff push. Over 28 innings of a series loss against the Diamondbacks, their offense scored eight runs, displaying a sluggishness that has recurred since the trade deadline.

Just four major-league teams entered Sunday with fewer runs scored than the Astros since the Aug. 3 deadline. A 3-2 loss to the Diamondbacks, then, upheld a disconcerting trend for a club that leads the American League West by two games with three weeks of season left.

The Astros have scored three or fewer runs in 18 of 31 games since the deadline. They entered Sunday with the majors’ lowest batting average and sixth-lowest slugging percentage in that span. They scored three or fewer runs eight times in a 13-day stretch that ended with a pair of one-run losses to Arizona, still going 8-5 during it behind a pitching staff that compiled a 3.26 ERA.

“That’s pretty damn good,” manager Joe Espada said of the 13-game stretch after Sunday’s loss. “I like our fight, and we’re in a really good spot. So, I like how our guys are just grinding through some really good pitching that we saw the last two weeks.”

The lineup did create chances this weekend. Houston went 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position in a 10-inning loss Saturday. In the 10th, it sent Yordan Alvarez, Isaac Paredes and Jose Altuve up to the plate. Jeremy Peña, the extra-innings runner on second base, did not advance 90 feet.

Sunday, a solo homer by Alvarez produced the Astros’ only run until the eighth inning, when LaMonte Wade Jr.’s pinch-hit RBI single left the potential tying run on second with one out. Houston stranded it. Yainer Diaz, Peña and Alvarez struck out in the ninth against Arizona’s Kevin Ginkel.

“This is a lineup and a team that, we’ve been battling,” Alvarez said, through an interpreter. “They have good pitchers and you saw the results, we were able to keep those games close.”

The Astros’ lineup has been top-heavy all season, with little consistent production after its top three of Peña, Alvarez and Paredes. The past month has perhaps illustrated the risk that entails. To ascribe an offense’s trajectory to two hitters is unfair, yet Peña and Alvarez are Houston’s two most dynamic, and modest impact elsewhere gives them an outsized presence.

Peña returned from a hamstring injury May 18. From that date through Aug. 2, the Astros averaged 4.9 runs per game and were tied for eighth in baseball in weighted runs created-plus. Alvarez and Peña ranked first and fourth, respectively, in OPS out of qualified American League hitters in that span. Peña, with a .955 OPS, led the AL in runs scored. Alvarez, with a 1.115 OPS, ranked second in runs.

Production has slowed for both since the trade deadline. Peña entered Sunday with a .522 OPS and 16 runs scored over 28 games since Aug. 3. Alvarez, still the majors’ OPS leader by a comfortable margin, came in with a more human .789 OPS in his last 30 games, with 10 runs batted in during that stretch. The Astros were averaging 3.9 runs per game since the deadline.

2026 ASTROS STATS

Team Totals.240.31548356471160211181876164741180441964Alvarez.314.43250994160291389599109102Correa.279.3691222234803161826101Allen.275.319131223650213930205Peña.271.32537369101161174623919110Diaz.264.293276327312011341047023Paredes.258.3574975812825118796176007Shewmake.256.2727810204039213002Altuve.247.30945064111202154439101435Delgado.243.3003749101437002Walker.227.30251064116251247745133002Harris.226.2863147010426200Loperfido.216.3141021322711121431111Smith.213.27845157961661750371271025Meyers.213.2681411530703111031120Dezenzo.213.2807511164013731101Vázquez.212.2682312249707251849102Wade.211.3231091523503181832000Trammell.205.2902192745927202275432Matthews.197.2502082341517221571441Varsho.173.242110819313121025300Price.167.2311212100016001Spence.162.24437461003315011Cole.157.18951481038121001Johnson.143.2941412000023000Whitcomb.130.16723230025111000Velázquez.100.13620120015110001Salazar.056.2271801000133000

___

Team Totals73714.51144144451279.111396856411835911264Meyers000.001001000000Hader410.694002339.1143311153Santa011.17100015.1862169VanWey101.505006521005Okert622.13681067.245171671468Blubaugh523.07550188683230113589Wesneski413.1877039.228141421433Brown533.311616087673432104693Pearson103.601601201610811216Lambert883.6725250139.211659571456137Abreu533.7058085637252374070Ullola003.8650075332110De Los Santos334.32620566.261363281861Arrighetti754.601717088684745125087King244.6752165458312881944Teng574.763010073.2694339103373Pecko105.1944017.116111041011Roa015.197008.21055176Imai645.351915070.257424294788Bolton015.408312021121231422Sousa135.8726102327171531525Javier255.98149049.255333392250Burrows495.991817094.21126963213575Blanco016.5965027.125202071523McCullers236.8688039.138323072243Murray007.4380013.1191111178Weiss037.629202635242282030France008.103006.2666154Salazar009.001001111100Alexander119.3342018.12119194814Gordon0011.574109.12112126311Muñoz0015.753004777366Wade0018.001001322100

That an offense should mirror its top hitters is not surprising, yet it underscores how heavily Houston’s is reliant on its own. Most others’ input has been sporadic. Paredes entered Sunday with a 134 wRC+ since the deadline; 100 is average, per FanGraphs. Jose Altuve (115) and Yainer Diaz (122) were above-average in that span. Christian Walker (44), Daulton Varsho (54) and Taylor Trammell (34) all hovered well below.

The Astros could certainly benefit from wider contributions. Still, there is perhaps no clearer remedy for their offense than Peña and Alvarez regaining something close to their midseason pace over the final 18 games – and into the postseason if they reach it.

Peña’s downturn has dovetailed with a spike in strikeouts. The leadoff man has a 31% strikeout rate over his last 29 games, with a .214 on-base percentage, with his batting average dropping 51 points to .271 in that stretch. He described it Sunday as “just a matter of swinging at better pitches.”

Peña’s chase rate in August jumped 10 percent month-over-month to 45.4%, per Baseball Savant, while his 38.6% whiff rate was also his highest in a month this season. A lot of his chase occurred on breaking pitches, as he pursued those pitches out of the zone at a 59.6% clip.

“I feel like it’s me, I feel like I’ve kind of gotten away from my approach a little bit,” Peña said. “But like I said, it’s a matter of working back, making adjustments and swinging at good pitches.”

Alvarez, meanwhile, has continued to reach base at a high rate the past month. But his power numbers have ebbed. His 38th home run of the season Sunday – a new career high – retied him with Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero for the American League lead but was just his third in his past 35 games.

Espada opined Sunday morning that Alvarez has “been pitched very differently” of late, saying pitchers are “just going to different locations, more four-seams up, breaking balls out over the plate.” After the loss, Alvarez agreed that opponents are “pitching me well lately, I don’t think that’s a secret.”

“Sometimes they have their plan and that’s for me to chase,” Alvarez said, through interpreter Otto Loor. “And I think sometimes it has to do with a little bit of anxiety – I start chasing and I think that’s what’s happening. But I think that’s what I have to work on, just try to be more patient in the future and not chase those pitches that they want me to chase.”

Alvarez, who entered Sunday with a 28.8% chase rate this season, did post a slightly higher 33.3% rate during August, per Baseball Savant. The share of in-zone pitches he has seen has dipped steadily since May, meanwhile, likely reflecting teams’ reticence to challenge him at times amid a prolific season.

“I think the stuff that’s happening is they’re simply not letting pitches stay in the zone like I was hunting when I was aggressive,” Alvarez said. “Those same pitches, they’re not leaving them in the zone as they did before.”

Alvarez did get a changeup in the zone from Arizona left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez in his first at-bat Sunday and lofted it 337 feet over the right-field wall. He scorched a 109.9 mph line out in his second at-bat. In the seventh, he popped up a well-placed slider from lefty Brandyn Garcia to strand two runners.

As a club, the Astros finished 2-for-7 with men in scoring position and stranded nine runners Sunday, reinforcing that curing their offensive inconsistency falls on the full lineup. Alvarez cannot carry it alone, even as his pursuit of a Triple Crown, and spotty production around him, combine to create that sense.

“Hitting is super difficult,” Alvarez said. “Sometimes, per at-bat you only have one pitch to make good contact, and sometimes you’ll have zero pitches per at-bat to make good contact. So you’ve got to make sure to take advantage of the times that there’s a pitch that I can make good contact with.”

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This article originally published at Astros’ offense keeps sputtering. Can Jeremy Peña and Yordan Alvarez add a spark for stretch run?.