Bad news on the injury front for the Houston Astros, as Yordan Alvarez will need to see a hand specialist following a setback in his rehab from a broken bone in his right hand.
According to GM Dana Brown, the 28 year old felt pain when he arrived to the team’s spring training complex on Tuesday after going through a workout the day prior. The club will shut down his rehab efforts until additional medical opinions are gathered.
“It’s a tough time going through this with Yordan, but I know that he’s still feeling pain and the soreness in his hand,” Brown told reporters. “We’re not going to try to push it or force him through anything. We’re just going to allow him to heal and get a little bit more answers as to what steps we take next.”
“We felt like he was close because he had felt so good of late… but this is certainly news that we didn’t want.”
Originally diagnosed as a muscle strain, Alvarez’s injury has kept the slugger out of action since May 2nd when imaging revealed a small fracture. The outfielder/DH had gotten off to a slow start, hitting .210 with 3 HRs, 18 RBIs and an OPS of .646 across 29 games.
Prior to this year, Alvarez had hit 30 or more home runs in 4 straight seasons, which prompted the team to give him a 6 year, $115M contract extension back in 2022. Only Aaron Judge had a higher wRC+ than Alvarez between 2019-2024 amongst hitters with at least 60 plate appearances.
Despite being without their top hitter, Houston has remained resilient as ever, sitting atop the AL West with a 51-34 record. That mark is buoyed in large part due to their stellar home record of 32-14, and a recent 8-2 run in their last 10 games.
However the injuries have begun to pile up for the club of late, with over a dozen players currently on the IL including shortstop Jeremy Peña who was added to the list with a fractured rib last week. It will be interesting to see how the team approaches the July 31st MLB trade deadline, as the franchise sits just $5M shy of the competitive balance tax threshold at the moment.
Whether the front office opts to add additional pieces at the deadline, or simply hope to return healthy players back to the lineup remains to be seen.
The Astros are next in action Wednesday against the Colorado Rockies in an 8:40pm ET affair.
Photo: Thatlostdog. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.