Thomas Campbell – USA TODAY Sports
Stop me if this sounds familiar: the Houston Astros built a small lead behind a young pitcher, this time Brad Peacock, and then turned it over to the bullpen for another loss.
This headline could be applied to a sickening amount of Astros games this year. The most recent, obviously, was tonight against the Texas Rangers. But instead of focusing on the glaring negative of blown leads and errors, which would be the easy route, let’s focus on the positives.
One of the most unbelievable positives is Chris Carter, who entered the game on a bizarrely horrible slump. Carter has struck out an MLB-leading number of times, but looked like a new man tonight.
It started with his first at-bat with an ordinary single, but no single by Carter is ordinary, especially in his most recent of slumps. In his second at bat, Carter drew a 3-0 count. The unwritten rule is to take the next pitch. The unwritten rule is written in big neon letters especially for Carter, but he got the green light and turned it into his 20th home run of the season.
He worked a walk later in the game to go 2-for-3 with — believe it or not — zero strikeouts.
Hopefully this game is enough to kick start the confidence of the powerful Carter. On the contrary, if it doesn’t kick start him, hopefully it’s not enough to give the Astros the false impression that they need to keep him up in the big leagues for a while longer. It’s a long process either way.
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