HOUSTON -- Slowly but surely, Christian Walker’s bat appears to be rounding into form following a slow start with the Astros. Yordan Alvarez hasn’t slugged anywhere close to his normal level yet, but there’s no reason to believe it’s not coming, considering his track record.
So what about Yainer Diaz?
In first season as a starter in 2024, Diaz was one of the game’s most productive offensive catchers, hitting .299 with 29 doubles, 16 home runs and 84 RBIs. After a slow start this season, Diaz had his second-best game in Tuesday’s 6-4 win over the Tigers at Daikin Park by going 2-for-4 with three RBIs, including a two-run, go-ahead single in the sixth inning.
“It gives me a lot of confidence,” said Diaz, who’s slashing .187/.213/.308 with three walks and 19 strikeouts. “It gives me some hope, as well, that things are going to get better, and as a team, it gives us confidence that we’re going to keep racking up some wins.”
The Astros, who have won eight of 11 games to improve to a season-best three games over .500 (16-13), were trailing 2-0 through five innings before scoring three times in the sixth against Tigers starter Reese Olson and three times in the seventh against reliever Will Vest, who had allowed three hits and one run in 12 innings coming in.
“The first couple of innings, it didn’t look like we were going to have much success [against] Olson, but we made some adjustments,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “The runs [in the sixth] were led by a couple of walks that we got there that both scored. I thought the quality of our at-bats got better right there in the middle of the game. We really turned things around there in the middle of the game and we got some really big at-bats by a few of our guys.”
Diaz, who struck out in his first two at-bats against Olson, reached out and poked the third pitch thrown by Vest -- a 2-0 slider that was a tad off the plate -- into center field to score Isaac Paredes and Walker to put Houston ahead, 3-2. Diaz added an RBI single in the seventh.
“That slider stayed up and he was able to get it out in the outfield,” Espada said. “It’s just confidence, you know? He needs to be more patient. He needs to swing at better pitches [and not be] taking fastballs and swinging at offspeed out of the zone. He needs to make those adjustments, but any time you get a big hit like that, you come back the next day feeling better about yourself, and he’s making progress toward his goal. He’s just got to be a little bit more disciplined.”
Entering Tuesday, Diaz saw 3.4 pitches per plate appearance, the fifth-fewest in the Major Leagues. His strikeout rate is up a tick, and his walk rate is down a tad from last year, but his average exit velocity has dropped for the third season in a row, from 93.7 mph in ’22 to 90.3 in ’23 to 90.2 in ’24 and to 88.2 this year.
“It’s all about the approach,” Diaz said. “They know me already, so they have a plan for me, but it’s just making sure I have the same approach for each at-bat.”
Walker, who homered in Monday’s win, was 2-for-3 with a run scored and a loud RBI double hitting ahead of Diaz in the lineup. He had the two hardest-hit balls of the game on a double play grounder in the fourth that was 109.3 mph off the bat and a sixth-inning double off the wall with a 109.1 mph exit velocity.
“Those are the type of swings that build some trust,” Walker said. “You talk about stacking wins, getting the confidence back, it’s those types of swings. It’s feeling like you picked a good one, maybe you earned a good one. You had to lay off some sliders to get to that fastball. It’s a little bit about that pitch and the execution, but leading up to it and taking some pitchers’ pitches to earn something over the heart of the plate and executing. [Olson] wasn’t making many mistakes tonight.”