TAMPA -- Yordan Alvarez is frustrated with his current predicament.
When he was scratched from the Astros’ lineup on May 3 with right hand soreness, the thought then was that he would be out of action for a minimal amount of time.
Alvarez was placed on the injured list two days later, but that was followed by the relatively good news that he just needed to rest the strained muscle in that hand that had been affecting him for a large chunk of the season.
He was first eligible to come off the IL on May 13. Nearly one week later, he remains sidelined, and the pain in his hand has yet to fully subside.
“It’s been very frustrating,” Alvarez said before Monday night’s 4-3 win over the Rays, via team interpreter Otto Loor. “I didn’t think it was going to take this long. But obviously, it’s been longer than what I had anticipated.”
Alvarez admitted that his hand has gotten “a lot better,” but he has yet to advance past hitting off a tee and doing soft toss in the batting cages, and he still isn’t swinging at 100%.
The injury played a role in the formidable slugger’s .210/.306/.340 slash line with only three homers and 18 RBIs in 121 plate appearances. Alvarez also said the physical pain began to affect him mentally, though he doesn’t want to use it as an excuse for his subpar statistics.
“There's no justification for the results that I've been having,” he said.
The Astros’ offense has been above average without Alvarez, producing a 112 wRC+ (100 is league average). That’s ninth-best in MLB. But they are averaging just 4.3 runs per game during that stretch, which ranks 16th.
“We all want him back in there,” manager Joe Espada said of the three-time All-Star. “But I want him back when he feels 100%, and we can have him back and keep him in the lineup and not having to pause and reset.
“At least what I'm hearing is that he's getting better every single day. He continues to swing the bat. As long as he's doing that, we are moving in the right direction.”
Espada said he wants to see Alvarez progress from hitting off a tee to hitting off a high-velocity machine and taking batting practice on the field -- all without any hint of discomfort -- before penciling him back into the middle of Houston’s order.
On its face, that sounds like a long process. But Alvarez and Espada left open the possibility that a return might occur sooner than later.
“It could be tomorrow. It could be the next day,” Alvarez said. “But we're going to keep working for [the hand] to be 100%.”
Said Espada: “Once Yordan tells me, ‘Joe, you know what, I'm ready to go. Let's go in there,’ we throw him in the fire.”