As the Houston Astros try to regain their place as the American League’s most dominant team in 2025, they suffered what could be, according to the Houston Chronicle, “a major blow” to that goal on Wednesday when the biggest free agent acquisition of their offseason went down with an injury — one that he’d suffered before.
In the first 54 years of their existence, the Houston Astros — who came into the National League as an expansion team called the Houston Colt .45s in 1962 — were an exercise in futility. The club never won a World Series, and never even reached one until 2005. They made only 10 postseason appearances at all in that time.
And one of those came in the strike-shortened 1981 season. With a players’ work stoppage hitting mid-season, MLB split the 1981 campaign into two unequal “halves.” Despite finishing third overall in the NL West, Houston qualified for the playoffs by winning the division’s “second half” with a 33-20 record.
When MLB underwent a slight divisional realignment in 2013, the Astros volunteered to switch leagues, moving to the AL West and promptly recording the worst season in their history, losing 111 games and finishing 45 games behind the division-winning Oakland Athletics.
Astros Look to Continue 8-Year Hot Streak
Which made their turnaround starting in 2017 all the more remarkable. From that year on, the Astros dominated the AL West division, finishing first every year except the truncated 2020 COVID season. In fact, the Astros have been the dominant team in the AL over the last eight seasons, winning two World Series in that span, appearing in four, and playing in the ALCS every season, including 2020 — until last year.
The 2024 season, though they once again won their division, counted as a “down” year by recent Astros standards. With just 88 wins, their lowest total in a full season since 2016, the Astros were forced to play in the Wild Card round where they were blown away in two straight games by the Detroit Tigers.
In the offseason, they lost their two-time All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman to the Boston Red Sox in free agency, and traded three-time All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker, called by the Houston Chronicle their “best all-around player,” to the Chicago Cubs.
And yet, the Astros insist that 2025 is not a year to “rebuild,” but one in which they expect to compete for a championship once again. To prove it, and to help the franchise maintain its recent high level of competitiveness, the Astros signed former Arizona Diamondbacks power-hitting first baseman Christian Walker to a three-year, $60 million free agent contract.
But Walker missed 32 games last season with a strained left oblique muscle. Before Wednesday’s exhibition game against the St. Louis Cardinals at the Astros’ spring training home of CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Florida, the 33-year-old right-handed swinger was scratched from the lineup with a recurrence of the left oblique injury.
Walker a ‘Pivotal’ Piece of Astros 2025 Campaign
“It’s something I don’t want to see right now,” Astros manager Joe Espada understated, as quoted by MLB.com. “I’m just hoping for the best.”
Longtime MLB insider journalist Ken Rosenthal described Walker as a “pivotal player” for the Astros this season, “and if he is down for any length of time, that hurts them.” But Rosenthal, on the Foul Territory podcast, added that while the Walker injury is “cause for concern,” it may not be a “cause for panic just yet.”
“Over the last three seasons, [Walker] has hit 95 home runs with a 120 wRC+, while winning the NL Gold Glove each year,” wrote a somewhat more pessimistic Leo Morgenstern of MLB Trade Rumors. “The Astros, meanwhile, ranked last among AL teams in FanGraphs WAR at first base last season, and they are counting on Walker to change that.”
As of Thursday afternoon, the Astros had provided no update on Walker’s status.
Houston Astros Hit With Bad News on $60 Million Signing, May ‘Suffer Major Blow’