One Stat Shows How Much the Astros Missed Jeremy Peña

It's typically tough sledding without him..

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The Houston Astros difficult to digest season continued on Tuesday night with a 10-1 loss to the Los Angeles Angels. Despite the disappointing defeat, there has been a major bright spot over the previous three weeks that has quietly propelled the team forward.

Jeremy Peña has been elite since returning from the nearly six-week stint on the injured list, and powered the Astros offense forward.

Sure, Yordan Alvarez has been undoubtedly the best offensive player on the team, maybe even in the league, but the Astros are a different team with Peña on the field. In the 21 games since his return, Houston is 12-9, but it doesn't stop there.

Astros beat writer Brian McTaggart pointed out that since the start of 2025, Houston is 85-70 with Peña, and 33-42 without him. It's hard for the absence of one player to sway a team's outcome much one way or another, but this is a large sample size and hard to move past.

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Since the beginning of last season (154 games), he's accumulated a 7.1 bWAR, 20 homers, 74 RBI, 25 stolen bases, a .300 batting average and a 129 OPS+. He's been fantastic in the field as well, with seven defensive runs saved since the start of last season.

The Astros ' shortstop has been the heart and soul of the infield over the last few seasons, and it's been rough going without him. He already missed over a month this season due to a knee injury, and had multiple injuries last season, which put him on the mend, and even ended his season short.

When he's on the field, he's a difference maker on both sides of the ball and a huge facet of Houston's game. While injuries have played a role in the previous two seasons, he played 150+ games in each of the last two. Since returning from his most recent injury, Peña has been electric.

He's batting .333 over his last 15 games with three big flies, a 1:1 BB: K ratio, and .985 OPS. Tuesday wasn't his best performance, as he went 0-for-3 with a strikeout and an error, but he's been fantastic over the last three weeks.

The Astros biggest priority must be keeping him healthy, because when he is on the field, he's a huge difference maker, and makes the team so much better.