PHILADELPHIA — At the place his career peaked, Chas McCormick confronted its crossroads. The man who once silenced Citizens Bank Park with a sprawling catch now sat idly inside its third-base dugout. A hitter’s meeting drew near for a game McCormick would not start, beginning a homecoming befitting his brutal season.
No misery can erase the memories McCormick created here. His ninth-inning catch saved Game 5 of the 2022 World Series and helped secure the team’s second championship. If McCormick accomplishes nothing else as an Astro, that play will still preserve his place in franchise lore.
Returning to the site of that catch should spark sentimentality, a sort of full-circle conversation of McCormick’s path from a Philadelphia suburb to Millersville University and onto baseball’s biggest stage. McCormick is authoring the sort of season that makes it impossible, inching both him and the team toward an inflection point.
2022 World Series rematch tonight 🍿
The last time the Astros played in Philadelphia, Chas McCormick made this UNREAL catch 🤯 pic.twitter.com/si8WexbOQr
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) August 26, 2024
“It just sucks. I’m disappointed in myself,” McCormick said on Monday. “I feel like I’ve let the team down, let the coaches down, let my teammates down and that’s the toughest part. But it’s not over yet. I just have to take it like that — it’s not over yet and I have to keep grinding. I know I’m going to play again and I have to go into that next game and try to help the team win.”
Thirty-one games remain for McCormick to make any sort of an impact, but none of the Astros’ best lineup configurations should contain him. He awoke on Monday with a .528 OPS across 242 plate appearances. Only three major leaguers with at least 240 plate appearances have a lower one. One of them, Tim Anderson, has been unemployed since July.
If not for Kyle Tucker’s shin contusion, it’s worth wondering if McCormick would be on Houston’s major-league roster at all. That neither Pedro León nor Trey Cabbage could provide any outfield consistency likely spared McCormick from a midseason sojourn to Triple-A Sugar Land. Tucker’s eventual return may force it, especially if waiver claim Ben Gamel continues to produce.
“It’s a tough thing mentally because, physically, I feel fine,” McCormick said. “I just try to come in every day with a good attitude. I think attitude is everything. No one feels sorry for me. I can’t mope around or just be upset every single day. I think about it a little bit after the game and then I try to turn it off before I go to bed. I wake up, it’s a new day.”
Manager Joe Espada has given McCormick just 44 plate appearances in 23 August games. He has eight singles, one home run and 20 strikeouts in 60 at-bats since the All-Star break. Eight days ago, after singling, stealing second base and scoring the winning run during a game against the Boston Red Sox, McCormick eagerly welcomed a throng of reporters to his locker. He sounded refreshed as he said, “It’s nice to smile after that.”
McCormick is 0-for-10 since. He saw 13 pitches during his three strikeouts on Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles, prolonging perhaps the most maddening aspect of McCormick’s anemic season. He is seeing just 3.81 pitches per plate appearance, down from the 3.95 he saw last season. Houston’s entire lineup swings at everything, but McCormick’s inability to make contact lessens the competitiveness of his at-bats.
“You really can’t think of my numbers — it’s not even that. I’m not trying to get back up to a .750 OPS overnight,” McCormick said. “I just have to take better at-bats, put the ball in play a little more, just any way to help the team win.”
McCormick and Houston’s hitting coaches are “trying so many different things” to unlock anything from a player who had a 130 OPS+ and 22 home runs last season. McCormick has tried sitting on specific pitch types in particular quadrants of the strike zone. He has widened his stance and closed it back, fiddled with his hands and contemplated staying back before starting his load. Nothing is working.
“I’ve been getting so much help throughout the year and I’ve been listening. I love the advice. But at this point, it’s on me,” McCormick said. “I have to do it myself. I’m the one f—— going out there. I love the advice and everyone’s been trying to help me. But it’s been six months. I need to go out there and stop being a bitch. I need to find it in myself to get out there, get confident and have good at-bats. It’s on me.”
Most alarming for McCormick is the amount of hittable pitches he’s seeing — and still missing. He’s seeing more fastballs this year than he did in 2023. Last season, he slugged .521 against them. This year, it is .259.
McCormick is chasing outside the strike zone 34 percent of the time while whiffing at a 31.3 percent clip. He has fallen behind in the count during 92 plate appearances this season. He is slashing .136/.154/.171 when he does.
Hogan Harris, Filthy 79mph Slider. 😷 pic.twitter.com/AXlGzjbnxd
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 23, 2024
“They know they can make me swing at something I don’t need to swing at,” McCormick said. “It’s the big leagues. That’s what’s so challenging. You face so many good arms every single night and you’re trying to get out of a hole. In the big leagues, it’s hard to get out of a hole.”
“At this point, it’s not like, ‘Oh, they’re pitching me a different way.’ They’re pitching me the same way, I’m just not having good at-bats, competitive at-bats.”
Until McCormick provides some, it’s difficult to find a place for him in the Astros’ immediate plans. For a manager who enjoys emptying his bench and creating platoon advantages late in games, McCormick is difficult to trust in pinch hit situations. Deploying him against a southpaw seems logical but, like so much else, McCormick’s career-long success against left-handed pitching has cratered this season — one slipping away with few answers on how to save it.
“You lean a little bit on God,” McCormick said. “God gives you a lot of talent, you find a better perspective. I’ve been so blessed with this team and being able to play a lot. I just have to believe in myself. You have to wrap your mind around that — just believe in yourself and let it happen. Don’t try to make it happen, let it happen. I’m the best when I let it happen.”
(Photo: Kevin M. Cox / Associated Press)
