Cam

Smith

Sánchez has been dropped to the lower third of the lineup card with Houston facing a left-handed starter for the first time since his arrival at last month’s trade deadline. Cam Smith gets the nod in right field for Saturday afternoon’s matinee at Yankee Stadium with Carlos Correa being bumped up to the second spot in the lineup.

Smith takes a seat after starting 12 of the last 15 games for Houston since July 23. The 22-year-old former top prospect has experienced the usual rookie growing pains at the highest level, alternating sizzling-hot stretches with frustrating cold spells. He’s in the middle of a frosty period at the moment, batting .151 (8-for-53) with zero homer and 16 strikeouts over his last 15 contests. It’ll be Jesús Sánchez taking over in right field on Saturday afternoon in his place.

Smith is batting .123/.217/.160 in his last 21 games. He was leading off 10 days ago and batted cleanup as recently as last Wednesday, but he’s all of the way down at the bottom tonight. The last time he hit ninth was on May 17.

Smith is 4-for-35 since the All-Star break, and he also went 0-for-9 in the series against the Rangers immediately before the break. There’s no taking him out of Houston’s lineup right now, but leading off seems like a stretch.

Smith smacked a two-run double off of Bryan Woo in the fifth inning that tied the game at three runs apiece. That would be his only hit in five at-bats on the day, which included a pair of strikeouts. For the season, the 22-year-old rookie outfielder is now hitting .270/.337/.407 with seven homers, 42 RBI and five stolen bases.

The big one was a two-run triple that tied the game in the seventh. In truth, though, that was just an 80-mph fly that should have been caught by either the left fielder or the center fielder. Brenton Doyle, though, appeared to be worried about the possibility of a collision and came up short on a diving attempt. Smith, who we promise actually does hit the ball hard quite often, also had a 70-mph double and an 81-mph single in this one. His average is all of the way up to .291.

Smith singled three times on a night where Houston picked up 16 hits and six different Astros had multi-hit nights. The rookie 22-year-old is now hitting .285 on the season, and his OPS has risen to .785. Smith hit .303/.354/.494 in June, and July has seen a pair of multi-hit games. Pretty good.

Smith has gone deep in both games against his former organization, with this one being a two-run blast off Colin Rea in the third inning that also scored Jake Meyers. In his rookie campaign, Smith is now slashing .281/.355/.434. That’s an impressive slash regardless, but especially for a player that was still at Florida State at this point last year.

The featured piece heading back to the Astros in the Kyle Tucker trade from this past offseason, Smith was sure to let his former team know what they were missing here. This was his first game against the team that drafted him and he was never retired. Instead, he broke this game open with a booming three-run home run that careened off the wall behind the left field stands in Daikin Park. While Smith got off to a slow start at the plate this season, he’s really turned a corner of late with an .832 OPS over his last 30 games. He’s proven he can hit for a high average – it’s over .300 since May 1st – just without much power to this point. If he can add that power, there could be a huge second half in store for the young right fielder.

There weren’t many rallies in this one, as the teams combined for one extra-base hit and a total of eight hard-hit balls — seven of those by the Astros. Houston had a 1-0 lead for most of the day, but the Phillies tied it in the top of the eighth before Smith’s single put the Astros back in front. It was Smith’s second hit of the day, and it gave him his first RBI in seven games. He’s batting a solid .271/.343/.402 as a 22-year-old rookie.