Astros' Yordan Alvarez: Still without timeline for debut
Manager Dusty Baker said Sunday that Alvarez (undisclosed) is "making progress," but the skipper was unwilling to put a timeline on the 23-year-old's return to the Astros, Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle reports. "He hasn't been hitting that long. He hasn't been running that long," Baker said. "You don't want to do anything to hurt his legs, you don't want to do anything to hurt his obliques because you're not used to rotating. I really don't know how long it's going to be or how long it's going to take."
After missing all of summer camp for undisclosed reasons, Alvarez has been working out at the Astros' alternate training site in Corpus Christi for about two weeks as he looks to get reacclimated to baseball activities following a lengthy layoff due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The slugger looked like his normal self during an intrasquad game Saturday, hitting a pair of doubles against minor-league pitcher Luis Garcia. Though Alvarez seems to be rounding into form, the Astros' slow approach to his ramp-up program makes it unlikely he'll be activated from the injured list ahead of Monday's series opener against the Giants. With no target date for Alvarez's 2020 debut, his fantasy managers will likely have to err on the side of caution and keep him on their bench for another week.
