Hunter Brown tries to maintain the Astros’ run for a unbeaten season.
The Astros are in first place! May they stay above .500 all year. Who knows, with Cam Smith, they may never lose another game. And how about that Jake Meyers!
OK, back to Earth. The Astros brought some disturbing trends from Spring Training into this game and were a little bit lucky to win. Framber Valdez pitched a seven inning shutout —can’t complain there— but had to overcome some early issues with command.
But the only two supposedly proven relievers, Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader, were truly lucky not to have losses and/or blown saves attached to their names in yesterday’s box score.
Abreu pitched the eighth inning, loading the bases with three walks, and Hader got the “save” allowing a run on two walks and two hits. Abreu was not wild, and the ump robbed him of one strikeout-turned-walk. Hader is more worrisome. He allowed eight walks in the Spring and in yesterday’s game, simply did not have a putaway pitch. The Mets kept fouling off pitches until they either got a hit or walked.
Hader escaped by striking out a rookie making his MLB debut and, to Hader’s credit, striking out Juan Soto on a 3-2 outside slider that Soto couldn’t quite hold off on.
OK, he escaped with the winning run at the plate, but that did not look like a closer, and frankly, he didn’t look like a $90 million closer very often last year either.
Offensively, the two leading hitters continued their Spring slumps. Although Jose Altuve got a hit, he struck out in his other three at-bats. In his last seven ABs, including the last exhibition game against minor leaguers, he has struck out six out of seven times.
Alvarez also had a cold Spring and yesterday was 0-2 with two walks and a strikeout. I know these two won’t stay cold forever, but until they hit their stride, wins like yesterday’s will be pretty rare. The Astros managed only two earned runs despite the prodigious efforts of slugger Jake Meyers, 2-4, team leader in OPS and RBI.
Today will be a test of the readiness of the starting rotation. We all remember how poorly the whole staff started 2024. Today’s starter, Hunter Brown, was certainly part of that problem and in the Spring had an ERA of 5.25 with eight walks in 12 innings. He’ll probably need to do better than that today, especially since the best part of the bullpen got used up yesterday.
Game begins at 7:10. Tyler Megill against Hunter Brown.