I wrote the Astros off after last Tuesday’s loss to the White Sox. Until then, I had assumed that the Astros were a good team and would figure it out. Even with hindsight, I wasn’t rash or unfair; it was mid-June, and the team looked stuck in first gear.
The boys haven’t lost since; baseball is a weird game.
Tonight’s game started with a hit parade in the bottom of the first.
In total, the Astros plated five runs on seven singles. This was the team’s highest-scoring first inning of the season, and, surprisingly, it did not include an extra-base hit. Again, baseball is a weird sport.
Perhaps even more surprising, Houston’s hitters were quiet for the rest of the night. Besides two hits from Jake Meyers, the team was hitless after the first inning.
Hunter Brown has been amazing over the past month, and tonight was no different.
He started off the first inning with this nasty K, which would set the tone for the rest of the night.
Hunter Brown did an excellent job keeping Colorado off-balance with a mix of pitches that generated whiffs and induced weak contact. Out of the 47 swings the Rockies took against Hunter, they missed on 20, and the Rockies’ overall expected batting average was a measly .159.
Brown did run into a bit of trouble at the end of his outing in the sixth, walking two batters with no on and no out, but he finished off his night with an emphatic strike-out against Nolan Jones. Brown’s final line was six scoreless innings, only allowing two hits and three walks, while striking out seven.
With Brown at ninety pitches, Espada chose to take him out and put in the best South African pitcher in the world, Tayler Scott. Scott did give up a line-drive single, but he got out of the inning unscathed. Although it is doubtful that Scott will continue pitching sub-2 ERA baseball for the rest of the season, he has been one of the season’s unsung heroes. I think the Astros were unwise when they spent a boatload of money to get Hader, and I stand by the point that it was a sub-optimal use of resources, but Tayler Scott is helping them make up for the lack of resources the Astros put into their pitching depth.
Seth Martinez started the 8th but ran into some trouble. After giving up a run on a bloop single, Espada brought in Pressley to get out of the 1st and 3rd one-out jam.
Pressley did surrender a 3-1 count but induced an inning-ending double play to squirm out of the threat.
Josh Hader allowed a solo shot in the ninth, but still struck out three batters to preserve the win.
Final score: Astros 5, Rockies 2.
Thoughts:
Comparing Hunter Brown to Justin Verlander is unfair, but there are similarities. It is important to remember that Justin Verlander needed a few years in the Bigs to develop into a CY Young-caliber pitcher. I do not expect Brown to be as good as Verlander, but it is worth noting that he is still not at his peak yet, and often pitchers take a few years to reach their prime.
I love how the Astros have played the past week, but I am not sold on them being “back”. The pitching staff has very little depth, and it is doubtful that guys like Blanco and Brown can be relied on to sustain their level of play throughout the season. In 2022, fans liked to bag on Jake Odorizzi, but a pitcher like him is precisely what the team needs right now. . If the Astros had signed Kyle Gibson this offseason, he would be the team’s third most valuable starter by fWAR.
Unfortunately, quality pitching depth will probably be expensive at this year’s deadline. Is it worth trading prospects from an already depleted farm system to host a three-game wild card series? I do not think so, but something tells me Crane will try to push the envelope this July.