Yes, A Yankees Sweep Is Bad….But The Astros’ Starting Pitching Wasn’t Bad

We can hate a 0-4 start to the season. But the series revealed something that may turn out to be more important than the outcome of the games. The Astros’ starting pitching was good, despite facing a Yankees team that was hot as blazes. We had every reason to worry about the starting pitching going into this series. Four starting pitchers were injured as the season began. The Astros’ starters in the first three games were coming off a disappointing 2023 season. The Astros’ starter in the fourth game did not have the stuff and pedigree we would expect in a No. 4 starter. What could go wrong?

But the Astros’ rotation started off this season in pretty good shape. They answered some questions about whether they can improve off of a problematic 2023. Or at least, they gave some initial inklings of improvement. Sure, four games is an early, small sample; so I don’t want to go overboard in extrapolating this beginning for the pitchers to their future games. However, things would appear to be a lot worse if the starters had failed this first test. And there is hope for improvement in the overall pitching staff when Verlander and Urquidy return from injuries, thus allowing the availability of France, Urquidy, and Blanco to help bolster multi-inning relief in the bullpen.

I look at each of the first four starters and assign a subjective grade to their performance.

1. Framber Valdez (C+). Cody previously wrote about the positives from Framber’s performance. His sinker showed more drop, his Stuff+ was improved, and he delivered the ball with greater extension. All of these characteristics are more like 2022 Valdez than 2023 Valdez. However, I had to reduce Valdez’s grade for poor control. A 26% BB rate is ridiculous, and Framber must improve his control over Thursday’s opening game. But there is some good stuff to build on. He induced a lot of ground balls (72%), and as a result Framber’s x-SLG was a meager .296.
2. Cristian Javier (A). Javier allowed 4 hits and 1 walk in 6 IP, for an x-ERA of 1.64 and a x-BA of .165. That’s similar to the Javier of 2022, who was one of the toughest pitchers to hit in all of baseball. Last year Javier’s performance suffered because he didn’t get the same vertical illusion of a rising fastball as he did in 2022. The high fastball was much improved over 2023 in Friday’s game and the minimal drop on the pitch was better than 2023 and even better than the 2022 average. Javier added a new change up, which he used effectively against LHB. The change up was 27% of his pitch mix, joining the usage of the slider and fastball at 31% and 36%. The x-wOBA on his slider and change up was a microscopic .096 and .162, respectively. If the 2022 Javier is back, we should be excited.
3. Hunter Brown (A-). In my view, it was fairly important for Brown to show improvement over 2023 in this game. It’s critical to the Astros’ chances in 2024. Brown threw 4 innings and 88 pitches without an earned run. This was exactly what I hoped to see from Brown. You probably know the tale of two seasons for Brown: he was good in the first half of 2023, but suffered deteriorating performance throughout the second half of the season. Brown had a problem giving up high exit velocity in 2023. In Saturday’s performance, Brown had no hard hits, no barrels, and no sweet spot hits. The average EV was 87 mph. He used his 4 seam FB (43%) effectively, allowing a BA and SLG of .146 and K-rate of 57% on the pitch. Part of the second half deterioration in 2023 was reflected in a declining GB rate. But Brown induced a 55% GB rate, and 2 of the 4 hits he allowed were infield hits. The only negative is that a high pitch count required Brown to leave after 4 innings. A young strike out pitcher like Brown will have a tendency to run up pitch counts. However, if this hadn’t been Brown’s first start of the season, he likely would have been allowed to pitch the 5th inning or later.
4. J.P. France (B). France allowed 3 runs, 6 hits, and struck out 5 in 5.2 innings. He “almost” produced a quality start. France’s command looked pretty good, and he gave the Astros a chance to win this game. Last year, France’s ERA ballooned to 5.92 and 5.75 for months of August and Sept./Oct.. This start was more like the first half of 2023 when France frequently produced quality starts.

Beyond the starting pitching staff, the bullpen was problematic during this series. I think we are still sorting out the middle relievers, and this could be a messy process. But as we proceed to additional games, hopefully the starting pitchers will be capable of pitching deeper into games, thereby creating less exposure to middle relief problems. This series had potential trouble written all over it, because the starting pitchers were not fully stretched out, Bryan Abreu was suspended for two days, and the middle relief corp’s inexperience would be exposed.

From a future perspective, Bryan Abreu’s initial appearance was more concerning. However, Abreu’s second appearance in Sunday’s game was more reassuring. Abreu’s issue in the first appearance was purely control-related. He allowed no barrels or hard hits, and the max velocity was 90.5 mph. In that appearance, his x-BA was .021 and his x-SLG was .068. His problem appeared to be mechanical and led to wildness, as shown below.