Pitching and Defense Propel Astros

Astros take 5 of 6 on homestand to improve to 13-11

The Astros completed a successful homestand, sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays and winning 5 of 6 games in total, led by pitching and defense and now it’s on to Kansas City.

While elements of the offense have improved, this has been a pitching and defensive-led team over the first 24 games of the season.

The Astros are second in MLB with 14 Outs Above Average with their starting pitchers hurling a quality start in 12 of the 24 games and a Kikuchi Start in another.

About 30% of all starts in MLB are quality starts, so to be getting 50% quality starts is quite good, good enough to currently lead the league, in fact.

The starters' 3.68 ERA is good enough for 10th in MLB among starting rotations, and the bullpen's 2.62 ERA is even better, good enough for fourth in the league.

Batter and Pitcher Season Projections

While there has been plenty of focus on Yainer Diaz and Christian Walker, rightly so, the Astros have managed to go 13-11 with minimal help from Yordan Alvarez (.221/.323/.338 with 2 HR and 13 RBI) and -0.1 fWAR.

It’s intriguing to watch how fast guys fall into and out of favor, though some of that has to do with slow or fast starts.

Dezenzo went from a guy who seemed useless to someone they needed to find at-bats for literally overnight, so much so they are having Cam Smith shag flies in center for a potential cameo there with a 17 straight game stretch coming up.

That’s on the heels of a hot Jake Meyers start, but once Jake had an 0-fer, they immediately began searching for other options.

Maybe more MLB teams handle it this way, but it seems chaotic at times.

It could also speak to the Astros desperation at finding productive at-bats.

As my son said, they’ve probably got this figured out weeks ahead and it just seems chaotic to us because we don’t know the plan.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Can’t say enough about what this pitching staff has done, especially unheralded guys like Bryan King, Steven Okert and Ryan Gusto.

As we’ll see shortly, Gusto has been a revelation and while he won’t win the 20 games shown below, it does show just how good he’s been.

Quality At-Bat Data

Don’t mind Chas, he isn’t a big boy yet.

You might be surprised at some of these numbers, as I was.

The team average is 40.0, so Meyers, Altuve, Caratini, Dubon and Diaz are below that.

The sample size is still relatively small as Meyers’ last 5 at-bats have had an effect and Diaz has a ways to go before crawling out of his hole (hopefully).

Patience My Friend

Isaac is still leading the way here, with the three at the bottom oh so predictable.

The team average is 3.87 and the league average is 3.90, so the Astros are “average” in this category in 2025.

Running With The Devil

The Astros have been above average in baserunning, but are trending towards the middle of the pack, as their team total of +0.4 is good enough for 13th in the league, but is so much better than the -12.8 of 2024.

Detailed Pitching Numbers

These next two charts are fascinating to me (and maybe only me) and it tells us more than just ERA or innings.

It provides a level of detail on how those innings went.

The Easy Inning (EI) number is one of my favorites. This occurs when a pitcher retires the side in 10 pitches or less and Hayden Wesneski and Ryan Gusto (as a starter) have been good at this.

Gusto had two of these Wednesday night (1st and 3rd innings), which allowed him to get into the sixth.

SDI/PSDI gives you the percentage of innings a pitcher shuts down the opposition when the Astros score in the previous half inning.

Another interesting one is the IO (In Order). Hunter Brown has retired the side in order 45.2% of his 31 innings started, with Wesneski right on his heels.

The bullpen version is even more fascinating, as it really highlights the struggles of Bryan Abreu.

On the surface, Abreu’s numbers look good, with a 2.31 ERA over 11.2 IP in 12 appearances.

But those appearances have been shaky to say the least.

Abreu did get his first IO inning of the season on Tuesday, but couldn’t do the same on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Josh Hader has had an easy inning 15.4% of the time and retired the side in order in more than half of his opportunities.

Special shoutout to Bryan King, who retired 5 Blue Jays across 2 games on 9 total pitches.

I have no problem saying I questioned the bullpen in the offseason and spring, but they have performed, with an exception here or there.

There are also reinforcements on the way (Kaleb Ort, for example) that could shore up the weaker spots.

Pitching Plus

We’ve all witnessed Hunter Brown, but what about Ryan Gusto? His stuff has been above average, he’s tied with Wesneski for the best location in the rotation and is third in the total Pitching+ metric.

If this continues how do you shift him back to the bullpen?

Also fascinating is Gusto had the same stuff out of the bullpen, but much better location as a starter.

Hader’s stuff is almost off the chart and Whitley’s was good in his one outing.

I continually wonder how King does it and this helps explain: Average stuff, great location.

It’s hilarious that Montero leads the way here, but nonetheless, there is some spectacular pitching being done.

Win Shares - Divvying Up the 13 Wins

You asked for it, you got it.

Updated through 24 games.

This too shows you how the pitching has dominated as the staff has recorded 4.0 fWAR to 2.8 for the bats.

In Win Shares that makes it 7.6 for pitchers and 5.4 for batters.

Expected Win Total

Turns out a 15-2 beatdown over three games against Toronto helps ye old xWin total.

Projected AL West Standings

I’ll have the full MLB standings next week as things are beginning to look a bit more reliable as we cross 25 games into the season.

Every AL West team except for the Astros played last night.

So, how did we get here? Only the Astros and the Mariners have positive run differentials, which makes a huge difference in my algorithm 25 games into the season.

The Astros +11 run differential outweighs the Mariners 14th win and +4 run differential early in the season when run differential figures more into the algo than it will later in the season.

As a reminder, my standings blend run differential and actual Ws and Ls and as the season goes on wins and losses mean more than run differential.

As always, thanks for reading!