You keep spouting about bad luck... but he got deep into a lot of those counts (that eventually resulted in unlucky loud hits) mainly because he was non-competitive with a lot of pitches off the plate. At one point he slapped himself with how awful some of those pitches were. He bounced back, as he did in the Nationals game, but its not simply bad luck. Even if he had been pulled after 5, it wasn't a successful night. If anything, the dustup in the 6th should reinforce the things he needs to work on. Better command. No wasted uncompetitive pitches that anybody can recognize are way out of the zone. Judicious use of the slider/cutter to off-set low/away to lefties (that he's shown success with). Emphasis on first pitch strikes/staying ahead.
Epistle for the day. Over the last couple of years the Astros have quit producing starters in the minors. Up until then Minor league pitchers where divided into three groups. Starters where expected to go six innings and perhaps a seventh if they made it through six with a low pitch count. Piggybacks or Tandems where pitchers that showed potential to start but needed more development, their job was to become starting pitcher candidates while going multiple innings to close out games. The outcome of the successful piggyback could be as a starter or a multi inning reliever. This left room for fewer relief pitchers that was really all that where needed. The Idea of starters and piggybacks got dropped and the Astros went to 10 starters that where expected to go 4 innings maybe 5 on an exceptional night but the truth is 4 2/3 is about the most any of them ever go. We have the entire minor league full of tandems and single inning relievers and effectively no starters then pretend to be surprised that our starting pitching is inadequate to the task. If the minor league template remains as is then the major league team needs to have ten tandems and three relievers. I would much prefer to stick with what we are doing in A ball but the upper minors should have six starters pitching six or more innings three tandems pitching three or more innings and four or five single inning relievers. Until there is a commitment to major league tandems we have to mirror what will be required of these guys after they are called upon to help the major league team.
This is not correct, the Astros still deploy a standard starting rotation in AAA. It gets wonky when there’s a bunch of injuries and needs in Houston, but they do not do a tandem/10-man rotation in Sugar Land.
You are probably right on Sugar Land. That team has had so many changes it has been hard to tell what they are doing there. My point stands however, that we are training pitchers to do less than will be required of them. Certainly much less through AA and perhaps to a lesser degree in AAA but still inadequate. I believe we have some great pitchers in the system who are being under served. Really excited by Bloss & Blubaugh, and their potential ceilings. They represent something we have been without for some time. And there is a potential next wave with Treadwell, Peko, and Pena. Some 2024 draft goodness seems likely too. Exciting times!
I never said it was ALL bad luck. I just gave some reasons why Brown's sky may not be falling. And I completely disagree that it would not be a successful night if he had been pulled after 5 innings.
I'm sorry but Lance doesn't belong in the same category as Tim Redding and Hunter Brown. Yes he has been injured. Hes done things for the Astros those guys have never done.
I think he was referring to the unavailability of the lance to treat Matsui's anal fissures. But Matsui wasn't a pitcher so seems irrelevant to the discussion.
Hunter Brown is capable of turning it around, but if we want to keep our window open, he might need to be trade bait to ship out a bad contract or get value from the Bregman/Pressly/Verlander group leaving in free agency. Arrighetti is a more logical bullpen piece to me, but we can't move him there until we get Urquidy, Garcia, and/or McCullers back.
Hunter Brown was only ever "good" when he was brand spanking new and teams probably didn't have a scouting report on him. He's been absolute trash otherwise. He had an entire season of bad performances to work through his weaknesses and he's only shown to be getting worse somehow.
