I keep reminding myself that the 2026 season is only two games old. 160 games remain. The Astros, in theory, have more than ample time to figure things out. Again, only two games. All teams will experience a rough stretch of a couple of games more than once in a single season. With that said, the early results haven’t been encouraging.
Game 2 of the season didn’t start on the best of terms for the Astros. Mike Burrows, in his Houston debut, got to experience the joy of pitching in front of the Crawford Boxes. In this case, it was Zach Neto getting a hold of a second-pitch sinker for a leadoff double (with only a 1% hit probability) and eventually coming around to score on Nolan Schanuel‘s RBI groundout double play two batters later.
1-0 Angels halfway through the first inning, and it felt like an insurmountable lead already. Alright, I am being somewhat facetious right now, but a lineup that struggled to score in 2025 is still a fresh memory to me.
Having Jeremy Peña back in the lineup was a welcome sight, though. Why he couldn’t play the day before on Opening Day is a bit beyond me. Regardless, a leadoff single and eventually scoring on a wild pitch from Yusei Kikuchi tied the game early at 1-1. And I felt that brief hope this game might end differently…
Dang it.
The box score might indicate otherwise, but Burrows’ stuff wasn’t necessarily terrible in his first start of the season. You occasionally saw flashes of why the Astros traded for him. Yes, that leadoff walk to Yóan Moncada in the second inning was bad. But Jo Addell’s single in the second had a .120 xBA, although he then promptly gave up a three-run dinger to Josh Lowe. Simply put, it was a game where the right-hander wasn’t at his best, combined with poor batted ball fortune and inopportune sequencing at the wrong times.
But the lineup hasn’t done the pitching staff any favors to start the season, regardless of the pitcher. 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position in the first two games. There were a handful of opportunities this evening for the Astros to capitalize, yet again, it didn’t happen. Other than Yordan Alvarez‘s solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning, this lineup failed to convert with timely hits. Cam Smith and Yainer Diaz, in particular, continued to have a rough start to their seasons, with the pair going 1-for-8 with three strikeouts. On the plus side, the lineup did manage to produce some harder contact throughout the evening, but that feels like an empty development at the moment.
Include a pair of solo home runs from Mike Trout and Neto at various points, the Angels would win 6-2. For the first time since 2007, they will start a season 2-0. The Astros, however, will start a season 0-2 for the second time in three years. The other time was when they started the season 0-4 and would eventually hit rock bottom with a 12-24 record. Hopefully, they avoid a similar start to the season this time around.
Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link
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