The Launch Angle

During the course of the losing streak, I started coming up with some wild theories why the Astros were losing.

One of my favorite theories was that Artemis II launched on April 1, the date the Astros completed their home sweep of Boston. Since then, apart from the one Imai start in Oakland, everything had gone terribly for the Astros, and it seemed like the peak was on April 6, when Artemis II was at its furthest from Earth, also the day of the 8 run inning from hell in Colorado.

Not to worry, splashdown was scheduled for about 90 minutes before first pitch of game 1 of the Seattle series. All would be right, and the Astros would start winning games again. That hypothesis failed; the Astros were swept in four games by the Mariners.

Wild theories are fun, but the answer was a lot more simple. The Astros’ pitching just hasn’t been good, and injuries make it an uphill battle to get better.

So, not related to Artemis II at all. Even if it were, I would still support NASA’s space exploration efforts. It makes me proud of Houston, and of mankind that we can achieve these things. It also made me want to watch the Martian with Matt Damon again, which I did one night in lieu of watching the later innings of one the Astros’ many unwatchable losses.

The Martian was an awesome movie 11 years ago, and it’s still awesome now.

One speech of the movie seems applicable to the current Astros:

At some point, everything is going to go south on you. Everything is going to go south, and you’re going to say.. this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either accept that. Or you can get to work. That’s all it is. You just.. begin. You do the math, you solve one problem. Then you solve the next one. And then the next. And if you solve enough problems you get to come home…

That’s probably what it feels like for Astros fans. Everything is going south, and this is how the Astros end. But there’s still 144 games of movie left in this season.

There’s a hundred problems with this team, but at least they fixed the first one. They stopped the losing streak, and miraculously find themselves only 2.5 games out of first in the division.

As bad as this season has been so far, there’s things to work with here.

• The Astros are 1st in the AL in wRC+ at 130. By a lot. The Orioles are 2nd with 113.
• The Astros are #1 in the AL in Off (Batting and Baserunning combined above avergae) at 24.8. By a hell of a lot. You could add up the Off of #2, #3 and #4 in the AL (BAL – 9.1, MIN – 7.7, TB – 7.3), and it still wouldn’t surpass HOU.
• The Astros are #1 in the AL in runs scored, batting average, OBP, SLG, OPS, wOBA, xWOBA

This is the offense we all dreamed off coming into the season after firing Troy Snitker and Alex Cintron.

The problem is the other side of the coin:

• The Astros are last in the AL in ERA, FIP, xFIP, HR/9, and BB/9
• The Astros bullpen is last in the AL in all of those categories too.
• The Astros starting pitching is last in the AL in ERA and 2nd to last in FIP, xFIP, and BB/9

You can hope that with such a bad start, that the pitchers will regress closer to their expectations as the season goes on, but 3 of the 5 starting pitchers from the original rotation are now in the IL, so you don’t even have the possibility of a period of overperformance to balance out the underperforming start to the season.

Again, these are a hundred problems all at once. Just solve the next one. They stopped the losing streak.

Now find a way to get a quality start.

Tonight’s starting pitcher is Spencer Arrighetti, making his season debut. Spencer didn’t have the sophomore season fans hoped he would after a promising 2024 rookie campaign. in 2025, He posted a 5.35 ERA, as he watched his K/9 drop to 7.9 and his BB/9 jump to 5.1.

He has been great in Sugarland so far in 3 starts, striking out 20 and walking 6 in 14.1 innings with a 1.26 ERA. He hasn’t been part of the problem (yet) for the Astros pitching this year, which is already a headstart on everyone else. Here’s hoping he’s part of the solution.

The Rockies send left handed pitcher Jose Quintana to the mound, who has a single start of 4.1 innings under his belt this eason, in which he allowed 2 runs, struck out 2, while walking 4.

This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.

Update:

Update to the update:

The game will be broadcast at 7:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.

We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been fantastic on the TLA Discord Server for the game threads.

Join us again for today’s game. Just join the Discord server using this link: https://launch-angle.com/discord .

For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.

If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)

Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link