The Launch Angle

Typically, I don’t prefer to use ERA in meaningful analysis, except as a passing reference or one data point among a larger sample. It is a flawed statistic in numerous ways, namely by including things outside of a pitcher’s control. Poor defense behind a pitcher? ERA doesn’t adjust for that. Bad luck on some batted balls? How about sequencing? Again, ERA fails to remove such instances that can greatly sway this figure.

But I was doing some coding practice today, so I decided to test out a table format in R that I’ve been working on. I also wanted to see how the Astros’ pitching staff looked in wins and losses compared to everyone else. To be honest, ERA just happened to be the first metric I tried with this table, and I thought the results, even if the metric is flawed, were worth sharing. This table illustrates how truly bad Houston’s pitching has been in 2026.

Plain and simple, the Astros’ pitching staff has the largest ERA differential in baseball. Not a particularly notable surprise there, considering the results of the season thus far. Wins. Losses. It doesn’t matter; this is the worst pitching staff in baseball right now. Even for as misleading as ERA is, those kinds of numbers are never encouraging, no matter how you slice it. And it is difficult to envision how things meaningfully improve in the near future.

Yankees @ Astros Game Information and Gamethread Details

Talking about how ERA can be misleading, it feels somewhat appropriate that Mike Burrows is starting today’s game. Depending on your metric of choice, Burrows has been one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball to start the season (6.75 ERA compared to a 3.90 xERA/4.82 FIP/4.30 xFIP/4.14 SIERA). To be clear, those aren’t good numbers on their own as well. One of Dana Brown’s most notable pitching acquisitions in the offseason hasn’t performed as hoped. But the season is still young and Burrows has made strides in certain areas (chase rate, whiff rate, limiting hard contact). The results should improve in due time. Hopefully.

But today’s game against the Yankees’ lineup won’t be easy. I mean, is it ever in the regular season for the Astros? Ben Rice has been on an absolute tear. Aaron Judge is still Aaron Judge. By wRC+, New York has a top-five offense in baseball. While the bottom half of the lineup is exploitable, it is imperative that Burrows doesn’t allow too many baserunners from that part of the order. Easier said than done, however, as the Astros have issued 44 walks to the seven through nine-hole hitters. That’s not, um, good.

The game will be broadcast at 6:10 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 .

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Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link