The Launch Angle

So, who is fired first? Dana Brown or Rafael Stone? How about Joe Espada or Ime Udoka? Because, mercy, both the Astros and Rockets have major problems to sort out. To be honest, it’ll probably be someone from the Rockets first. At least Nick Caserio finally figured out that you can’t piece together an offensive line on the fly. Whether that translates into a productive line is another question that you won’t find answered on this blog, but you get the point. It isn’t a good time in Houston sports when the perennial disappointment known as the Texans probably has the most stable organizational structure in the city.

To circle back to the Astros, there are only so many different ways to state the obvious: The pitching still sucks. For as much as I will always appreciate what Lance McCullers Jr. has done (24 straight curveballs!), he’s clearly not a Major League-caliber pitcher in most of his starts. Yes, you can point to that start against the Dodgers last season or his first start this year against the Red Sox as positives, but the results otherwise are simply not good. Including his start against the Yankees on Friday night (5 IP, 5 ER, 4 BB, 3 SO), McCullers now has an 8.84 ERA in his last 18 1/3 innings. Yes, ERA in such a short sample can be misleading. That said, when you watch his starts, I fail to see much of anything worth bragging about. It is also worth noting that the Yankees’ lineup entering Friday was tied for the highest strikeout rate in baseball (25.3%). McCullers was only able to strike out three, picking up just five whiffs on 31 swings.

Remove that start against Boston on March 30, for as impressive as it appeared at the time, McCullers has been a liability on the mound. Frankly, with Boston’s struggles at the plate this season (78 wRC+), we might not want to spend too much time hyping that one up. But there are two obvious reasons why the Astros haven’t pulled the plug: he is being paid $17 million (AAV) and there is literally no one else to start.

I do feel for the lineup (namely, Yordan Alvarez), although Houston was relatively quiet at the plate. I can certainly understand why seeing yet another deficit before you take even one at-bat (3-0 this time) is disheartening. It also doesn’t help matters that you manage to keep the game somewhat within manageable territory, trailing 5-2 after five innings, when another pitcher decides to serve batting practice. This time, it was Colton Gordon’s turn, who somehow topped McCullers in a not-so-good way.

Ultimately, the lineup had a near-impossible task with a pitching staff that allowed double-digit runs. Again. A 5-2 deficit after five became 12-2 once the top half of the seventh concluded. A pair of runs in the bottom half of the seventh would make it 12-4, and I couldn’t care less.

There simply wasn’t much, if anything, to like about this game from a Houston perspective. I guess you could point to Jayden Murray’s scoreless inning as a minor positive. I would normally point out Bryan Abreu’s scoreless inning as something to build upon; however, his velocity remains down, topping out at only 94.9 mph. Averaging around 93.7 mph compared to 95.4 mph in 2025. That’s deeply concerning.

Now 10-17, where do the Astros go from here? Without better pitching, it is highly unlikely to see this entire operation turn around in the near future. You could squint your eyes and see a more respectable pitching staff in a month or two if health and rehabs permit. But there are plenty of “ifs” in that scenario and no guarantees it’ll work out. Even if the pitching staff can somewhat recover and the lineup remains among the upper echelon of the game, the hole might prove too deep for this team to escape by then.

Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link