It’s Game 31 of the season, April is almost over, the Astros are 8 games below .500 and fans are wondering if Peter Lambert can be a top of the Astros’ rotation piece. Not a “top of the rotation” or “top of a rotation” but “top of the Astros’ rotation”, because the bar is much much, much lower for the Astros than other teams, with an MLB-worst 5.66 ERA for starting pitchers.
Every year, the Astros seem to have one guy that comes out of nowhere to be an important rotation piece during the regular season. In 2023, it was J.P. France. In 2024, Ronel Blanco was so good that his omission from the All-Star Game felt like a snub. In 2025, it was Jason Alexander that stepped up. Could Peter Lambert be this year’s model?
Having spent 2019-2024 with the Rockies, I asked Purple Row managing editor Sam Bradfield what she could tell me about Lambert. She came back with two “facts”:
- He went to San Dimas High School
- He looked like two small children stacked on top of each other
In his first start of the season, I wasn’t expecting much based on past history, and he surprised by generating 23 whiffs in a 9-4 loss to the Cardinals. In his second start, the question was then whether he could do it again, this time with Cleveland throwing an entirely left-handed batting lineup against him. He did, generating another 16 whiffs in a shutout win over the Guardians, and he did it with his whole arsenal.
He used 4 of his pitches at least 20% of the time, and the swings and misses came from every pitch type: 4 each from the four-seamer, cutter and slider, 3 from the changeup, and even 1 from the slurve. In his first start against the Cardinals, his pitch selection was weighted more heavily towards his four-seamer and changeup.
The Guardians throwing left-handed bats exclusively at Lambert didn’t seem to trip him up either. In fact, it may have worked in Lambert’s favor. Against the Cardinals, he faced lineup with 5 lefties, but 17 of his 23 whiffs came against those lefties.
We’ll see how many lefties the Orioles stack their lineup with today. At the time of this post, lineups have not yet been released. Yesterday, against Kai-Wei Teng, the Orioles had five.
As noted in the preview before his last start, Lambert’s arm angle had dropped from 54 to 50 degrees from 2024 to his 1st start of 2026. That doesn’t seem to be a fluke. After 2 starts, his arm angle is measured on average at 49 degrees for the 2026 season.
Suddenly, with that arm angle drop, Peter Lambert has gone from one of the worst pitchers for missing bats to one of the best, and he’s doing against lefties and with all of his pitches.
Christian Vazquez has caught Lambert in each of his first two starts. With a day game tomorrow following a night game, it is likely that Yainer Diaz and Vazquez split today and tomorrow, so Vazquez may be in line to catch Lambert a third straight time.
There hasn’t been a lot to get excited about this Astros season, but if this transformation is real, it’s remarkable and one of the better stories of the season. I find myself looking forward to Lambert day.
Astros @ Orioles Game Information and Gamethread Details
Lambert will start opposite 37 year old right-hander Chris Bassitt of the Orioles, who sports a 6.75 ERA over 5 starts, with an unsightly 10 strikeouts and 13 walks across 21.1 innings. The Astros will not want to let this game get away from them.
The game will be broadcast at 5:35 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.
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If Lambert gives us solid production consistently, put him on the trade block too. Let’s get this farm system flush with talent. Lambert is the perfect example of trading high.
I guess it depends how much of a seller’s market it is and what the return could be. again, It’s just been 2 starts, but suppose he proves for 10 more starts to have changed enough things to be an effective starter. Per Spotrac, he’s arb eligible next year. so depending on what his arb projection would be like and what we think we can do in 2027, we might be better off keeping him than selling him for a fringe flyer prospect.
we’ll see though. its been 2 starts, and we’ve seen how terrible the Highlander franchise got with subsequent installments, so…
I have my skepticism, given Lambert’s career stats. BUT…the type of underlying swing and miss results do stabilize more quickly than other stats like ERA, K%, BB%, etc. Dan Symborski’s FG chat mentioned Lambert. He said he was intrigued, but not yet convinced, by Lambert’s contact rate. He points out that real performance changes can become evident in a much small sample for swing and miss metrics.
As I mentioned in response to your last article about Lambert, the Astros seem to like adjusting pitchers’ arm angle downward which provides some deception on how fast the pitch gets to the batter. Arrighetti is an example of the lower arm angle approach. However, the challenge is that it may make it harder to maintain control.
well Lambchise has 1 of our 5 team Quality starts so cant talk to much shit about him. hope he does it again today we’re going to need it.
What are the 5?
Lance’s 1st start
Lambert’s 2nd start
Arrighetti’s 1st and 3rd starts
Which am I missing?
EDIT: oh hunter had one before he went down
No word on Weiss going on leave yet? so it doesnt look like we will have an extra arm for today.
i just realized we dont have ROA to call up anymore FML
Doubleheader tommorow, so 1 more pitcher can be called up.
Bolton return?
What’s it gonna take to get Alexander up? (Is he struggling in sugar land)
Today’s game washed out, and DH tomorrow.