Is there a way to arrange for the Astros to play only the Red Sox for the rest of the season?
Fresh off an encouraging series against the Red Sox in Boston, the Astros returned to Houston and promptly came back to reality. The pitching staff performed well in Fenway Park, but couldn’t maintain that momentum. Specifically, the loss largely fell on Ryan Weiss, who absorbed some innings but nothing else.
Walks remain an issue for Weiss, who has now walked 20 hitters in 26 innings this season. The right-hander has only had one appearance this season when he hasn’t issued a single walk (April 3 against the A’s). His performance against the Dodgers left much to be desired. On the plus side, Kai-Wei Teng, Bryan Abreu, and Bennett Sousa all had scoreless appearances. Abreu, in particular, saw his velocity climb, averaging 95.9 mph with his fastball while maxing out around 97 mph. While the command of his fastball wasn’t great, the stuff looked better.
While a quick 2-1 lead after one inning provided some hope, those dreams were dashed in the next two innings as the Dodgers scored two in the second and four in the third. Kyle Tucker was involved with an RBI single and a solo home run. Houston and Los Angeles would trade runs in the fifth inning to make it an 8-3 game, where the score would remain without alteration for the remainder of the game.
Ultimately, the lineup couldn’t do much against Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Dodgers’ bullpen, striking out a combined 15 times and scoring only three runs on five hits. Yordan Alvarez was the only Houston hitter with more than one hit, and Zach Cole did have a home run in his 2026 debut.
But, other than that, there wasn’t much to root for on this Monday evening.
Feature image from @astros on X
Abreu:
I’m still not completely convinced that there isn’t some sort of injury issue going on as that’s usually the culprit more times than not too such a substantial velocity drop like the one he is experiencing. However, I’m starting to believe Abreu’s story more and more that his issue has been mechanical. He can live in the 95.9 avg range with success.
It feels like Abreu is in ST mode.
Tuesday could be a big day for Weiss and any other of our struggling pitchers as Imai, Hader, and Pearson are all set to have a rehab outing. While Hader can’t come back immediately, the Astros have more or less committed to Imai already returning to the rotation after his next outing. Pearson’s control has been terrible in his rehab outings so far but might be one good outing from rejoining the team in some capacity.
I think we have seen enough of Weiss
Yep.
Given up a homer in every appearance save for two…..walked someone in every appearance save for one…..
Weiss is hot garbage.
Zack Cole is back, but he didn’t show much in the LF. If he can’t play a decent LF, he doesn’t belong in the majors. Matthews, on the other hand, is a revelation in CF.
We are running out of time. May is too late to sort out who is who. You do that in March.
I think the bigger worry is that we’ve now sorted who is who, and the answer to that is what’s stopping us, and not time anymore. 😕
I would like to know what our people saw in Weiss in the KBO that they thought he would be effective as an mlb pitcher.
High Ks/9 rate…..MO for our pitching lab.
Thing is….the lab went to Pittsburgh, and the guys we have now (namely Katz) don’t have an idea of how to use the pitchers we have.
The whiff rate was excellent in KBO and it frankly is still good. The 29% whiff rate in today’s game is fine. He can get swings and misses, but he doesn’t throw enough strikes and gets behind the count too much. As for his skill, I think the belief was that his vertical high fastball combined with a sharp slider was ideal for the Astros’ preferred pitching. However, the ABS strike zone has made it more difficult to execute that style. Look at mhatter106’s chart, and you can see all of those 4 seam FBs clustered just above the top of the strike zone. However, he can’t seem to locate the FB well against LHBs.
I definitely think he has the stuff to pitch in the majors, but he has to work on throwing more strikes and perhaps a different role (other than starting or long relief) where he doesn’t have to face 80 or 90 percent LHBs may be needed.
I forgot “against RHB” after “chart.”
For what is worth, Weiss impressed in Spring Training and earned a well deserved spot in the 40 man roster.
D- but allowed 6 ER is pretty generous