If the Shew Fits…
Amidst the many disappointments of the 2026 Houston Astros season, there has been a bright spot at the bottom of recent lineups, that even our gamethread community can agree on: utility infielder Braden Shewmake.
Shewmake was acquired on April 19 in a trade with the Yankees. The Astros sent right handed pitcher Wilmy Sanchez to New York, who did well in A and A+ ball in 2024 but struggled in AA in 2025.
The Astros needed to add infield depth, despite an “infield logjam” sportswriters couldn’t stop talking about in the offseason. Jeremy Pena had gone on the IL with a hamstring injury and opening day roster utility infielder Nick Allen also hit the IL with back issues.
Allen is now back and Pena is already doing his rehab stint and should be back soon, but with the season ending injury of Carlos Correa, Shewmake is still needed.
He’s not only proved serviceable as depth, he’s been crushing it. He has 10 hits in 28 at-bats, batting .357, slugging .679, with an OPS of 1.035. In 68 previous career at bats, he had hit one long ball. In 28 at-bats with the Astros, he’s gone yard three times, including this demolished ball to right field against the Yankees
He hammered another one deep to right field in Cincinnati. That was a genuine barrel as well. The only “cheap” home run of the 3 was his opposite field home run against the Dodgers into the Crawford Boxes. It came against Shohei Ohtani though, so getting a dinger off him is still noteworthy.
| Date | Opp | EV | LA | Dist (ft) | xBA | HR/Park |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4/24/2026 | NYY | 103.6 | 30 | 403 | .800 | 29/30 |
| 5/4/2026 | LAD | 98.0 | 37 | 337 | .160 | 4/30 |
| 5/9/2026 | @CIN | 104.7 | 24 | 388 | .850 | 26/30 |
Still, it’s only been 28 at bats, but is there something here? He’s 28 years old and still has his rookie status intact despite debuting in 2023 for the Braves, but he is a former first round draft pick, having been selected 21st overall in 2019 out of Texas A&M.
Looking at Shewmake’s xStats, there’s a large discrepancy between his BA and xBA, and between his SLG and xSLG. While his homers (well, 2 of the 3) have been genuine, he’s had a fair amount of luck in the rest of his batted balls.
| BA | .357 |
| xBA | .200 |
| SLG | .679 |
| xSLG | .432 |
So can we keep expecting him to outrake Yordan? No, but that’s also not why he was brought over. He was brought over for infield depth and defensive prowess. His ability with the glove was on display in the spring for the Yankees.
This is a phenomenal diving catch that Shewmake makes at the third base line from shortstop position, and a throw out at home from his knees from what’s essentially shallow right.
The Astros have played and started him at shortstop, second base, and third base, and he’s been outstanding.
With only 12 games and 70 innings of defense under his belt, it’s hard to extract anything meaningful from defensive metrics, where he registers 0.2 dWAR and 1 DRS, but watch these above clips. You’re seeing what everyone else is seeing. The Astros have two gold glove shortstops on the shelf right now, but they’re not missing a beat defensively with Shewmake on the field.
When Pena comes back, you still probably have to send Shewmake back to the bench. He’s not supplanting our Gold Glove All-Star shortstop, and he’s not taking Paredes’ or Altuve’s spot in the lineup either. When Altuve needs a game at DH, or when Walker, Pena or Paredes need a day off, Shewmake looks to be a serviceable understudy.
Dana Brown actively traded for him, and played a role in his original draft selection while he was vice president of scouting for the Braves, so there’s slightly more invested in his acquisition than there was for depth outfielders Dustin Harris and Daniel Johnson, who were DFA’d once they were no longer needed.
Shewmake should avoid that fate. He won’t keep hitting like this, but he still has a chance to stick around and compete with Nick Allen for that bench utility player roster spot, especially considering Shewmake is a lefty bat.
If the Shew fits…
The Have and Have-Nots of Starting Pitching
The Astros search for their first win of the season in seven tries against the Mariners tonight. Lance McCullers, Jr. starts for the Astros. He’s been dreadful this season, with a 7.41 ERA and 1.5 WHIP and an absolutely ridiculous 5.3 BB/9, which is unacceptable at a major league level. His poor performance affects more than the games he pitches is. His inability to go deep last start (2.2 IP) has taxed an already overworked bullpen. The Astros average just 4.52 IP from their starting pitchers each game, second lowest in the AL, with only the Chicago White Sox (4.43 IP) getting less out of their starters. The White Sox are the only team in the AL, naturally, whose bullpen has pitched more innings than Houston’s.
At some point, you can’t keep trotting Lance out there as an every 5th game starter, but the problem is there doesn’t seem to be anyone else left in this organization.
The Mariners start right handed pitcher Bryce Miller who makes his season debut. He has been activated from the IL; he had suffered an oblique injury in spring training.
Miller had a great 2024 season posting a 2.94 ERA and 0.97 WHIP, but had a down year in 2025 when he had a 5.68 ERA and 1.4 WHIP, in a campaign where he only made 18 starts due to time missed with elbow inflammation that plagued him most of the year.
The Mariners have rotation questions too, but not like the Astros’ questions. With Miller’s return, they’re overflowing with good starting pitching options: Luis Castillo, George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryan Woo, Emerson Hancock and now Miller. They’re going to a six-man rotation just out of an excess of riches.
Sigh. Yeah, I know a lot of the TLA staff insisted this season was still salvageable in our Quarter Pole Batting Around piece, but you just can’t catch a 5.0L engine car with a low-on-battery golf cart.
This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.
The game will be broadcast at 7:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
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Is there any reason to believe that McCullers won’t exit early and losing the game? So we exhaust the pen in a lost cause.
we’re on game 6 of 13 freaking games in a row without an offday. If Lance give us another short outing, its like when you dont get a good night’s sleep one night and then the rest of your week is f’d. We can’t keep running Lance out there if he’s gonna pitch the way he’s been pitching. But no, I don’t have any reason to think he’s goign to stop sucking. He’s got almost as many innings this year as he had last year when he sucked, and he’s been just as bad.
the state of astros pitching is so bad right now that we dont even need good starting pitching, we just need innings eaters. 4 earned runs but you stayed in the game for 6-7 innings? perfect. we’ll take that now.
McCullers has about a 1 in 4 or (charitably) nearly 1 in 3 chance of pitching a good game. He has two of 7 starts which have a good gamescore. 77 Gsc vs. Red Sox and 66 Gsc vs. Orioles two weeks ago. The remaining Gsc’s range from pitiful (19) to below average (42). The interesting thing is that there is no relationship to K/9 rate. His strike out rate is good in both good and bad games. However, as you might suspect, his BB/9 rate is really terrible in bad games.
So it’s worse than a coin flip, but there is a chance he won’t exit early and lose the game. That is as encouraging as I can be.
I didn’t realize Shewmake was drafted by the Braves. Dana Brown has traded for, or signed, three former 1st first round picks that Brown was involved in selecting. The three are: Pearson (signed), Trammel (trade), and Shewmake.
That was the secret thread. Dana and AA drafted Shewmanna (name now because he is making it rain with those ever-satisfying food-hits) whom Dana wanted another look. It seems like GM’s routinely will circle back to “their guys” if given a chance.
Dont throw all these X-stats at me, Shewmake is like Kyle Tucker mixed with the heart of Rudy. He is making it hard to not think about trading P…never mind. I won’t say it.
In a few days we’ll see how Schumaker deals with Shewmake, so I’ll be looking forward to that.