What a wild weekend it’s been.
The World Cup started, and the U.S. Men’s National Team looked incredibly dominant in a 4-1 win over Paraguay, to the point I found myself thinking, “Hey, this isn’t as boring as soccer usually is.”
The NBA Finals saw the Knicks trailing by double digits in every game of the series. They still won in 5 games, including a game 3 where they came back from 29 points down.
In 2 games against the Royals, the Astros had 1 starter who couldn’t get out of the first inning, pulled after 5 runs, and another starter who came in with the AL’s worst ERA among qualified pitchers, and increased it. They won both those games.
I wouldn’t have guessed any of those things. Here we are though, with the Astros on the precipice of a sweep against Kansas City, on the heels of a terribly played series in Anaheim, and they’re still only 4 games out of the division, and 3 out of the wild card.
We keep saying the Astros are gonna have to start playing better if they want to stay in this, but they seem to keep staying in it without playing better.
I don’t have a whole lot for you on this Sunday, with an early 1:10 CT first pitch time, but I did look into one thing I was curious about, and can share with you. It happens all the time, the Astros, or whoever your team might be, manage to get a runner on 3rd base and there’s less than 2 outs. Scoring seems imminent. Get a hit, or just flyout. Heck, you can even groundout, and it’ll get a run home, or pass the baton and draw a walk (and if the bases are loaded, that’ll score a run too.)
Just don’t. strike. out.
But they do, and you slam your phone down, instantly regretting that you didn’t spring for Verizon’s replacement protection plan.
So how are the 2026 Astros at this?
There’s a lot of ways to look at this. First, we took all the plate appearances with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 outs. Next, you could look at different things like what their batting average is in these situations, or how often they’re getting the ball in the air, or how often they’re avoiding the double play. I picked these 4 outcomes to look at:
- How often are they not striking out? Striking out is the one thing you absolutely cannot do in this situation. At 80.0%, the Astros are about middle of the pack, 17th in MLB
- How often are they putting it in play? Not striking out is the bare minimum. Batters can also draw walks. Sometimes they can’t avoid it, if they’re intentionally walked or if they’re just not given anything to hit. It’s not the worst thing by any means, and even desirable if the bases are loaded, but usually a hitter’s mindset with a runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs is to get the ball in play, so that runner on 3rd can run home. The Astros are actually pretty good at this. A 72.0% rate is 7th in MLB.
- How often are they scoring a run by a hit, sac fly, or sacrifice bunt? These 3 batted balls seem like very deliberate means to score the runner. The Astros get hits, sacrifice flies, or successful sacrifice bunts in 38.4% of these opportunities, 19th in MLB.
- How often does the PA end with a run being scored? This is the ultimate goal. Score anyway you can. This includes hits, sac bunts, sac flies, RBI groundouts, reaching on error, runs scored on a GIDP. Anything. Please note, this is not the percentage that the runner on third will eventually score in an inning, just the percentage that runner on third score on that particular plate appearance. For the Astros, when a batter comes to the plate with a runner on 3rd and 0 or 1 outs, he scores the runner 48.8% of the time, 22nd in MLB.
So the Astros seems to be pretty decent at putting the ball into play in these situations, just frequently not in a way that would score the runner (pop outs, groundouts where the runner on third can’t score, etc.)
That’s all I have for today. Let’s take a look at today’s game.
Astros @ Royals Game Information and Gamethread Details
Spencer Arrighetti goes to the bump for the third and final game of the series. Arrighetti has had some expected regression from this AL Pitcher of the Month May, but he still manage to power through a quality start his last time out, with 3 runs in 6 innings against the Angels.
Right hander Stephen Kolek pitches for the Royals. He holds a 3.14 ERA in 7 starts with a 3-1 record, 1.070 WHIP, 6.3 K/9 and 1.9 BB/9. He’s not a hard throwing pitcher with a 94.1 mph average fastball and doesn’t get a lot of strikeouts, but he limits walks and induces groundballs at a good rate.
This post will be updated with starting lineups as they are made available.
The game will be broadcast at 1:10 p.m. CT on SCHN with radio coverage on KBME 790 AM.
For those of you following the World Cup, that gives you 50 minutes of Astros baseball before you have to decide whether to stick with the ‘Stros or change the channel for the 8 p.m. CT start of the USA vs Paraguay match.
We hope you will join us and the rest of the Launch Angle community for the game! The turnout has been amazing 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 .
For more detailed instructions, please see the Guide to the Launch Angle.
If you’ve participated in game threads on other Astros sites in the past, you will probably see a lot of familiar names. Chat, lurk, do whatever! (But please say “hi”, so we know you’re not a bot.)
Feature photo from @astros on X, Source Link
Want some hope about the Astros’ playoff chances? The Astros are currently 30-39 with a 20% chance of making the playoffs (per Fangraphs). On this day in 2021, the Atlanta Braves were 30-33 with a 15% chance of making the playoffs (per Fangraphs). The Atlanta Braves would not only end up making the playoffs but would win the World Series vs. the Astros. You may view this as unrealistic. But that’s probably not how Dana Brown sees it. Brown was an executive with the Braves in 2021 and he often mentioned that Braves team in 2024 when he talked about the Astros’ ability to come back that season.
Not that I disagree, but Brown’s thinking might also be clouded by the fact that if the team misses the postseason he is almost certainly let go.
I like that first chart and have to wonder: how much of our mediocre results in those situations comes from poor baserunning, or runners on base who aren’t physically able to engage in trick plays/speedy, risky manuevers?
We are, by the eye test, a decent (middle of the pack) team in scoring runs via sacrifice and putting the ball in play this year. Which seems to track roughly with the actual data. But we are also- by eye test and by metrics- a godawful baserunning team despite having several speedy players and a fairly young if not offensively productive outfield mix.
The guys who get on base all the time- Yordan and Walker- are not guys who can or should be expected to run. Altuve is still speedy but he’s a goof on the bases. Pena, Matthews, Smith, Meyers have never developed their base stealing abilities despite being very agile and beating throws to first at times.
IMO that stuff hurts us in situations with a runner on third and fewer than two outs. It doesn’t surprise me to see teams like Milwaukee at the top.