The Launch Angle

The last time the Cleveland Guardians faced the Houston Astros was a 3-game series in April. The Guardians’ starting lineups stood out; in the first 2 games, 8 of the 9 lineup positions featured a left-handed or switch hitter. In the third game, all 9 starters could bat lefty.

That Cleveland could do it from 1 to 9 is a stark contrast to the Astros roster construction, which has been notably short of left-handed bats the last couple years.

Opponents have been loading up their lineups with lefty bats all season long against the Astros. It’s a sound platoon strategy. The Astros have tried 13 starting pitchers this year, and in 76 starts, just one of them was by a southpaw: Colton Gordon.

Almost halfway through the season, no team in the AL has faced more LHH PA’s than the Astros. Last year, no team in the majors had faced fewer LHH PA’s than the Astros. You’re reading that correctly: they were from seeing the least lefties to the most lefties in one year.

A lot of that swing from fewest to most is attributable to losing lefty starting pitcher Framber Valdez to free agency in the offseason. Valdez started 31 games. Lefties Colton Gordon and Brandon Walter also combined to start another 23. That’s about 1/3 of the season’s starts.

Opponents are extra incentivized to capitalize on the platoon advantage against the Astros. You expect right-handed pitchers to be worse against left-handed batters. The platoon advantage is well studied and documented. The Astros, though, are incredibly worse.

The difference between their results pitching to righties and lefties is stark.

• Lefties have have a .348 wOBA and .775 OPS against Houston, righties have a .298 wOBA and .677 OPS. Both those discrepancies are the widest in the AL.
• Lefties have a .362 OBP against Houston; righties have a .288 OBP. That discrepancy is the widest in the majors.
• Houston has 14.4 BB% against lefties, and a 7.2 BB% against righties. They walk lefties at twice the rate, and that’s unsurprisingly also the widest difference in MLB.
• Houston has a 5.56 ERA against lefties, and a 3.38 ERA against righties. Also the largest gap in the majors.

Their gaps between their xFIP, FIP, WHIP against lefties and righties are also the largest in the AL.

Part of that is going to be roster makeup. When you don’t have any left-handed starting pitching, and only 2 lefty relievers who have been healthy the whole season, you’re going to lag behind other MLB teams with access to more lefty arms.

However, even when you only look at how other teams’ RHP have fared against LHH, the Astros are still bad. Their 14.9 BB% is still an MLB worst. Their 5.24 FIP and 5.03 xFIP are AL worsts, driven by their terrible walk rate. Their 6.5% K-BB%, 1.59 WHIP, and 5.29 ERA are all 2nd worst in the AL.

All of this is driven by walks to left-handed batters., something TLA writer Clack has discussed in detail earlier this season.

The Astros took 2 out of 3 against the Guardians the first time around, but they’re bound to run out lefty heavy lineups again this weekend, hoping for those free passes that can kill a team. That have killed the 2026 Astros. Jose Ramirez is out with injury; he fractured his left hamate bone which required surgery. (Don’t worry, the right hand that felled Tim Anderson is doing just fine.) The loss of Ramirez substantially lessens the Guardian’s offensive potency, but Cleveland still has plenty of left-handed bats to push the issue.

Guardians @ Astros Game Information and Gamethread Details

Tatsuya Imai pitches for the Astros. The Astros were hopeful Imai had turned a corner beginning with his 6 innings in the combined no-hitter. He followed that up with 2 respectable outings, but took a step back last time out. Imai has gifted a 9-0 lead at the start of the game, but couldn’t get out of the first inning, being pulled after just recording 2 outs and allowing 5 runs. With a good start, he could have lowered his ERA down into the 4’s, which would have been an achievement, considering a month prior it was over 9. Instead, his ERA ballooned back up to 6.43. He carries a 1.51 WHIP, 9.5 K/9 and an incredibly high 6.2 BB/9.

Tanner Bibee takes the mound for the Guardians. He is 2-7 over 15 starts, with a 3.96 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, 2.8 BB/9 and 7.6 K/9. Bibee has pitched very well for the most part this season. The majority of the damage to his stats have come in 2 games: a 4.2 IP April start against the Braves where he was tagged for 8 runs, and a 3 IP May start against the Nationals where he was lit up for 7 runs.

In 12 of the 15 starts this seaosn, he has allowed 3 runs or less. His last start he pitched 7 innings, allowed 2 solo home runs and struck out 8. The start before that he went 8 innings scoreless, and needed only 87 pitches to do so.

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.

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.

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Feature photo from  @astros on X,  Source Link (cropped).